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)
I stopped short when I took in who was standing on my doorstep.
“Violet,” I gaped at my daughter.
Shock ran through my system as I drank her in. My little girl. Who I’d been picturing, missing and thinking about constantly.
She was as beautiful as ever but different somehow. In a way I could recognize yet not put my finger on.
She looked positively chic—which wasn’t something unusual, but it definitely had a French influence. The slouchy pants she was wearing clinched in at her tiny waist, stopping at her ankles showing off an anklet that I hadn’t seen before, and Chanel ballet flats that used to be mine.
The white linen shirt she was wearing was crinkled, likely from all the traveling she had been doing, and showed off her generous chest, which too had a scant amount of new freckles.
The diamond necklace her father had given her as a going away present was around her neck, and the moonstone earrings I’d given her for her eighteenth birthday were at her ears.
Her hair was pulled into a loose braid at the back of her neck, accentuating the slim curve of her neck, her delicate features and the faint red gloss on her lips. Her high cheekbones were slightly rosy, and a scant amount of freckles were stark against her ivory skin. Her dark lashes framed the eyes that were her namesake, and those eyes were wide, taking me in as I was her.
I suddenly realized what I looked like. I was wearing worn, ripped jeans, leather flip flops and a bright pink tank that had ‘Sons of Templar MC’ in white, scrawling script. Macy had it made.
My hair was piled into a messy bun on top of my head, and I wasn’t wearing any makeup.
So much for easing my daughter into my new identity. My true identity.
Even that reality could not stop me from working on instinct. “Oh my god,” I screamed, pulling her into my arms.
I’d forgotten about the fact that my daughter could very well hate me and held her tightly. She did not stiffen in my embrace, nor did she try to struggle out of it. She hugged me back with the same fervor that I was hugging her. Slowly and magically, the last piece of me slotted back into the vacant space that had never filled despite all of the evolving I’d done.
Being Violet’s mother was the one part of my identity that I was proud of, that was pure and right amongst everything else.
We hugged for a long time, neither of us feeling the urge to cut the embrace short. I had months to catch up on.
“I was leaving to fly to see you at the airport tomorrow!” I exclaimed, still holding her tightly. She smelled of pear and freesia, the perfume I’d gotten her for her fifteenth birthday. The perfume she’d worn every day since then.
That calmed me somehow. With everything that had changed so drastically, so pivotally in these past months, at least my daughter smelled how she normally did. How I remembered her.
Though I didn’t actually want to, I wanted to hold on to her forever, I let her go but held on to her arms so I could look at her, try to find that thing about her that seemed different. Then again, there were a lot of things about her that were different, not just the freckles or the style. She’d been in love. Traveled on her own. Experienced an entirely new culture. Had her world rocked by her mother two days ago.
Jesus, everything about her was likely to be different.
“Come inside.” I yanked her into the living room.
“How did you get here?” I demanded, my mind racing, thinking of my child rebooking all of the flights her father’s travel agent had organized. She would’ve had to take connections, she would’ve had to get herself a ride out here in the desert—we were almost forty minutes away from the closest airport. My eyes fixed on the red Jeep in the driveway beside my brand-new Mini Cooper. Swiss had bought it for me. Without asking. And I loved it. Adored it.
Violet had rented a car. I was pretty sure you couldn’t rent one until you were twenty-five, but then again, I’d never had to rent a car. I wouldn’t know how to rent a car. Yet Violet had. The Violet I knew could not do all of that.
“How did you even know where I was?” I added, my stomach curdling with the thought she might’ve got the information from her father. It sickened me to think of what other information she might’ve gotten. He’d retreated to lick his wounds without a fight, but I didn’t think Preston was done. He was too petty for that. He’d want to hurt me somehow… And turning our daughter against me was the surest way to do that.