Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“I don’t know,” she mused. “I—”
“Lennox will be perfectly safe with me.”
“Oh, I know that.” Roe exhaled slowly. “Okay. If you’re sure?”
I grinned hard. “Yes! I’m very sure. And it’ll be nice for Nox to have some time with Aunty Sloane.”
“Nox?” I could hear her smile down the line.
“Oh yeah, we are figuring this kid’s nickname out right now, and it’s going to be the cool-as-shit nickname Nox,” I insisted. “Brodan and Monroe Adair’s son is not getting landed with the nickname Len or Lenny.”
She chuckled. “What’s wrong with Len or Lenny?”
“Len or Lenny is a sixty-year-old man.”
“Fair enough. You know … actually … I really like Nox. It’s different.”
I smiled at that, happy to assist. They’d named their son after his uncle Lachlan, whose middle name was Lennox, a Scottish surname on the maternal side of the family tree. “Nox it is. And I will see Baby Nox on Saturday.”
“Are you sure you have time, Sloane? Christmas is coming up, you’ve got Callie, the baking for Flora—”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Thank you. Now I know the sex is great”—maybe I’d been talking a little too much about my sex life—“but how are other things between you and Walker?”
I opened my mouth to say fine and then thought better of it. As much as Walker, who was not big on the words, had told me he was mine, his actions said otherwise. If he was truly mine, there wouldn’t be things about his life that he hid from me. That he avoided talking about. And maybe I was asking too much of him. Just because I was an open book didn’t mean everyone else was, right? But if I was becoming to him what he was to me … why didn’t he trust me enough to tell me everything?
Before I could say any of that to Monroe, I heard Lennox wail distantly through what sounded like the baby monitor.
“I’m sorry, Sloane. I have to go check on Lennox.”
“Go.” I gave her a strained smile she couldn’t see. “I’m supposed to find plates, anyway.”
After we hung up, I pulled open cupboard doors in Walker’s swanky kitchen, trying to find where he kept the plates. While I’d ordered a heavy-on-the-calories sweet-and-sour chicken dish, the man had ordered a healthy, light-on-the-sauce chicken chow mein and vegetable sides. I swear, he was almost guilting me into eating better, but while I still had a teenager’s metabolism, the plan was to enjoy the heck out of it while I still could.
Finding the plates, I then searched for cutlery. Nosiness, however, got the better of me. I began looking through all the kitchen cupboards and drawers. Walker cooked for himself, and he had equipment like steamers and hand mixers and juice makers stacked inside. Again, everything had order and a place. I wondered how he’d cope with living with two messy Harrow girls.
I wondered if that would ever be a possibility.
In every other way, our relationship was the second-best thing that had ever happened to me after Callie. Walker made me feel safe and cared for. The sex was utterly mind-blowing, and he was affectionate in his actions. He was a good listener, he wasn’t judgmental, and he made me feel like I was the most capable woman in the world. That I was a special mom and a talented baker. The cherry on top was his patience and kindness toward Callie. Oh, and that he still gave me butterflies when he walked into the room.
But he had a wall up between us, and that wall hurt me. Deeply.
As if to exacerbate my feelings, the drawer I pulled out made my heart race a little. The drawer was the messiest thing I’d found in Walker’s house so far. It was filled with bits and pieces, pens and measuring tape, scraps of paper, odds and ends.
And also photographs.
Old Polaroids.
My hands shook as I picked them up, because I knew I should put them back. Instead, I flipped through them, the blood rushing in my ears as I tried to piece them together like a puzzle. The photographs were aged, but there was no mistaking one woman in them. The woman from Princes Street in Edinburgh. The one with Walker’s eyes. She was younger in the photographs, but it was definitely her. Unsurprisingly, she was attractive, and in many of the images, she was with a tall, handsome man who looked a lot like Walker.
There was also a girl in the pictures. An adorable photo made me stop flipping. The girl, pretty, with the same blue eyes as Walker, and thick dark hair, stood behind a little boy with her arms wrapped protectively around him. She’d bent her head so her cheek squished against his and he held on to her arms while they both beamed at the camera. It shocked me to recognize the shape of those eyes, the mouth … and realize the little boy was Walker.