Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Caroline tilted her head. “Do you wish that the club were different?” she asked without judgment.
I didn’t answer straight away, didn’t offer a response that I thought would make them like me more, accept me, or keep me safe. I didn’t lapse into old routines, which was important. Thinking for myself was important.
My eyes strayed back over to Swiss who had already been staring at me intently. For however long.
“No,” I answered honestly. “No, I don’t.”
For better or for worse, the outlaw life was what I chose. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
Because the outlaw life was what saved Swiss. That was all that mattered.
Everyone left relatively early, considering everyone in attendance had small children at home, and Freya had a husband who was making it his life’s mission to make sure she survived her pregnancy.
They all said their goodbyes, proper goodbyes since I wouldn’t be seeing them for a while. I’d hugged each of the women tightly, realizing just how much I’d miss each and every one of them.
Swiss had cleaned up. He’d ordered me to stay on the sofa and finish my wine. It felt foreign, slightly uncomfortable and nice. Or it would’ve been nice had I not had something to do. Something I’d been putting off for far too long.
Swiss’s body rounded the sofa and stood in front of me.
“It’s time,” I told him, staring at the phone sitting in the middle of the coffee table.
Swiss didn’t ask what it was time for, nor did he say anything at all. He just sat down beside me and caught hold of my hand. It seemed he wasn’t going to offer me privacy to do this alone.
Which I was incredibly thankful for.
I did not want to do this alone.
In fact, I did not want to do this at all.
But Violet was arriving back in four days.
Four freaking days.
A large part of me was counting down the seconds until I saw my daughter again. I missed her so much it hurt.
But then came the reality. Somehow, through some kind of badass communication system, it had been ‘settled’ that I was picking Violet up from Manchester-Boston airport and staying in a suite with her in the city for three days. Violet didn’t know about the suite. Nor did she know it was me coming to pick her up.
She was expecting me and her father followed by a drive back to Carver Springs, to her home. I could not spring all of this news on her at the airport after a long international flight and a tearful goodbye with the boy she was convinced was her soulmate. Then again, she’d been rather quiet on the subject of Jacques the last time I spoke to her, so I’d wondered if he was history.
I kind of hoped for that. Even though it was a horrible thing for a mother to think. A good mother would want her daughter to be happy. To find that happiness wherever it came. But I wasn’t exactly a good mother. Not with everything I’d kept from her, everything I was piling onto her. So I was secretly wishing that the older French man was not going to keep my daughter halfway across the world from me.
I was secretly wishing that my almost nineteen-year-old daughter was not going to define her young adulthood around a man. I wanted her to discover herself, explore the world, go to college, do all of the things that I couldn’t do.
Of course, Violet was much too strong-willed to live a life that someone else wanted for her. That was one of the things I loved most about her.
It was that strong will I was worried about. If she decided that I was the villain of this scenario—without the truth I wasn’t willing to give her—then it would be a battle to get her to forgive me.
And as much as I wanted to tell her this news in person, I needed to give her some time to process. Some distance if she decided she hated me.
I was already full of guilt and self-hatred.
Swiss was also coming because he was not letting me go anywhere without him. I should’ve argued on that one. Violet was going to have enough to handle without introducing her to my biker fiancé on top of it all.
But I didn’t argue about that. I couldn’t. I’d traveled across the country absolutely and utterly alone, much weaker than I was now. I knew that technically, I was very capable of doing it now that I was much stronger and surer of myself. I just didn’t want to.
And selfishly, I did want Violet to meet Swiss. Even if the timing was supremely fucked-up.
I picked up the phone, dialing then putting it on speakerphone.
Violet answered after a handful of rings. “Yes, Mom, I have my passport in my purse, and yes, I have double checked that my departure time is a.m. not p.m.,” she said by way of greeting.