Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
He smiled sadly at me and reached for my hand. I gave it to him, and he pulled it to his mouth to kiss it. “I meant it when I said I didn’t want to be alone, anymore. Stay.”
The sick dread in my chest eased. I pulled one of the sleek black enameled chairs near the bookcase to sit beside Neil at the desk.
He clicked another folder, and it opened on pictures of a wedding. It wasn’t our wedding, or Emma’s.
“Oh, these might not—” he began, and I waved my hand.
“I know you were married before. I’m not threatened by your ex-wife.” That was kind of a fib; I was growing mature enough in my late twenties to recognize that I felt threatened by any woman I suspected of knowing my husband better than I did, past or present. Recent events had exacerbated that, but at least I owned it.
I vaguely recognized the stunning blonde on Neil’s arm in the first photo. The only other time I’d ever seen his ex-wife was when she stood crying on the sidewalk outside of the baby store, but she was definitely the same woman in the frosty highlights and expertly applied makeup. Her dress was lacy and beaded and tight and strapless, a bridal abomination I allowed her a pass for, because her arms were Michelle Obama toned. Neil stood beside her, looking more like the man I’d met at the airport than the man he was now. His big, stupidly besotted smile warmed me all over, even though it was directed at a different woman, one he’d been madly in love with before he’d been madly in love with me.
“Wasn’t she beautiful?” he said quietly, and it took me a split second of horror before I realized that he wasn’t looking at Elizabeth. He was looking at Emma, captured in the margin of the photo. Her lilac bridesmaid dress made her sun-kissed shoulders practically glow, and her hair, in a pixie cut, turned her into a little elf against the backdrop of the lush grass and the water beyond. Neil’s first wedding had been in Italy, in a castle. Emma had probably outshone every breathtaking vista and medieval arch.
He clicked to the next photo. Emma sat at a table, a half-finished piece of cake in front of her. I didn’t recognize the guy next to her, but he was a cutie, with dark skin and thick dreads pulled back. He had his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head in toward him. Their smiles and body language were the perfect picture of a very young couple in love, without a care in the world.
“That was Jason,” Neil said with a note of fondness. “He was a nice young man. A bit of a kiss-ass, but a good chap.”
“A kiss-ass?” I pretended to be surprised. “While dating your daughter?”
Neil made a noncommittal noise and clicked rapidly through the next few pictures, of him and Elizabeth dancing beneath the high arched ceiling of a room in the castle. He shot a quick glance at me as he did so, as though he had something to hide. I knew it bothered him that I hadn’t splurged on some elaborate destination princess wedding, but it couldn’t have been more perfect if we’d had our ceremony at Versailles.
He found another picture of Emma, dancing with Jason, and murmured, “I don’t know why she finished with him. He went off with the Peace Corps, but I don’t know…”
Neil’s voice died away, and the hand resting on the desk turned to a fist. “If he had just been paying closer attention. He was probably texting or fiddling with the radio or, or—”
We weren’t talking about Jason, anymore.
Neil pushed back from the desk. “I knew this would happen! I offered to pay for a driver for them, but he had too much fucking pride to take anything!”
“It was an accident, Neil,” I reminded him quietly. Then, I decided to shut my mouth. He hadn’t been angry, yet, and that was supposed to be an important part of grieving, right?
“I knew he wouldn’t be good for her! I didn’t like him from the start. And I know you think I was overprotective, but fathers have intuition, too,” he ranted, pointing a finger at me as if to silence words I didn’t say. “I shouldn’t have let her—”
“You shouldn’t have let her do what?” I asked, because, grief or not, reality still existed. “She was an adult, Neil.”
“Well, there are things I could have done,” he snarled. “Do you think he wouldn’t have taken my money?”
“You aren’t the kind of person who would buy misery for his daughter,” I pointed out, taking a seat in the desk chair he’d vacated. “And you could have offered Michael a billion dollars. He wouldn’t have taken it. He would have known it wasn’t worth as much as Emma.”