Page 70 of The Spare

"I need you to make an OBGYN appointment and get on birth control, baby. I don't want you pregnant at twenty years old." I peek over at her and see her squinting out the windshield. "Can you do that by the end of the week?"

"I'll try," she says.

I leave it alone, not wanting to agitate her.

Turning down a street, following the gps. I find a spot and park across the street from the boutique she'd picked. Thankfully it's a street over from the jeweler I'd been eying.

"You don't have a driver?" she asks, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Nah, I'm not a pretentious fuck like Hendrix," I quip. Pulling out my wallet I pick out the credit card I'd opened for her and hand it to her. "Here, this is yours."

"Oh," she says, getting a confused look on her face. "I was just going to use the card King and Isobel let me use."

I curl my lip. "Let me see it?" Melody digs around in her clutch, pulling it out and handing it to me. "You don't need to spend their money any more. We've got our own." I shove it in my pocket, holding my card out to her again. She takes it slowly, our fingers caressing as she slides it out of my hand.

"Uhm, how much am I allowed to spend?"

I slide my eyes to her. Four years around my family and it still hasn't sunk in. "How much did you ever put on that card they gave you?"

I'll quadruple the amount just on principle alone.

She shrugs her shoulders looking nonplussed. I'd get a Starbucks coffee with it every once in a while, maybe buy a new workout outfit. Go to dinner with my friends, that sort of thing."

Okay, so quadruple times a million. Got it.

I hold my annoyed sigh in. "However much your dream wedding dress is, sweetheart. Whatever you want."

She nods. "Do you want to come with me to pick it out?"

My brows rise in surprise at her question, and I can't help the smile that spreads across my face. "I'd rather you surprise me when you walk down the aisle. If that's okay. Besides, I have my own errands to run."

"Oh," she says, scrunching her nose. "Of course you do, sorry."

I frown, seeing she's retreating into herself again like she's beating herself up for inviting me.

"I have my own surprise for you," I say, leaning forward I grab the nape of her neck and spend several long seconds kissing her. Trying to get her to relax. "Meet me back here in a couple hours?"

"Yeah." She smiles.

I get out of the car and open her door for her, escorting her across the street and into the boutique where I leave her and go to the jewelers, picking up her wedding band I'd bought the night of the charity event.

Two hours later, I meet her at the boutique and carry the heavy garment bag across the street, laying a three thousand dollar wedding dress carefully in the backseat of my car. She'll learn. Or maybe she won't.

Either way, I'll love her regardless.

Chapter twenty

When The Sun Goes Down

Isneak looks at him the entire drive back home as the sun sets, throwing his features in beautiful shades of deep tan skin and pretty slashes of gold from the leftover rays of the sun.

He's a really good driver, winding in and out of traffic and perfectly compensating for the security tailing us. I feel like such a passenger princess as he holds my hand, our fingers entwined resting on my lap. Every now and then he'll squeeze my fingers then let me go to turn the station onto a different financepodcast.

I don't understand any of it.

Mason looks at me. "Do you want to listen to something, butterfly? I can change it if you want."

I shake my head. "No, but thank you for asking," I say, genuinely curious about what he's interested in.