#Rev (GearShark #2)(46)

Joey’s wild, curly hair was the first thing I saw when I pulled open the door. “Took you long enough,” she said and stepped around me into the room.

“Come on in, Joey,” I said dryly.

“Where’s Drew?” she asked, swinging around to look at me. Her eyes widened. “What the hell happened to your face?”

“How many laws did you break on your way over here?” Drew drawled, stepping into the room. I noted his hard-on was also effectively concealed.

Before Joey could turn to steal his attention, our eyes met, and they held a lot of promise for later.

“You’ve been ignoring my texts!” she exclaimed. But regardless of how “mad” she was, she went straight in for a hug.

“What’s this about dinner?” Drew asked, avoiding her words and wrapping her in a bear hug.

Joey was dressed casually in a pair of black leggings and some kind of tight, hot-pink tank with a black cropped T-shirt over it. Curves, that’s what Joey was… all curves. Her dark, wild curls practically attacked Drew.

When she pulled back, her eyes bounced between us. “Change of plans,” she announced. “Instead of meeting with my father in the morning, we’re meeting him for dinner tonight.”

“What?” Drew’s eyes widened, and I watched him try to bank his shock.

“We’re meeting him?” I questioned Joey but still kept an eye on Drew.

“You asked for this meeting so you could tell him, didn’t you?” She waved her finger between me and Drew. “About you two.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here.”

Joey nodded once at his reply, like it proved what she already knew. “Well, I want to be there. And talking about it outside of his office is better. Too many gossip hounds.”

“So you want to have dinner at a public restaurant…?” I drawled. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that didn’t seem like the brightest idea.

“Nope,” she said. “Let’s go. I’m driving.”

“Where are we going?” Drew asked.

Joey gave us both a dazzling smile. “Home.”

And here we were, at another first.

Not only were we going to his home, but we were going to be openly admitting we were in a relationship to the man who had every ounce of ability to make or break Drew’s racing career.





Drew

Gamble’s house wasn’t a house. Joey’s “home” wasn’t really.

It was a freaking estate.

With gates. And security.

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were snipers hiding in the well-manicured bushes.

The second the yellow Skyline pulled up to the large wrought-iron gate, a security guard stepped out of a small white hut and up to the car. Joey rolled down her window and called a greeting.

The guard smiled and opened the entrance so she could drive onto the grounds.

The place was of course hella nice, but honestly? I expected it to be more austere, almost untouchable. Of course, the entire residence bespoke of wealth, but it wasn’t as arrogant as one might assume.

“It’s a Colonial Revival style house,” Joey said, taking the liberty to give a brief “tour” as we pulled up. I’m sure the way Trent and I stared out the windows was all the interest she needed. “This one my father had built to resemble a nineteen-thirties Bel-Air estate.”

The entire house was white and sprawled out before us. The middle of the home was one large square building with a two-story portico at the front and huge white columns that stretched up to a balustrade roof. There was an imposing front door with an impressively large chandelier hanging above it.

Coming out on either side of the main building was another wing, also white with lots of windows lining the front framed by black shutters. The roofline was traditional and dark but was accented with small dormers rising out of the top in a row across the entire home. Each dormer had a darkened window in the center.

The driveway stretched right up to the wide, white front steps. On either side was immaculate landscaping and small trees, which gave the home the feeling it had been there a while.

Joey parked right near the stairs and cut the engine.

“He knows we’re coming?” Trent asked.

“Definitely,” she replied. “I told him I wanted to be at the meeting and asked if maybe the housekeeper could make my favorite dinner.”

“Joey,” I teased, “are you a daddy’s girl?”

“Let’s just say he doesn’t often refuse me,” she replied and got out.

I was nervous. How could I not be? I thought I had all night to kind of get used to the idea that I was coming out to Gamble.

Just because I was determined to not hide how I felt about Trent didn’t mean I sometimes didn’t want to. Opening yourself up to harsh judgment is never easy. No one wants to be scrutinized and stereotyped based on the way they feel or the life they lead.

And let’s face it; my career was on the line.

Just because Joey accepted T and me didn’t mean her father would. He was older, “old school.” In my mind, trying to gain acceptance from someone who was older, more set in their ways and beliefs, and had grown up in a less open-minded time in America was sort of like trying to milk a cat.