“He had the audacity to be concerned about you walking home. He literally was practically begging everyone in front of Shelby to take you home. Which I obviously would do on my own but like what the actual fuck?” She starts the jeep.
I blink at the road ahead of us. “All our plans got ruined tonight. We were too late.”
“It’s never too fucking late, Sunny. No one has said ‘I do,” she says, eyes on the road.
“You’re right,” I say flatly.
We look at one another.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
We stare at one another for a beat, and soon enough, a smile pulls her lips into a too wide grin.
“I need to even our score.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
TYLER
I could’ve beenon my hands and knees begging, and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the fucking difference.
The car ride is silent for the most part. Save for the few times Shelby tries to stir up conversation. She sits in the seat that once belonged tomy Sunny.
“Will you ever get a new car? You’ve had this old thing forever,” Shelby says.
“No,” I manage to get out.
“Why not? Isn’t it super old.” She peers around the truck I love.
“Because Cole and I built it.”
She purses her lips as she contemplates. “Well can’t you imagine yourself in a Mercedes or even something a little lower class like an Escalade?”
Lower class.
“No.” I rub my jaw. My suit feels extra tight around my aching chest. I’m not in the fucking mood for conversation. Especially with her.
Maybe this agreement isn’t fair to her either, because I don’t care about her. But in the end, she’ll get everything she alwayswanted. Everything she was bred for. The only thing Shelby wants more in this world than money is me. And she’s going to be able to get both.
“What about when we have babies?” She eyes me, waiting for a reaction.
I give her none, regardless of the fact my heart beats a little faster in my chest. The only person I want to put a baby in is in another person’s car right now.
The image of Sunny pregnant with my child does something inside me. A primitive need I never thought existed awakens in my chest.
“Then we will cross that bridge when we get there,” I reply, hoping we never do. I’d get a vasectomy so I could avoid that happening with her.
“What if… what if we tried to start crossing that bridge now?”
My eyes slowly pan over to where she sits. We haven’t even so much as kissed when I decided to follow through with my end of the bargain. Yet here she is, already trying to get me to put a fucking baby in her.
“Not before the wedding.” I grip the steering wheel a little harder.
“Oh, come on. The wedding is going to be in like two to three months max. No one will know. They’ll just think it’s a honeymoon baby.” She leans in closer to me.
Propping my elbow on the door, I keep a hand over my mouth, trying to create as much distance as possible between us. “People will do that math, Shelby.”
She knows it’s the way to lock me in for good. She’s tried once before and fuck, she’s trying again. She won’t bite the hand that feeds her again, I try to tell myself. She has no other ambition outside of this life.
