Page 56 of Ugly Duckling
“Wow.” She stepped over the wires and skipped down the steps. “My car is around the corner.”
“Leave it, I’ll drop you back off at it later,” I suggested.
She bit her lip. “It’s kind of hanging out in the road, though.”
“This whole road is closed down to thru traffic when school isn’t in session. The only other entities that use this road are the trash people—and they’re on vacation as well since it’s a holiday.”
“Okay.” She paused. “Or we could just take my car?”
“I don’t sit bitch in anyone’s car.” I chuckled. “Sorry.”
“You can drive.” She dangled her keys in front of me. “It’s brand new. Twin turbos!”
I snatched her key up. “You got a new car?”
“I did,” she admitted. “The last one I had was great, but we decided in the divorce that Jackson would get that, too, since there was still so much left to pay on it. I loved it, though, and decided to get the same exact kind, only the newer year model. This is actually next year’s model. I went up to the dealership on my way back home from your place a few weeks ago.” Her face blushed as her mind likely went exactly where mine went. “I was just going to look, but the owner of the dealership recognized me. Said that his daughter idolized me and wanted to run with me. I offered to do just that, and he was so thankful that he offered to sell me the new car for his cost.”
“Nice,” I said. “What dealership?”
She told me which one as we rounded the corner, and I got my first look at her car.
I whistled through my teeth. “Shit. Look at those red brake calipers. And those tires.”
The whole thing looked like a sleek missile.
“It drives like a dream,” she admitted.
I unlocked her car and circled it.
“Very nice,” I said as I took in the brand-new Audi R8.
“My dad also helped pay for it,” she admitted. “He thought it would be a funny ‘fuck you’ to Jackson when he saw that I was still driving the car he refused to let me take in the divorce. I tried to fight him, but he said that it was his lot in life, and he got to do whatever he wanted because he was the dad.”
“That’s true, I can confirm.” I chuckled.
A buzz came to life against my leg, and I reached into my pocket for my phone to see if it was anything important.
When I opened the message from Yates, I frowned and studied it for a long moment.
Yates:
Nice, boss. Really nice.
Yates had taken a still photo of me kissing Sutton in the middle of the hallway and had sent it to me.
Though I liked the photo, I didn’t like that he’d sent it to me.
I also didn’t like that he’d taken time out of his day to go back through the video feed to find it.
Then again, maybe he was trying to spot how she’d gotten in, or tried to spot how the cameras hadn’t picked her up.
Consoling myself in the knowledge that he was just doing his job, I let the weird comment and the photo go and got into my truck.
“Where to?” I asked.
She turned those stunning brown eyes to me and admitted, “I’m not really sure about anything here. Everywhere that I have considered trying seems really busy, and the parking situation really freaks me out.”
Dallas was like that. Especially when you were downtown.
