August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Read Free

boyfriend is going to have to ask me himself,” I said with a determination I tried my damnedest to feel.
    “Ask you what?” Wes walked back into the room from his office where he’d gone to check on some work before dinner.
    “Judi tells me you want her and some movers to go pack up my apartment and move it all here during my stay.” I cocked a hip and braced my hand on it. My super-serious-nothing-is-getting-by-me pose had been perfected over the years.
    Wes frowned and then shrugged. “Don’t you want to be with me?”
    Jeez, when he said it like that, I had no response other than, “Yes, of course.”
    “And you want to live here eventually?” His head tipped to the side, a non-defensive gesture.
    “Well, yeah,” I said, not getting the point of where he was going with this.
    “Okay.” He walked over to me, caged me in by placing his long arms on each side of the counter behind me. He brought his face down low so I could look him straight in the eyes. Green-on-green. His breath puffed against my lips and made other parts of my body start paying very close attention. “Mia, sweetheart, will you move your stuff into my house and let this be your home?”
    I licked my lips and stared into his beautiful eyes, noticing the way the fine lines around his eyes and lips made him seem distinguished. Beautiful. More handsome. I sucked in a breath, and he waited, cool as a cucumber, until I gave him my answer. I was completely powerless to his brand of charm. “Okay, I’ll move in.”
    He grinned that heart-stopping-melt-your-panties-into-a-puddle-at-your-feet smile, and I swooned. “Love you.” When he followed up anything with that , he was bound to get his way. Seriously, I needed to start preparing for the future of softly said love yous and their effect on my rational mind.
    “Love you,” I responded.
    He kissed me, the barest of touches before he pulled back, stepped away, and clapped his hands. “All right. That’s settled. Dinner ready, Judi? Everything set?”
    I spun on a toe and planted my ass back in the chair. Judi smirked as she plated our dinner. “Everything is just right, Sonny.” She glanced my way and winked. I wanted to hate her for being right, but I couldn’t. The love she had for Wes stemmed from eons together, and at the end of the day, she knew him better than I did.
    For now…but not for long.

Chapter Two
    B ox number five was taped and ready to go. I moved the giant box of clothes to the stack I’d already prepped. Judi was humming in the kitchen, taping up her stash of stuff.
    “Done here,” she called cheerily. I scowled. “Poppet? What could possibly be making you so blue?”
    I twisted my neck from side to side, waiting for that crack signaling release of tension, and frowned when nothing came. “I don’t know. I hate moving days. It always feels so final. Like when you take this step, you can’t take it back.”
    “Oh, pish posh. You’ll settle right in with us like you’ve always been a fixture.”
    A fixture. Great. Something stagnant and unmoving. But I would be moving to my next client’s house in a few days. Wes knew it, and we’d still not discussed it. I needed to know that I could finish doing what I had started for my family without being given a pile of money from my ridiculously rich boyfriend. The last thing I’d ever want to be was a mooch. People hated mooches. I hated mooches. They sucked rotten eggs, and I was determined never to be one. Wes, on the other side of the coin, must very much like mooches and wanted me to mooch away. Not going to happen.
    When the morning was over and we’d packed up my entire life in the span of three hours, my mood had not improved. I opened my cell and hollered at a bitch.
    “This better be good. I’ve got my eyes on a high-roller,” Gin said into the phone.
    My scowl likely deepened when I added the choking, gagging, gurgling noise.
    “What? Don’t judge. I’m not sitting sweet on hot mother fucker number