Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 162

Chapter 162 Three Days in Bed

བ ལྭ་པ།

Finn

Ryder went on, “So I sat down with him about a deal of my own, and used the opening to move Kendra and your father along faster.”

Nora’s head came around. “He got blacklisted?”

I thought it was only Mandy.

Ryder gave her a strange look. “Yeah. All three of them. Kirby says the Peregrine even sent a text about which they’ve never done for anybody.”

It took Nora about two seconds to work out that Julian had done it, and she didn’t know whether to laugh. “That explains it.”

1

It explained the look on Victor’s face back at the house, like a man ready to kill somebody. This had been aimed at the whole family, which meant Victor might well beat Mandy to death over it.

“Why do you look happy about it?” Ryder had caught the corner of her mouth going up. “He’s your father. Him getting frozen out by people like that doesn’t help you either.”

Nora gave a thin smile. “Sharing blood with him never helped me to begin with.”

She changed the subject. “How far did you get on the crash?”

Ryder looked down at the floor below, and some of the swagger went out of his face. “A few small-time guys with a grudge. They lost a race to me a year ago and dropped $1,000,000 on it, and it ate at them.”

Ryder knew better. Malcolm Kane, his father’s younger brother, had arranged the whole thing, and the situation inside that family was complicated enough that he had to let the story stand.

There was another reason too. If he dug any deeper, Malcolm would find out that Nora was the one who had saved him, and that would land on her.

Nora already knew the Kanes in Ironhall were behind it, so she pushed a little. “That’s the whole reason? You didn’t look any further than that?”

Ryder leaned in close, grinning. “Teach me, Nora. How deep do you want me to go?”

Nora leaned back out of range and pushed his face away with one hand. “Get lost.”

Ryder didn’t mind at all. The grin only got worse. “Softer than last time. Are you falling for me?”

Nora’s smile was all ice. “Put the routine away. That works on girls. Keep running your mouth at me and I’ll make sure you can’t talk for three days.”

Ryder kept grinning. “A woman as beautiful as you should be keeping me in bed for three days instead.”

Nothing about him was ever going to change.

Nora smiled back. “That’s a nice idea. Let me make it happen for you.”

That stopped him for a second.

1/3

13:49 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 162 Three Days in Bed

Nora patted his arm. “I’m heading out. Enjoy yourself.”

Find

All ache went through his arm, and he thought nothing of it. He went after her. “You’re leaving already? You don’t want to see how it ends? There’s still the big-

Before he could finish, his legs went out from under him. He pitched forward and hit the floor flat.

Ryder pushed up on his hands, but there was nothing left in his legs at all. For one second, real panic came through the grin. “Nora, what’s wrong with my legs? What did you do to me?”

Nora looked back at him and smiled. “Keeping you in bed for three days.”

“It wears off in three days?”

“It does.”

That settled him. He sat back on the floor where he had landed, grinning up at her. “You’re too good to me. Anything I ask for, no matter how stupid. I could love you for that.”

Nora had nothing to say to that. She looked down at him. “Shut your mouth, or I’ll take that too.”

With a family that dark behind him, he had no business grinning like a kid who had never lost anything.

Ryder knew when to stop pushing, though the grin stayed. “Come see me in three days, then. Otherwise I’ll crawl to you, and you’ll be stuck with me for life.”

Nora left before the urge to shut that mouth for good got the better of her.

On her way down to the ground floor, she looked over at Booth 9. The table was empty.

Nora drove home, and a message from Ryder came in on the way. It was a photo of Victor with an arm around Kendra, walking her into a room, and one line under it. “They’ve been in there 10 minutes.”

Two drunk people alone behind a door left very little to the imagination. The plan was moving fast, and it was moving perfectly.

Back at the Weston estate, Nora carried the bouquet in against her chest. She loved the way they looked and wanted them in a vase.

She hadn’t even changed out of her shoes when Olivia called to her from the living room. “Nora, you’re finally back.”

Olivia was stretched out on the couch in a nightgown, half awake, as comfortable as somebody who lived there instead of a guest.

Nora raised a brow. “Were you waiting up for me, Ms. Blithe?”

Waiting for me, or for Julian?

Olivia sat up and drank some water to wake herself up. “The hospital has been busy and we keep missing each other. There’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up with you.”

Nora changed into her slippers. “What is it?”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify