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Two entire fucking days.
Now, I don’t think of myself as a clingy person, but surely that is not normal.
He goes off and does his thing, and comes back to me when he’s able to, or when he feels like it. At the start, it was good, because there was no pressure there, and after just turning down a proposal from my ex-boyfriend, Mark, I wasn’t looking for anything serious. But then I met River, the sparks flew and I knew I didn’t want to be with anyone else.
But River, he’s a wild one.
He does what he wants, when he wants.
And it was so damn exciting at first.
But now it’s been over a year, and we are still in the same place. He’s still doing whatever he wants, but somehow that’s starting to not work for me. I didn’t want any pressure on the two of us, but after encouraging that we keep things casual, we haven’t made any progress in our relationship. I still don’t feel like I even really know him. He doesn’t really bring me around his family, he hasn’t met mine. We haven’t even discussed living together or getting a dog. Nor have we discussed marriage and kids somewhere down the line.
Our mouths seem to be doing other things whenever we see each other.
“Thank you.” Julianna beams over at me. She smooths down her floral dress and looks over her back garden. “I’m going to be honest, I feel so unprepared for this baby, like I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just winging it.”
“You’ll be fine—you have me, and all of the MC to support you,” I say.
She nods. “That’s true. I don’t know what I’d do without you all. How’s everything with you? How’s Sally working out in the office?”
Since Julianna stepped up as president of the Angels, she gave me the Callisto real estate empire to manage. Between her sisters, Rosalind and Veronica, who she isn’t close with after the drama over the last few months, she couldn’t trust anyone else not to sink the business. So we hired new staff and Sally is my new right-hand woman.
“She’s good. Fast learner. Sweet,” I answer honestly, while looking at the ten emails she’s sent me since this morning. The girl is good, but she asks me a million questions, all in individual emails or texts.
“But...” Julianna fishes.
I sigh. “But she’s not you.”
Julianna smiles. “No one is me, but you need the help. I’ll try to come in at least once a week until the baby arrives. I hear there are a few more properties coming in to purchase, including the infamous Lansdale property. I can’t believe we finally got that one! I have been eyeing it for the last three years!”
“I know. I kept schmoozing with the seller’s real estate agent—a little flirting never hurt—and out of the blue I got a call that they were ready to close. But it needs to happen within the week, or they will be going another direction.”
“Good. That will put us way past our goals for the year. Have you vetted the sellers? The financials?”
“Yup, the Julianna Callisto system is in full effect.” I give her a captain’s salute.
She laughs. “Good. How’s everything else?”
I take a sip of the soda she gave me, wondering how to answer this one. “Things in general are pretty good. Things with River, I don’t know. I haven’t even seen or heard from him in two days. Have you?”
She lifts her eyebrows. “Yeah, I saw him at the Devils clubhouse yesterday. He was running some errands for Romeo, I think. River is unpredictable, Bella. I did tell you this.”
“I know,” I agree on a sigh. I believe that she used the word dangerous when she was warning me. And he might be that, but never with me. “I think me and him need to have a conversation.”
“Sounds like it.” She nods, picking up and opening a jar of pickles and drinking the juice out of it, making me laugh. “I’ve been literally eating nothing but pickles for days now. I can’t get enough of them, don’t judge me.”
“No judgment here,” I reply, hiding my smirk. “I’m surprised you aren’t eating them with the candy and sauce, like the viral challenge.”
She pauses. “I haven’t seen that. Whatever it is, I need it.”
While she’s searching Chamoy pickle on her phone, my mind wanders back to River. There’s so much I still don’t know about him, and I guess his mysteriousness drew me in at first. He’s an enigma. I’ve never met a man like him before, and I think for the rest of the world that’s probably a good thing. He’s wild. Extremely intelligent. And charming.
What a dangerous mix.
Dangerous.
There’s that word again.
