Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“Keep going. A few more swallows and you’ll learn to like it.”
Where had I heard that before?
Remington was the kind of man who liked to sit in silence with a good cocktail. He once told me too much talking spoils the taste. I couldn’t see this martini tasting any worse, so I asked, “Where’s Marta?”
“She has the night off.”
“No Odette?”
“Not tonight.”
“How are you two do—”
“Did you find me lingering around your living room fishing for advice? No, that was you. So let’s keep the focus where it belongs.”
“Jeeze. Touchy much?” I sipped my martini. My mouth puckered and my eyes instantly watered.
I planned to ask Myles about Odette the next time I saw him. It had been a while since she’d visited and I sure hoped she and Remington were doing okay. “For the record, I wasn’t fishing for advice—”
“Yes, you were. You’re just not allowed to say it.”
I drew back and frowned. “Allowed?”
He gave me a pointed look. “Don’t get your feminist panties in a twist. You said yourself, Hale has trust issues. Let’s not pretend that he likes it when you confide in me.”
“That’s not why—”
“Sure it is. He doesn’t want you to come to me with problems because he feels threatened.”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
It was a lot to unpack. I blew out a vodka-scented breath, convinced once again I was a tequila girl.
Remington was the closest thing I had to a father. Unlike his real children, I craved his input.
He told it like it was, even if his views weren’t always kind. I’d never met anyone who viewed the world with such singular and impersonal cynicism. He cut right to the heart of matters and that sort of directness worked for me.
But he was also incredibly self-serving and critical, especially where his children were concerned. I wasn’t exempt from his criticism, but I also didn’t take it as personally as his kids because I wasn’t starved for his approval.
When he betrayed Hale, he broke something that might never get mended. It would take a lot of therapy and time for Hale to reach a place where he no longer wanted to punish his father for what he’d done.
Hale accepted my relationship with Remington, but disapproved whenever I confided in him about personal business. It made sense that his father would assume that stemmed from Hale’s trust issues, but it had more to do with Hale’s need to protect me than anything else.
In his eyes, Remington was untrustworthy, and that made him dangerous to me along with everyone else. Hale knew I loved the crotchety old bastard and he didn’t want me to get hurt.
Maybe I needed his protection after all, because I naïvely believed Remington would never hurt me. At least not maliciously. Deep down, I knew Remington loved me—differently than he loved his children and very differently than he loved his wives. We were friends.
Hale was a jealous, territorial man. And while his father had betrayed him with women before, poaching directly from his son’s bed without a single thought wasted on consequence, I was pretty sure Remington wasn’t attracted to me.
But I did love the man and he loved me. Our relationship was paternal, yet safe. He wasn’t trying to sculpt me into his image or shoulder me with a billion-dollar legacy. He only wanted to help me where he could and be slightly entertained by the minutia in between.
On some level, I think all the Davenport children were jealous of the way Remington doted on me. Sometimes he was kinder to me than he was to his own kids. But in all fairness, he hadn’t raised me. He wasn’t responsible for me, and he hadn’t had thirty years to hurt me.
Remington wasn’t the best father, but he tried his best. Unfortunately, there were times when his best was what better parents might consider the worst.
“Hale just wants to protect me,” I finally said.
“You mean protect what’s his.”
“It isn’t like that, Remington. You aren’t a threat to him like that anymore. At least not where I’m concerned. He knows our relationship’s different.”
He turned his glass by the stem and sighed in retrospect.
I sipped my salty martini, with perpetual disappointment. No matter how much I wanted it to grow on me, every sip tasted like I swallowed a mouthful of ocean. But the alcohol was working, so I at least had that going for me.
“Hale wants to put on a big show so that he can show the world—and me—that he won.”
I scrunched my nose. “Won what?”
“The prize sitting across from me right now fishing a lump of cheese out of her glass. Jesus, Meyers, it's for flavor not consumption. Leave it alone.”
“Sorry.” I sucked the vodka off my finger. I hadn’t eaten in a few hours and that lump of cheese was the only food in sight.