Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
As I came down the knoll by the boat hire station, I couldn’t help but smile at the smattering of pedalos and rowing boats across the water. People enjoying the weather with their lovers and friends and children. Everyone was having so much fun and didn’t seem to be thinking too much about anything at all.
I took a seat on the grass and enjoyed the view. There was a couple drinking champagne in one boat. What were they celebrating? An engagement? A first date? Three girlfriends were in another boat, organized like an Olympic team.
The pedalos seemed to be less cause for shrieks and laughter. The peddlers were far more sedate, without the need to coordinate the oars and the direction of their boats. The entire scene reminded me a little of Norfolk and the Cove family—noisy and all over the place, but full of fun.
One boat had obviously come untied from the side and had drifted, captainless, toward the bank nearest me. Someone needed to rescue that boat.
Just as I was wondering whether I should report it, a man sat up in the boat. He’d been there all along, lying down out of sight.
My heart began to clatter in my ribcage and my breath caught in my throat. I knew that short, blonde hair and tanned skin.
It couldn’t be, could it?
I stood, as if height was going to give me a better look, when the man in the boat turned his head and looked straight at me.
No mistaking those blue eyes or the gaze that told me he knew me better than I knew myself.
We locked eyes and I waved.
How was he here?
Why was he here?
Without thinking, I started walking toward him like I was a magnet and he was my north.
He stood, but the boat wobbled and he sat again, picked up the oars and began rowing toward the boat drop-off point. I followed the outline of the bank to meet him.
Thirty-Seven
Sutton
My pulse was thundering in my ears as if my heart were trying to climb out of my throat. I had to hold myself back from running up the jetty to meet Jacob. Instead, I stayed on the bank, transferring my weight from foot to foot while Jacob climbed out of the boat.
When he saw me, it was as if the rest of the world fell away. It didn’t matter that we were in Central London surrounded by thousands of people. Only the two of us mattered.
“Hi,” he said as he approached me.
“Hi,” I replied. I’d always found Jacob more attractive than any man I’d ever laid eyes on, but now, his sexy swagger and the coy smile twitching at the corners of his lips, those hands pulling the sunglasses off the top of his head and shoving them in his pocket—it was almost overwhelming.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said.
I shook my head. “Same. I came to . . . lie in a rowing boat.”
He laughed. “Me too. But you already knew that.”
“It’s a nice day for it.” I glanced skyward then back at Jacob. What was I doing? Making small talk. What else was there to do? Lying in the boat was supposed to give me the answer to what I was going to say to him.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. My knees weakened and I stumbled. He wrapped his hands around my shoulders to steady me. The heat of him was hypnotizing.
“Shall we sit?” he asked.
I nodded and he guided me away from the path, onto a patch of grass.
We sat opposite each other—me with crossed legs, him with his legs outstretched to the side of me, his arms propping him up behind him.
He glanced up at the sky and then back to look me in the eye. “It’s been hard being apart from you.”
It was as if my heart was trying to squeeze between my ribs to get free. “It’s been really hard. I’ve missed you . . . so much.” I’d spent so much of my life being independent that missing someone was a new experience for me.
He glanced over to the lake. “I came here to try and find a way through for us.”
I frowned. “You did? So did I.”
“That’s why you were here today?”
“Yeah. I had a long talk with Parker and Tristan about everything. I realized a lot of things.”
He nodded but stayed silent, letting me formulate my thoughts.
“I think I’ve been too focused on proving I’m worthy of my position at the hospital—like I’m spending every day interviewing for a job I already have. Parker said I act like it was an administrative error that I got the position, rather than because I deserve to be there.”
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say he told me so. He knew I knew.
“It won’t be an overnight thing, but I’m going to do my best to focus on the job, rather than proving to everyone I deserve the job. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have got it.”