No Strings Attached: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Hate to Love Book 3) by Gigi Black

Author:Gigi Black [Black, Gigi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gigi Black
Published: 2021-01-24T16:00:00+00:00

20

Olivia

I snapped awake to the sounds of birds chirping and a car driving by in the street outside, my heart thundering away like I’d been running a marathon rather than sleeping. I scrambled upright, grasping at the sofa for purchase then froze, searching the living room.

The TV was on, but muted, and the bowls of ramen that had been on the coffee table were gone.

So was Caleb.

Morning light streamed through a tiny gap between the curtains, slanting across the wooden boards. How long had I been asleep? Why hadn’t Caleb woken me? Where the hell was he?

I had no memory of falling asleep. The last thing that I’d done was… settle into his arms, my head on his chest.

This was bad. This was so bad. I needed to get out of here before Emilio’s guy found me.

I got up, stretching as I strode through the living room and down the hall to the kitchen. The bowls from last night had been emptied, washed, and set on the dishrack. A full pot of coffee waited in the machine.

“Caleb?” I called, the sound of my voice loud in my ears.

A shiver of alarm passed over me, along with the crazy thought. What if they got to him?

But no. The bowls wouldn’t be neatly stacked, the coffee wouldn’t have been waiting. Caleb had simply gone about his day—headed into work to take my brother’s place at the practice and left me to sleep in. Kind of sweet. Mostly disastrous. Not that he knew it.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and drank it hastily before rushing upstairs and throwing my things into the bags I’d left waiting last night. It was the same stuff I’d packed when I’d run from Chicago, and the opposite of nostalgia hit me in the gut.

Dread. Horror.

Here we go again.

I didn’t have a phone, thankfully, which meant it couldn’t be tracked by Emilio. Better that way.

All that was left to do was to feed Jules my vacation story then get out of here. Hope that my rust bucket of a car didn’t break down before I could get out of Owl Lake.

My throat closed as I skipped over the broken stair and hurried for the front door. I paused in the entryway, trying to refuse the tears that gathered and the lump in my throat.

My parents’ home. The last connection I had to them. The last happy memories we’d shared before their car had careened off the side of a highway and into a ditch, robbing me of them forever, were in this house.

I screwed my eyes shut, letting the memories flood back, for just a second. After this, I couldn’t come back.

My mother’s warm laughter from the kitchen, the smell of baking cookies, Ralph’s constant nagging for a dollop of cookie dough from the bowl.

My father yelling something indistinct at the TV during the Super Bowl and snacking on buffalo wings. I’d walk in and he’d pat the sofa cushion next to him, gesture to the screen, and start telling me who was who and what was what.

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