“Good job she wasn’t up against me then because she would have lost,” he asserts, his eyes glazed over.
“I really wouldn’t make that comment in front of her, Mr Carter.You wouldn’t be the first person to say it, and trust me, it will end up with some sort of bet.Every male who has tried to bet against her, has lost.And cried.”
“But they weren’t me,” he states, and I inwardly groan at the challenge in his eyes.
“Mr Carter?”Hayden asks, staring at me.
“He said he prefers to be addressed like that,” I answer, wondering if I got it wrong.
Hayden glares at her dad.“Seriously?Mr Carter?”
“It makes me sound all formal and shit.”
Hayden shakes her head, her gaze turning back to me.“Call him dickhead.Anything else will inflate his ego.”
“Where is your cousin?”he demands.“I need to meet her.”
Oh God, she wanted her bat after meeting Maddox.She may straight up stab Max if they meet.
I clear my throat.“If it’s okay with you, I will introduce you later.There’s something I need to talk with my cousin about.”
He opens his mouth to reply but Hayden gets there first.“Unless you don’t want a pulled pork bap before they go.I mean, her cousins have been here an hour.”
His eyes go round.“Woman, why didn’t you tell me that to begin with instead of letting me stand around and indulge in idle gossip?”
He storms off toward the back, and Charlotte speaks up.“I didn’t think the food had been opened yet?”
“It hasn’t, but clearly Summer needs to talk to her cousins without that lunatic interrupting.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief.“Thank you.I’ll see you guys in a bit.”
I leave them and go find my cousin.I don’t take in the beauty of the area or the twinkling lights.Instead, I go straight up to Malia, needing to get this out before I combust.“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but can I borrow my cousin for a moment?”I ask Amelia.
“You aren’t interrupting,” she assures me.
“You okay?”Malia asks, getting to her feet from the deck chair she’s occupying.
“We need to talk,” I tell her, and grab her hand, pulling her away from the noise to the side of a building where the only light is coming from the building inside.
“Okay, what is so urgent that you need to get my new boots dirty?”she asks, her brows dipping down.“Did something happen?”
I grab the drink from her hand and down it quickly.Then go over everything my boss asked of me, leaving nothing out.When she goes quiet, I realise we aren’t alone and Makayla has joined us.
“I’m not going to do it,” I assure them.“I didn’t even tell her I live there.”
“It’s not that,” Malia explains, keeping her voice low.“If you don’t do it, someone else will, and we have skeletons in our closest that we don’t need getting out.”
“Fuck!”
“Maybe we should just sell,” Makayla whispers.“It’s better than the alternative.”
I snap my gaze in her direction, wondering what it is that is so bad they would sooner sell the land than have it get out.
“We’ve put so much of our money into this,” Malia reminds her.“I’m not letting some suit in heels take it from us.We deserve to settle down and finally have a home.No more of this moving around shit.”
“Is everything okay?”a feminine voice asks, startling the three of us.
We all spin toward the sound, finding Paisley and her older brother Jaxon standing near the edge of the building.
