Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
My skin feels clammy, and my heart may actually be seconds away from an explosion, but I steel my spine and roll my shoulders back like I’m not on the brink of demise from finding out that Bennett Bishop himself is the artist I interviewed to work for.
“I know you’re a busy guy and all, but I’m kind of trying to get my life started over here. And in order to start starting over, I need to know if I got the job. So do I have the job, or don’t I?”
He stares at me for what feels like an eternity. Seriously. I fear I might reach my deathbed before he responds, but then, he runs a harsh hand through his hair, lets out a deep sigh, and shocks the ever-loving shit out of me.
“You’re hired.”
Evidently, I’ve lost it, because I swear I just heard Bennett say I’m hired even though I’m standing on his doorstep uninvited, demanding answers while looking like a wet sewer rat. I’m pretty sure a psychologist would call these auditory hallucinations, and that would warrant an inpatient hospital stay.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve answered your question, and this is the part where you tell me your decision,” he states, his gaze locked with mine.
“What?” It’s all I can say.
“I just offered you the job. Now, you need—”
“You want to hire me?” I question, completely ignoring that he had more to say. “You want to offer me the job?”
He sighs again, but he also nods. A silent yes, but still, a yes.
“But why?” I don’t even think he likes me, and I know today’s behavior is completely outside of what he’s looking for more of in his life. But he’s offering me a job? Where he’ll have to see me every day? I don’t get it.
“You have an intuition with color, Norah,” he answers, and his voice is matter-of-fact. “A tangible ability to connect reality with the abstract. The wall you painted? It was from memory of a sunset last week, right?”
His words are a shock to my system. They are a one-thousand-piece puzzle, and I feel like I’m missing half of the pieces.
“I… How do you know that?”
His answering smile isn’t happy—it’s edgy. I wish I understood it. I wish I understood Bennett Bishop at all.
God, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I mean, I really want the job—need the job—but working for him sounds like one of the worst notions I’ve ever had.
“Look, I don’t know if this is going to work,” I say, my voice devoid of any and all confidence I had on my way over here. “You and me together, every da—”
“Dad!” a young but strong voice calls, completely interrupting not only my sentence, but my very ability to breathe. “Daddy!”
Daddy?
Bennett whips around quickly, just as the small girl appears at the mouth of the hallway. She’s walking slowly in a long, pink nightgown, seemingly holding on to the wall for support. She’s a beautiful little thing, but she’s also small and frail, and it seems like each of her movements takes a Herculean effort. Like the simple task of walking isn’t a simple task at all.
“Summer!” Bennett shouts, panic lining every single note of his words. “What are you doing out of your chair? Where’s Charlie?”
“Who’s that?” the little girl asks, staring at me with familiar blue eyes, wild, curly blond hair, and a megawatt smile. She ignores Bennett completely. “Who are you?”
“Summer—”
“Tell me who she is, and I’ll let you get my chair.”
“Summer.”
Her name on his lips makes my eyes dart down to his left hand, noting the visible S-u-m on top of his ring finger. Holy hell. My jaw wants to go unhinged at the revelation, while something I don’t know how to explain comes over me. All I know is that I step up and inside the door without invitation. “Hi, I’m Norah,” I call out. “Norah Ellis.”
It’s so not my place and breaches a million and one boundaries, but the fragility of the little girl’s body and Bennett’s panic about her chair—whatever that means—is enough to make me trample over it all. “And I guess you’re Summer, right? What a pretty name.”
She smiles again, bigger this time, and the small features of what I know would be the same on Bennett if he ever bothered to smile hit me square in the gut.
Bennett Bishop is someone’s daddy.
Bennett’s voice is careful but forceful as he calls out, “Charlie!” into the back of the house. Ten seconds later, a petite woman with shoulder-length blond hair and rugged facial features, wearing deep-purple medical scrubs, appears. When she spots Summer, her eyes widen and quickly turn to terror just like Bennett’s.
“Get her chair,” Bennett orders, and Charlie takes off without so much as a nod.
Tentatively, I move down the hallway toward them, inserting myself fully into a situation I know I have no business in. I don’t say anything, though, because for as gentle as Bennett is being on the outside, I can tell he’s a loaded powder keg on the inside.