Page 23 of Brat Baby
I furrow my brow and reach for the phone, swiping open the notification. My mouth falls open with a choked laugh. My perfect princess, indeed.
Thai Orchid
Thank you for dining with Thai Orchid. Your receipt is available at this link. We hope you enjoyed your meal with us.
I tap the link that is available, curious to see what she ordered, and a few seconds later, I’m laughing, deep rolling chuckles as pure delight courses through my veins. Two hundred and fifty dollars. Two hundred for the ten fucking course meal and fifty for the tip.
Looking back out my window, I watch as the door opens and Emmy steps out carrying two brown paper bags with the Thai Orchid logo printed on the outside as she weaves her way through the tables.
She steps up to the curb, not having to wait long before a car pulls up in front of her and she climbs in. I stare after the sedanas she disappears, the rideshare sticker displayed in the back window.
Shock and—I’m man enough to admit—arousal coil tightly in my stomach, like two rope ends having suffered the consequences of knotting at the top.
I feel outplayed and proud at the same time. Kind of like what a father would feel when their child finally bests them at a game or sport. I’ve been sitting out here, stressing on her behalf, worried, fretting, nervous for her.
But she was in there, apparently having the time of her life at my expense—literally.
She didn’t crumble like dried-out paint. No, she splashed across the canvas in a riot of colors I can only be jealous of.
I straighten in my seat and turn the key in the engine, the twin-turbo V-8 turning the heads of everyone in the vicinity.
And if she can hold strong against everything, so can I.
It’s three weeks.
I can stay away from her for three weeks. After that, I’ll shower her with everything it takes to earn her forgiveness. She’ll never have a reason to doubt me again. Even if Thayne can’t help us figure things out.
I’ll protect the others until then, but I’m getting my princess back.
Three weeks. No matter what. Then she is mine.
Chapter 13
Emery
I trudge along the path, my arms already aching from the unnatural angle required to carry the bags of leftovers from my pettiness. Which, honestly, I’m feeling a little guilty about.
While getting to try so much food had been fun at the time, sitting in my first-ever rideshare—something I’d figured out howto do while waiting for my first course—my stomach turned to a jumbly mess.
How could I spend his money like that? I opened my messages with him about twenty times, wanting to explain myself, to apologize, to make sure he understood that I didn’t mean to be bad. But every time, I remembered the way the waitress had looked at me with pity after he hadn’t shown and I locked my phone.
Darcy had been under no obligation to show up to our date. So what if he didn’t actually cancel the reservation? What right did I have to go through with the date with the expectation that he would show up? And then be a petty bitch when he didn’t?
Now, as I walk toward my building, I also have to deal with the consequences of my own actions. These bags have only gotten heavier with every step, which is only made more difficult by the limited number of old-school lantern-looking streetlights that line the path.
I turn the final corner and can blessedly see the stairs that lead up to the front entrance several hundred feet ahead of me. With fall only a few weeks away, the nighttime air has started to bring a chill with it, and I wish that I had brought one of those cute sweaters with me.
Would Darcy have driven me home after our date? Would he have walked me to the door? Would we have kissed on the steps?
Why the fuck am I torturing myself with these dumb questions? Fuck, I just need to—
A very large, warm hand covers my mouth as something small and hard is pressed into my lower back.
My heart plunges into my stomach and back up into my throat so quickly, I stumble before I completely freeze, terror icing my veins. Body completely checked out, my brain shrieks at me to scream, but I can’t. Nothing is working the way it should.
I need to fight, I need to save myself. I need to fuckingsomething, instead of standing here and letting this person do whatever the fuck they want to me.
A nose presses into the side of my neck, and the familiarity of the action tries to jump-start my nervous system, but the panic surging through me is dominating every thought in my brain.
