Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
“Well I’m off. You two leave the dishes I’ll get them in the morning, enjoy. Don’t forget dessert’s in the cooler.” That last was to Ashley who beamed at her before taking her place next to me at the table in the breakfast nook, which seemed to be her favorite place to eat. It was much cozier than the dining table in the formal dining room that’s for sure. It suddenly dawned on me that I’d had more home cooked meals in the last week than in all the time I’d lived on mine. I usually had dinner out. It was a nice change though so I won’t complain.
Dinner talk was more about the wedding, which it appeared I was only required to show up for. Fine by me, I hadn’t the first clue about such things. She seemed to have a handle on it though and I saw why she was so against hiring a planner. Still, I had to ask because it sounded like a hell of a lot for one person to tackle.
“Are you sure you want to do all this yourself? It seems like a lot to take on with school and everything else.” I really didn’t want her overdoing it. As little as I knew about weddings and planning shit, everyone at some time has heard the horror stories. I don’t want her burning out before the big day. And I sure as fuck don’t want her stressed on the what should be one of the best days of her life.
“It’s fun Simon, I told you I’ve been planning this my whole life almost. I already asked mom and she’s jazzed about helping out. I’m sure she’s going to get her friends involved and with all these Tennessee women on deck we’ll have everything sorted in no time.”
“Convince me.” She spent the next half an hour trying and I listened as I enjoyed one of the best meals I’d had in a long time. Yes it was my favorite dish, but she’d added her own style in there somewhere and it showed. When she finally wound down and looked at me hopefully as if she were afraid I’d take away her new toy, how could I help but relent?
“If you’re sure baby.” She seemed more than capable so I left it alone for now, but with my mind made up that I’ll jump in if it even looked like it was too much for her.
I realized as we sat there enjoying a pleasant meal in the warmth and sanctity of home, how much of a calming force she had become in my life. Usually on an evening like this, I’d still be knee deep in work and most likely be wolfing down something I’d called out for at my desk, only to come home alone to an empty bed.
I’d never really taken the time to enjoy all that I had acquired over the years. In fact until I met her a few weeks ago, I was still going as hard as I had been in the beginning. Always trying to make that next buck. I can’t complain about that either, because my back account had flourished under my obsession with getting ahead, but now with her at my side, all I wanted was to share it with her. I had no qualms, no doubts about giving her the best of everything my money could buy, and that’s something I never thought I would have.
Even when Jen was playing me for a fool, I never quite opened up my heart to her this way. I realized now that I’d been a fool. I’d been willing to sacrifice this kind of happiness for a cold existence with a woman whose only benefit to me was dinner conversation at a business deal. For fuck sake I was a total ass.
I would’ve slashed my own fucking throat if I’d met this one after I’d gone through with marriage to her aunt. I know for a fact that it wouldn’t have mattered when we met, we would’ve had the same combustible reaction to one another. The shit left me cold, to think of how close I’d come to making the biggest fucking mistake of my life.
I tuned back into my girl before I made myself sick with my own thoughts. I liked listening to her, liked the way she reached for my hand and held it while feeding herself with the other as if she needed that constant contact. She made me feel young and unencumbered. Like everything I’d worked for to this point was leading up to this, to her.
“Are you happy baby?” She stopped with her fork halfway to her lips. “Very.” She squeezed my hand and carried on with her tale.
Chapter 11
***
The next few days went by smoothly enough with not too many hiccups. My meeting with Henry Jonas had gone pretty much the same as the one with Sorenson. He too had no reason for finding himself the target of Jen and her boy toy. The three of us had decided though that we would get to the bottom of it. I got the impression that they’d been waiting for a way to get back at her, but because she had them by the short ones it had been hard for them to go after her directly. I had no such fears.