Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
“You said that yesterday when you called me on the final day of the trial of my career.”
“Yes, but now she left him. She won’t answer our calls. No one can find her. Dad’s freaking out.”
“Maybe she finally got smart and found another man,” I suggest, one of my few statements anyone could call hopeful.
“That’s your reply?” Stacey snaps. “Really, Reese?”
“I spent years battling this war with them and got the fuck out. You should too.”
“She won’t return our calls. What if something happened to her?”
“How long has it been?” I ask.
“Twelve hours.”
“She’s fine,” I say, comforting my sister, though I’m secretly worried. She doesn’t cut off her kids. Or her ass of a husband, for that matter. “She’s a fifty-five-year-old woman who’s beautiful, smart, and capable. Give her some space.”
Her phone beeps. “That’s her. I’ve gotta go.” She hangs up.
I dial my brother Dylan. “He’s got another girlfriend,” Dylan says as his greeting.
“Of course he does,” I say, weary of this topic.
“She’s thirty-two. Blonde. Beautiful. I’d fuck her. Dad’s fucking her. It’s fucked up.”
“I knew he wouldn’t change,” I say. “I don’t know why she stays. We’re all grown up now. We don’t need stability, and there was never stability in the first place.”
“Apparently, she’s not this time,” he says. “She disappeared.”
“She just called Stacey.”
“Thank God,” he says. “I had this image in my head of one of Dad’s women killing her. I’ve told him that. He’s going to pick a crazy one, one day, and there will be no turning back.”
“And now you get why I left.”
“I’m taking that to mean you won’t be home for Christmas again,” he says.
“Hell the fuck no.”
His line beeps. “I don’t have to look at the caller ID. Stacey is calling me.”
“Text me an update. I’m going to be in meetings today.”
“Always working and winning. Congrats, man, on the win. I hope he didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t.”
“Fuck,” Dylan growls. “Stacey hung up.”
My line starts beeping. “She’s calling me,” I say.
“I’ll call her. Consider Christmas. You have about three months to decide. I can’t do another one alone.”
“Come here to me,” I suggest. “Get away from the hell there.”
“I might. I really might. Ciao.” He hangs up.
I start reading Cat’s column, lost in the mind of this woman who has taken over my world. She’s sharp, witty, and intelligent. She’s also tough as nails, with a big attitude that shows in her writing. My fingers thrum on the table. My mother is all of those things, and yet she stays with my father when I am certain Cat would kick me to the curb if I acted like him. Why does my mother stay?
Footsteps sound, and I look up to find Cat entering the kitchen in a fluffy pink robe, the top gaping widely and offering me a glimpse of her left breast. Her long blonde hair a tangled, sexy mess that just makes me want to fuck her ten times to Sunday and forget work. She crosses to the island to stand on the edge right beside me, her green eyes bright as she reaches for my coffee and takes a sip. She crinkles her nose. “You drink your coffee like stout whiskey,” she says, setting the cup down. “It gets the job done, but it’s no fun in the process.”
I laugh and swivel my chair around, pulling her to me. “Like I get the job done?”
“Yes, but sometimes you’re fun.”
“Sometimes? Is that right?”
“Yes,” she says. “Sometimes. Sometimes you’re very intense, like in the shower yesterday.”
“Right. About that—”
“You don’t need to explain,” she says, flattening her hand on my chest. “You had cameras and the world watching. I know how trial days are, remember? And I wasn’t at your level of public exposure.” She kisses my cheek. “I’m going to leave you with your stout coffee and make something more palatable.” She skirts around me, and I swivel my chair to follow her, watching as she navigates my kitchen like she’s lived here more than a week. And she is basically living here.
“What time are you going to work?” she asks, sticking a pod in the coffee maker and setting a cup underneath the spout.
“Noonish,” I say. “But my meeting isn’t until four. I’m reviewing pretty much everything going on in the firm that I’ve missed up to today.”
“I’m sure that is a load,” she says. “I’ll head home after I shower.” She turns away, giving me her back as she doctors her coffee, while I’m focused on that word: Home.
Fuck. She has one of those that isn’t here. We can both forget that anytime now.
“Cat.”
She turns to face me, crossing her arms in front of her. She never crosses her arms in front of her. “I have work to do too, and laundry, along with what is probably piles of mail. I can’t believe I haven’t even thought about my mail.”