Page 6 of Smith

“You got someplace to be,” I rushed out. “Drive safe and eyes open to your surroundings. Call me if you need me.”

With her smile firmly in place she drawled, “Aye-aye good sir.”

Jesus God all that sass.

“Sir works just fine, sweetheart.” I snagged the letters off the counter and brushed by her, giving myself the barest hint of touching her as I left the kitchen. “I’ll see myself out.”

When I was at the front door I heard her shout, “You’ll need to earn that sir, Sailor.”

“Bet that’d sound sweet coming from your lips. But I’d rather hear you moaning my name.”

With that, me and my hard dick closed the door and hustled to the Escalade wondering how in the actual fuck I’d let the situation get so out of hand.

The question was rhetorical.

I knew exactly how and I knew why.

CHAPTER TWO

The Jonas Brothers superb whistling abruptly stopped blaring through my speakers, but my head kept bobbing and my thumb kept thumbing to the beat that was no longer playing as my ringing cell replaced Joe Jonas crooning about dancing on top of cars.

I glanced at my Yukon’s display and frowned.

It was four in the morning in Guam. Too early even for my dad to be awake.

“Hey, Dad,” I greeted when I connected the call.

“Morning, sweetheart. How was the wedding?”

“Perfect. But you know Lisa, she wouldn’t have it any other way.”

That wasn’t a dig. My girl was a perfectionist and she owned it. She didn’t give anyone else shit or try to boss them into organizing their lives to the nth degree. Lisa was more of a live and let live type of gal. But when it came to her life plan, her job, her wedding, everything was just so. And she’d found a man who loved and adored everything about her, including her over-the-top planning.

“Sounds about right.” My dad chuckled. “Are you on your way home?”

Three lanes of gridlocked traffic as far as the eye could see lay out in front of me. What should’ve been an almost two-hour drive had turned into a nightmare.

“Trying to. 95 is jam packed. Why are you up so early? Everything okay?”

“I talked to Zane.”

Of course he did.

He loves you, Aria.

“I met with Smith Everette before I left for Philly on Friday. I gave him the letters and he’s meeting me at the house tomorrow,” I informed him. “He said he would check into the previous owners. But, Dad, I still think this is a waste of time.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

I’d heard that a bajillion times over the years.

I bit back my never-ending need to remind him I was thirty-five not fifteen. This need only quelled by the knowledge my father loved and adored me. He also lived over six-thousand miles away which equated to a seventeen hour flight to get to me.

“Okay, Dad. I just hope you’re not wasting money paying this Zane guy to look into this. I have a lock on a house for you.”

“My girl, the real estate mogul.”

I wouldn’t call myself a mogul…yet. But I was building a portfolio of investments. Some of the houses I bought I flipped, others I’d kept as rentals. Next up was getting into the commercial market but that would need more capital than I currently had.

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