Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“Word,” Gemma agreed.
Hale took a sip of his wine.
Then he scooped up some ribs with mashed potatoes and gravy.
The gravy was Gemma’s recipe.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” he heard Elsa say into the phone as he walked from the bathroom across the bedroom to the closet, where she was.
She was in her underwear: panties and a strapless bra. Her hair was in curlers. Her makeup was done. She was wearing false eyelashes. She looked glamorous, sexy and adorable, all at once. This meant Hale wanted to make her hold onto the built-in set of drawers where she was filling an evening bag, pull down her panties and fuck her right there.
He didn’t do that because he’d finished fucking her on the couch an hour before which meant they were running late.
She looked to him and watched him pull up his trousers.
Her eyes moved from his crotch to his face.
“Who?” he mouthed.
“Emilie,” she mouthed back.
Fabulous.
She left her evening bag where it was and wandered out of the closet, toward the bathroom, saying into her phone, “She’s living at my place, I’m paying the rent, the utilities, the cable bill, and Dad’s giving her an allowance until the papers are signed.”
This was recent news, something they didn’t know, because Inger nor David had shared it.
David had been giving Elsa’s mother an allowance since she left, even when she’d been living with Adam.
Hale had told Elsa she could have a break on the rent for when her mother was there.
She wouldn’t hear of it.
Now they both knew Inger could afford to pay that rent, and she hadn’t offered.
“I can’t help but think, since this drama is becoming an ongoing thing, that Mom is playing us,” she continued.
She’d be right about that.
He could get the woman was freaked that she made a move toward happiness and fulfillment, and it didn’t work out like she’d hoped. So now she had no money of her own, no job, and was living in her daughter’s apartment.
But it had been some time since all this went down. Time for her to find a job. Time for her to get her shit together.
Instead, she seemed to dump it on her kids.
He wondered what she was up to this time.
He had this thought as he shrugged on his dress shirt.
That was when it hit him.
The large closet had three walls fitted with railings, shelves and drawers. There was a big built-in safe hidden behind a section of railings. There was a long bench down the middle to sit on when you put your shoes on, or as Elsa used it, to throw her clothes over and dump her handbags on. There were jewelry drawers and a free-standing full-length mirror that was a statement piece, angled in a corner.
He had clothes he left there, like he had the same in LA. The amount of which had never taken up even a quarter of the closet.
They’d moved most of Elsa’s clothes, shoes and accessories over so her mother had space to move her stuff in and Elsa had her things at Hale’s. Her belongings didn’t take over the rest of the closet, but she was definitely a presence.
And now it looked like people actually lived there.
He could even smell her, a mingling of her many perfumes.
No. A mingling of her many perfumes, her natural scent, with his cologne and his scent.
It was Saturday night. They’d been in New York for five weeks.
It was the longest stretch he’d spent in one place since he inherited his father’s holdings.
He looked at Elsa’s things displayed in his closet, smelling her entwined with him.
In the last five weeks, he’d cooked more than he had in years. He’d fucked way more. He’d managed to find the time to read two entire books. Jadyn had called him when a friend of his pulled a hamstring, and he’d asked Hale to jump in as a replacement on their team for a league basketball game. Hale had said yes. Elsa had come with him, and she and Gemma sat together, watching and cheering their men on.
Hale hadn’t played a team sport since he was fifteen. He didn’t want to say it was a blast, because that would mean he’d have to admit he missed it.
But it had been a blast, and he was kind of bummed Jadyn’s friend was fit to play the next game.
In that time, Javier Rojas also said yes, and he was going with Hale to Munich.
Hale had cats. They were officially Elsa’s. They were absolutely both of theirs. Or at least Cheddar was his, and Frosty was hers, but since Cheddar was Frosty’s, the circle was complete.
Hale had a girlfriend.
No, he had a partner.
He had a life.
He had a life with Elsa.
He came out of his thoughts as she walked back in, some of her hair still up in curlers, some of it down.