Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I tried not to laugh. “Relax. They’re potty-trained.”
“Good. That’s very good.”
Soon after, we trooped back to the house. The girls were getting hungry and Vera needed to use the bathroom. I got some yogurt from the bag my sister had brought and served it to the children. Anyone looking at us would have thought that we were a family.
A pang came over me at the realization that it would never happen for us. I pushed those thoughts away knowing that I was only hurting myself. Then I made dinner and left Max to babysit.
As I worked, I kept an eye on them in case he got overwhelmed, but he seemed to be enjoying the novel experience. At one point, they all stood up to dance to a kid’s show on TV. This was from a man who claimed he didn’t know how to dance. He saw me laughing and wagged a finger at me.
“Your aunt thinks she can dance better than us,” he told the girls and all three of them shot across the open plan space and came to pull me to the living room.
“Dance,” Vera commanded bossily, pulling me into the circle.
“I’ll get you for this,” I swore. I was trying to sound fierce and serious, but laughter bubbled out of me. For the next ten minutes, we danced and made the same silly faces as the character on TV, making the girls double over with laughter.
Seeing Max being so childlike made my heart do little somersaults in my chest. It made me fall just a little more deeply in love with him, but who wouldn’t fall for a man who could play with toddlers?
“Now can we have the hundred-dollar cookies?” Phoebe shouted.
I laughed. “Your mom told me you ate the last one a few days ago.”
“Yeah, but Mom said, you got them from Uncle Max. Can we have some Uncle Max?” she insisted.
Max looked at me, puzzled and laughing.
“I gave them the box of cookies that Elizabeth brought for you. Remember? You didn’t want them so I gave them to the girls. My sister called them the hundred-dollar cookies because the packaging looked so expensive.”
“What?” he thundered suddenly.
His expression had changed to one of such serious intensity, I was shocked. “You wanted me to bin them,” I blurted out defensively. “You didn’t say I couldn’t give them to my nieces and...”
He raised his hand to stop me from speaking. “Just a minute. Let me think.”
I stared at him, astonished by the change in him.
He began to pace the floor, then stopped suddenly, and turned to me. “Who put the cookies in my office? Was it you?”
“No, she did.”
“Did you go in with her?”
“No, she appeared to know her way around. I thought she was one of your girlfriends.”
He came striding up to me, cupped my face with his palms, and kissed me on the lips. “You are a genius, Lillian Hudson.”
“So can we have the cookies then?” Phoebe asked plaintively.
He turned to Phoebe. “You can have ten boxes.”
Her eyes almost popped out of her face. She spread the fingers of both her hands out. “Ten boxes or ten cookies?”
“Ten boxes.”
Both girls screamed with joy.
“Hang on a minute,” I cautioned, confused, but happy because it appeared as if Max had made some sort of breakthrough. “Rose might have something to say about this.”
“Look, I got to go to the office for a bit. Don’t leave here until I get back,” he said excitedly and sprinted up the stairs.
The kids fell asleep on the couch a couple of hours later and I covered them with soft blankets.
Rose and Dylan came back just as I finished cooking.
“Come in,” I said, ushering them into the house.
“Where’s Max?” Rose asked.
“He had to rush off to the office.”
“Thank you so much for minding the girls,” Rose said, taking in the sight of the girls sprawled out on the couch. “They must have had loads of fun to conk out like that,” she added with a laugh.
“They did,” I said. “They negotiated ten boxes of hundred-dollar cookies out of Max.”
My sister’s eyebrows flew upwards. “Right, that’s it. I’m enrolling them in business school.”
I laughed, not knowing that in a few hours, I would be crying my heart out.
Chapter 54
Max
Iknew it was four in the morning where Chris was honeymooning, but I couldn’t wait. I knew he’d want to know as soon as possible.
“What’s up?” he asked sleepily.
“I know who it is,” I said.
“Who?” he asked, all sleep gone from his voice.
“Elizabeth Bates.”
“Who the fuck is she?”
“She’s the daughter of Warren Bates. Ring any bells?”
“Warren Bates? Yeah, brilliant strategist and businessman. He came in with a few projects with us in the beginning. Didn’t he just retire though?”
“Yup. And his daughter took over.”
“But he was no enemy of ours, why would she target us?”
“He wasn’t, but she apparently is.”