Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Chicago had taught me a lesson. I needed to step back and allow Valentina to move on. She deserved an easy break. It’s what she wanted, and I would have just made it harder on her. Her son’s surprise trip would keep us from spending an entire weekend in bed—it sucked, though it was probably for the best.
Ford: It’s fine. Enjoy your time with him. I have a lot of work to do, anyway. Bella’s flight is Sunday. I’ll probably just drop her off and stay in the city.
Valentina: Ryan’s going to go surfing later. Maybe we could talk then?
Ford: Sure.
A few hours later, the only actual work I’d accomplished was to send an email to the real estate agent in Chicago, thanking her for her time, but letting her know I’d decided against moving forward with the repurchase. All the reasons for wanting that property had vanished the moment I left Marie’s office. She wrote back and didn’t seem surprised.
Bella spent the afternoon starting to pack and then went in to work for her final shift. I was cleaning out the fridge—tossing things we weren’t going to use over the next two days—when Val knocked at the back door.
“Hey.”
I slid the screen door open. She took one look at what I was doing and her smile fell. “I can’t believe the summer is really almost over.”
This afternoon, I’d decided not to mention what I’d found out in Chicago to Val. I wasn’t planning on telling my sister—why ruin her memory of our asshole father, too? So it didn’t seem fair to tell anyone else. That, and what good would it do? Val had lost enough faith in men with her own marriage. There was no reason to completely obliterate whatever hope she clung to that maybe not every guy out there was a total asshole.
But she knew something was off.
“Ryan decided to skip surfing because it was too flat. He went for a run, so I figured I’d stop over.” She looked around me into the living room. “Is Bella home? I thought I saw her car pull out.”
“She went to work. Left a few minutes ago.”
She nodded, and it took me a few seconds to realize why that seemed to make her feel badly. It was probably the first time she’d been in my presence alone that I didn’t try to maul her.
I pulled her to me and wrapped her in my arms. Inhaling deep, I took in the smell that would forever remind me of this summer—faded floral perfume, coconut suntan lotion, and the beach. I wanted to bottle the scent and call it Valentina.
I felt her shoulders relax as she snuggled into me. “What happened in Chicago?”
I swallowed. “Building just needs too much work.”
She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I know the project meant a lot to you.”
“It’s fine. It is what it is.”
“I had this big weekend planned for us. I was going to make your favorite dinner and be your favorite dessert. But with Ryan here…”
“I’m assuming you didn’t tell him about us.”
She shook her head. “I just couldn’t. And it has nothing to do with us. It’s just the first time I’ve seen him in months and…well, he’s barely accepted that his father and I aren’t getting back together. Yesterday, he actually asked me if there was a chance I could forgive his father.”
We’d talked about her ex before, but my interest in how she felt about him had definitely changed after my trip to Chicago.
I looked into her eyes. “You said the infidelity wasn’t the only issue, that it was the catalyst that caused you to step back and re-examine your marriage, and then you realized how broken things were. But what if you’d stepped back and seen a happy marriage?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But I think I’d be more apt to be able to move past a one-night stand, a drunken mistake he regretted. But not a relationship. Ryan had been seeing the woman he cheated with for months and had feelings for her. They stayed together through our divorce. I guess I just can’t see stepping back from more than a one-night stand and finding a happy marriage, because while mistakes can happen, having a relationship with someone else isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.”
I nodded. “Ryan’s asking if you might get back together. Did he not see that your marriage wasn’t happy?”
She smiled sadly. “I didn’t even see that my marriage wasn’t happy.”
I guess you really never know what’s going on behind closed doors. This conversation had taken a depressing turn, and I needed to lighten it up. I reached around and slipped my hands into the back of her shorts. “So how light of a sleeper is your son? Are we sneaking to your place tonight or mine?”