Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
God, he was going to make her fucking scream.
Sig breathed through his nose for another minute until his erection subsided, then got out of the truck, his boots crunching in the crushed shell driveway. On his way to the twenty-foot-wide porch, adorned on both sides by sculpted bushes, Sig passed a fountain, smirking at the cherubs spitting water at one another. The woman who owned this house had probably paid tens of thousands for those weird, naked angels. Unreal.
He turned his attention to the house. How many people actually lived in this mansion perched right on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the Sound? If the answer was any less than ten, this much space was unnecessary. The entire Bearcats team—and the coaching staff—could live in this place comfortably.
Did Chloe live in a house similar to this?
Ignoring the way his neck tightened at the definite possibility, Sig rang the doorbell, took a deep breath, and braced.
With the distance in their geography, not to mention the pandemic, Sig hadn’t seen Harvey in almost six years. Prior to that, when Sig turned eighteen, he’d been required to track the man down, since Sig’s mother hadn’t kept in contact. Over the years, the relationship between Sig and Harvey was strained. Contentious. Truthfully, he didn’t know if there was any benefit to seeing Harvey. As far as Sig was concerned, the man was an unrepentant social climber who married for comfort—read: money—and this woman had to be nothing more than his most recent target.
Still, despite all his father’s faults, part of Sig couldn’t seem to quit his stubborn attempts to bond with his father. Even if that connection was tenuous. Small. Harvey had been as absent as a father could be, but Sig had always dreamed of looking up into the stands and seeing a dad. It was a need he couldn’t seem to shake, no matter how old he got. How successful. On the rare occasions his mother flew in from Minnesota to watch him play, her presence meant just as much. So much that he hated himself for wanting more. Especially since he never quite found any common ground with the man who’d fathered him.
Shaking off his nerves, Sig rang the bell and immediately rolled his eyes at the grand bong sound that nearly shook the marble foundation of the porch. Self-important much?
A woman in a uniform answered the door, smiling brightly as she gestured him inside.
“Good evening, you must be Mr. Gauthier. Please come in. Everyone is in the parlor waiting for dinner to be served.”
“Great. Thanks.”
He stepped into the foyer, which was more like a ballroom with its domed glass ceiling and sweeping staircase in the center of the room. Following in the maid’s footsteps, he walked by a table boasting a giant vase, bursting with white flowers. Pedestals lined the room holding various sculptures, each tastefully lit from above by frosted globes. On the far end of the room, the entire wall was made of glass, the view something out of a movie. Jagged rocks forming the coastline, wind-whipped grass, the body of water beyond, gently illuminated by a lighthouse.
Inadequacy prodded at him, more insistently than he’d felt it in a while. Even if the Bearcats renewed his contract for ten times the amount of his current salary, he’d never be able to afford a house like this. This was generational wealth. Money he couldn’t comprehend.
You don’t need it.
There was a sound coming from somewhere in the house and it stopped Sig in his tracks. Music. Gentle music. It wasn’t an overly familiar sound or instrument, but something about it made his stomach clench, though he wasn’t sure the curious shift in his ribs came from enjoyment—because damn, the music was the most beautiful he’d ever heard—or something else. And he didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, because before he could reach the parlor, his father and a woman in her fifties stepped out of the room to greet him.
Harvey had changed since the last time Sig saw him, a lot more silver in the temples of his jet-black hair, his gaze sharper than the lapels of his suit jacket. The blond woman he escorted fit into her surroundings in a cream-colored dress that wrapped and folded in places that made no sense to Sig, sapphires winking at him from her earlobes.
“Son,” Harvey said warmly, coming forward to wrap him in an embrace.
A little embarrassed by the hope that rippled inside him, his instinctive search for that elusive bond, Sig returned the hug briefly and clapped the older man on the back. “Harvey. Good to see you. Sorry I’m late. Had some car trouble.”
“Oh dear,” the woman said, holding a glass tumbler with both hands. “Is everything okay now?”
“Yeah, fine. I called AAA and got the old girl up and running again. Thanks.”