Page 29 of Break Me Gently

I stared at my screen for a moment.

“Didn’t you say they divorced months ago?”

“Yeah, they did. Well before I was in the picture.”

“Why doesn’t she just stalk you online like a normal person?”

Mum sighed and handed my phone back.

“I know, right? It’s better for the environment. That’s a gas guzzler she’s driving.”

We stared at one another for a beat before we both burst out laughing.

“Keep one of those ancient weapons on you when you’re at work,” I said, still chuckling.

“I can’t steal anything from the museum.”

“Borrow.”

She shook her head.

“I love you.”

“I know,” I said, kissing her cheek. “But seriously—tell Luke.”

Almost three months until the wedding. They didn’t need a crazy cow gatecrashing their special moment.

Chapter 16

Zach

“I can’t explain this again. I’ve just got to class, and I need to hang up,” she whispered. “Love you, bye.”

I yanked my phone away from my ear. I may have felt a pang in my stomach, or my balls—it was fifty-fifty which came first.

First, she declared her love. Then she hung up.

And before all that, she told me Luke’s ex-wife had been lurking in their back garden bushes.

I stared at my phone a little longer before tapping away a message. I paused, deleted some, reread it, and kept typing out my lecture.

Fucking blue balls were driving me crazy as it was, without Luke’s baggage turning up at Amber’s door.

The unfinished document suddenly didn’t look appealing. The cursor continued to flash, but Amber’s safety came first. My dissertation could wait.

I looked up Luke Newbury’s number.

I was fobbed off twice before I called back and told them I was his son.

“Hello, son. This is a surprise. What can Daddy do for you?”

I really hated this man.

“How about you keep your bitch on a leash, old man?”

“I can see why you might be excitable, but I’m on it,” he snapped.

Ah. Here he was. The real Luke Newbury.