Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
“You’re sure you want this?” Nora asked. “Because we can just call it a fling right now, and then it can all be over.”
“No, this is not a fling and you know it.” He wrapped an arm around her.
He’d been her first lover, and he was going to be her last. Pulling her in close, he stared into her eyes and was totally mesmerized. She had such stark brown eyes, deep in color. When he looked into her eyes, he saw true beauty, and she looked at him as a man. Not a meal ticket.
“Then kiss me,” Nora said.
He stared at her inviting lips and was just about to do that, but the paperwork he had on his desk couldn’t wait.
“Nora, you need to know what happened and how your aunt and uncle gained power.”
“Shut up, Gabriel, and just kiss me. That can wait.”
He smiled down at her and took full possession of her lips, and this time it felt different. Nora had chosen him. Just as he had chosen her, not for something brief, but for the rest of their lives. He didn’t want to ever stop.
Sliding one of his hands up her back, he sunk his fingers into her hair and held onto her. He didn’t want to ever let her go. Nora moaned, and he swallowed it down, moving her back toward her desk, to press her against it.
“Am I interrupting something?” Trudy asked.
Gabriel groaned. He was hard as rock, but he still wore his jacket, which would hide how aroused he was.
“You said you were leaving for the afternoon,” Gabriel said.
“Well, I was, and I was attempting to complete some of my chores, and then I wanted to be the first one to congratulate the two of you. You’re going to make this work, and I know it is going to be great for both of you.” Trudy moved forward, and it was strange, but Gabriel knew his grandfather would also approve, because Trudy did as well. “He’d be so proud of you.”
Gabriel nodded and he looked toward Nora, seeing the confusion on her face. “My grandfather.”
“Oh,” Nora said with a smile.
“And he would have adored you,” Trudy said.
This was surreal, but it felt good.
Trudy had been with him through thick and then. Yes, she had always criticized his choices, but she had never stopped him from making mistakes.
“Don’t let anything hold either of you back.” Trudy held onto his hand as well as Nora’s. “You both have this.”
And with that, Trudy left his office and he turned toward Nora.
“You’re not scared?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I mean, not of Trudy, but now that you say that, I can’t help but wonder if I should?”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
He knew the vultures would be circling, but none of them would touch Nora. She was special. He’d known it from the moment he met her, he just wasn’t expecting how special she was going to be to him.
His grandfather had told him that when he found the right woman, he was going to know what it felt like to fear loss. To fear losing it all. Today, listening to one of his exes tell him she was pregnant, attempting to force him to take responsibility for his father’s baby, it opened his eyes.
If Nora hadn’t listened to him, there was a high chance he was going to lose her. He was never going to let that happen.
His parents weren’t finished, but he didn’t know for sure how far they were willing to go to get exactly what they wanted.
Chapter Eight
“How did they do this?” Nora asked. “I was in a coma.”
“They discovered a nurse who was willing to sign as a witness to your sudden wakefulness and coherency, and that took away all doubt,” Gabriel said.
“This is insane.” Nora looked through the documents, and none of it made sense. It was all legal terminology, but within a small file, everything that had belonged to her, everything her parents owned, with a few swift signatures, had been signed over to her aunt and uncle.
Waking up from a coma, finding her parents gone, had been eye-opening. There had been so much pain, but it had taken a back seat to the experience of trying to survive in this world without anyone.
She felt that feeling in her gut that twisted at seeing what length her own family went to, for their own gains. Tears filled her eyes, and she tried not to cry, but the truth was, she never truly got to mourn all she had lost. Not financially, but emotionally. Her parents, her mother and father, who had been amazing. Even now, as she sat there, looking at the pieces of paper that meant absolutely nothing to her.
“Hey, baby, don’t cry.”
She turned to Gabriel. “They’re gone. They’re really gone.”