Page 13 of Heartless Boss
“What?” I say, staring into his eyes.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head and drops his hand. I follow Gunner back to my room. He clutches the brass knob and says, “I’ll see you on Monday, Rainbow.”
The door clicks shut behind him, then the front door slams, leaving me in the quiet condo.
After Jimmy delivers my trash bag to my room, I change from a white shirt and pink jeans to my yellow tank top and pink flannel shorts with lavender knee-high socks. I tour the rest of the condo on my stroll back to the kitchen. I open the fridge; it’s fully stocked with fresh fruits, veggies, and bottles of water. I open the freezer to chicken, beef, and pork stacked neatly on top of each other.
It’s been years since I laid eyes on a fully stocked fridge with healthy options. Normally, cheap food clogs my fridge.
I shut the freezer and open the fridge door again, grabbing a glass bowl of fresh green grapes, and walk to the balcony that’s connected to the living room.
I perch myself on one of the lounge chairs, kicking my legs up on the glass table, and pop a grape in my mouth. Different-sized plants sit on both sides of the terrace. The baby-blue sky bleeds orange, and the sun plays hide-and-seek with the tall buildings.
Gunner has done more for me in the last two hours than anyone has done in my twenty-nine years of life. That thought alone makes me sad. And the way he seems to care about me clouds my mind. Most men only take from you until you’re empty, but Gunner is giving. Why is he giving to me? Maybe this is a ploy to get into my panties. Maybe he thinks if he’s nice to me, I’ll sleep with him.
Whatever his motive is will come to light, and I’m waiting for this to play out like a Halloween horror movie.
Chapter Five
Gunner
What the fuck am I thinking moving Gia into my penthouse? I could have let her stay in a hotel until she found a place to crash, but no, I let my dick do the thinking.
This has to be the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done. No, scratch that. The most impulsive thing I ever did was go apeshit on Charles, Alana’s piece of shit ex-husband. I broke his nose and busted the crown of his head with a frying pan because he made a conscious decision to stuck his dick in another woman.
Dipshit had it coming.
I never liked the fucker.
Anyway, shacking up with Gia is a train wreck waiting to happen. The minute I left her at the condo Friday night, I rented a hotel room and fucked every hole on my random hookup. I took my anger out on her cunt because she wasn’t Gia, even though she had the same hair color and eyes. If I believed in voodoo, I would say Rainbow put some fucking spell on me to make me obsessed with her.
“I found a school for Cora,” Rylee says, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s closer to you.” She pauses. “I don’t know what to do about her. She keeps getting into fights at school lately.”
Rylee worries her bottom lip as she tugs on the ends of her vanilla hair. Rylee is as put-together as Cole Sear fromThe Sixth Sense. She shakes violently and is always on edge like she’s waiting for the floor to be snatched from under her feet.
Guess I would be too if I married a jackass whose dick got hard from pounding on me like a punching bag.
Thank fuck Ellis didn’t beat on Cora. I met Rylee and Cora through Ellis.
“Those kids are teasing her and putting their hands on her and the principal won’t do shit about it,” I say. “So I told her to hit those snot-nose asses back.”
What Rylee doesn’t know is that the kids found out how Ellis died, and Cora doesn’t want her to know because she doesn’t want her to worry.
“I don’t condone violence, Gunner. Why would you encourage her to fight?” Rylee’s voice is mousy.
Is she fucking serious right now? “If she doesn’t stand up for herself, then no one else will.”
Rylee shakes her head at my answer, but I don’t give a fuck if she doesn’t agree. I’m not going to watch Cora grow up without a backbone. Fuck that.
My eyes venture to Cora, who’s wearing a Sailor Moon swimsuit. Her hair is the same shade of auburn as mine. She’s a spitting image of Alana when she was twelve years old. Same button nose. Same full lips. The only difference between the two is Cora has chocolate eyes, and Alana has mismatched colored eyes. Cora’s complexion is olive like Rylee’s and Alana’s is tan. She’s even into anime and video games like Alana was. Cora is a chatterbox—one time she talked herself to sleep—and she’s a whiner.
Cora runs to the ocean and splashes her feet into the calm teal water as seagulls screech, hovering in the inky sky. The stars hang out with the full pale moon. The summer wind breezes lazily in the air and sprouts of grass grow in the golden sand.
I sit in the rocking chair next to Rylee on the white porch. I bought this beach house for them ten months ago.
Rylee grabs my hand, and I glance at her heart-shaped face. Her eyes are the same color as a gray sky right before a thunderstorm. She’s staring at me like she wants me to fuck her like I did when we first met. In my defense, we were both drunk, and I was dealing with some fucked-up shit I did. She was nursing a broken heart. Both of us were at a shitty place in our lives. Quickly I remove my hand. It would be nice to try to fuck Gia out of my system again, but I can’t use Rylee like that—she deserves someone who will give her a white picket fence lifestyle. My morals are jacked up as dressing a tree in a T-shirt, but my conscience is still intact and alive.
She’s as beautiful as the sun shining on a bright day. Tattoos of each Disney princess smile at me on her right arm, and she’s sporting a black tank top with the Paramore logo on it while bleached shorts ride up her olive legs. You can’t tell she’s ten years older than me.
