Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
A crumb of himself.
I don’t even know what to say, but it warms me.
I smile as I settle in to watch the traffic in comfortable silence. It’s scary how easy it is to just be with him, without needing to fill the space with sound, with noise, with anything but the quiet of us.
There is no us, I remind myself sharply.
And that’s okay.
For now, this moment is enough.
That’s why I’m not expecting it when August breaks the silence again. I almost don’t notice.
He’s so quiet tonight, his usual authoritativeness softened.
Intimate.
Close.
Inside me, every word.
“I don’t expect you to singlehandedly save Little Key Publishing, you know,” he says.
I glance over at him. The nightscape of Seattle and its traffic around us is dappling soft hints of color over his face, turning him into a portrait of pensive artistry, handsome and heart stopping in this weird grace where he doesn’t seem so ice cold and unapproachable at all.
Not when those lights paint liquid color in his eyes, softening them from chips of ice into pools so clear and deep you can see all the way to the bottom.
I pull myself up from staring and this weird feeling like tonight could mean something.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
“Mmm.” Again that little curl of his lips, subtle but captivating. I’ve never thought of men as beautiful before, but August Marshall is so darkly, devilishly sculpted that every expression on his face captivates me. “I know the burden I’ve dumped on you, no matter what benefits you might gain from it. Salvage my reputation to salvage the company. That’s a big fucking ask. Let alone working with my aunt to see if her muse ever wakes up, just so we can keep her from surrendering her life’s work to Marissa Sullivan and her little schemes. It’s a hell of a lot to have dropped on your shoulders, I know. All because you fell into the wrong man’s arms in a terminal.”
I laugh. “I’ve been trying not to think too hard about it,” I admit—and maybe, if I’m honest with myself, that’s part of the reason for my jitters tonight.
Every step I take, I have to try not to screw things up for August and his family.
And actually falling for August, giving in to this magnetism that wants to draw me closer and closer to him?
That would definitely screw things up.
Fingering the delicate necklace against my throat, I look down at my lap.
“I just don’t know how to do any of it,” I say. “All I can do is be myself. I don’t know how to be a billionaire’s fiancée, let alone a struggling artist’s inspiration.”
“It’s because you’re you, Elle. That’s why you’re perfect,” August says softly, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. My heart leaps so high it must touch the stars. But before I can ask him to explain, he continues. “You don’t have to carry that alone. I know I’ve swept you along, but all I really need you to do is buy me time. I’ll handle everything else. It’s not your fight. Just bear with me through a few more date nights like this, and keep Aunt Clara distracted while I do what I need to.” He glances at me sidelong, almost knowingly. “Instead of having to deal with everything on your own, consider us partners.”
Yep.
Captain Oblivious.
He has no earthly idea what he’s doing to me right now.
The tension in my chest.
The feeling like the walls that are usually closed up around him in mile-thick layers have thinned a little. I might even see a door starting to open as he lets me in just enough to reach a toe inside.
From the moment I met him, I’ve had this sense that somehow he sees me as the enemy—or at least another burden.
But now he’s telling me we’re partners.
He’s starting to trust me.
That makes me ache so much worse.
If he only knew I was getting so emotionally messy and my breaths stop short every time he looks at me a second too long . . .
It’d be a betrayal of that trust.
So I just smile. Even if it takes all my heart, all my brightness, all my desperate need to find the good in everything.
I smile.
And I tease, “It’s more fun if we call each other ‘coconspirators.’ Bonnie and Clyde? Like we’re pulling off a heist.”
August snorts, but that curl to his lips doesn’t fade. “You are, as always, impossibly creative.”
That’s me.
Miss Impossible.
Except everything I’m creating tonight is the wrong feeling as I hold on to my smile and look out the window again, trying to drain these stupid thoughts into the night.
They can hang there like stars, shining and endless and so distant I won’t be able to reach them again.
X
WALKING STORM CLOUD
(AUGUST)
Something’s bothering Elle.
I noticed when she opened the door of her grandmother’s cottage and I saw her pale, drawn face, tinted in shades of amber by the porch light.