Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44963 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
“You can go fishing with your kids one day,” I murmur. Our kids, more like.
We’re still talking as though he could find a different woman. He said I was young enough to give him lots of children. Another person might find that offensive, but it fills me with light and hope. We haven’t said anything concrete yet, anything I can rely on. I still don’t know how he knows Dad, either.
“I’d like that,” he says. “It’d be good to have somebody to talk to.”
“Just don’t let them fall in,” I joke.
He looks at me humorlessly, with the fierceness of the protector in his eyes. “I’d always protect my family… always. I consider it a man’s most important duty.”
Just like Dad’s protecting me, by being upstairs rooting around in the mafia’s finances.
We eat quietly for a time, as I process everything we’ve said, all we’ve hinted at. As far as first dates go, I’d consider this the best. Not that I have any comparison.
“I’m glad you didn’t see the error in your ways until you heard my oh-so-wise words,” I say after a long pause.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Then you would’ve met a woman, had kids, and we wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have saved us. We wouldn’t be on our date.”
It’s difficult to say that Luke smiles, since his hard features form to such natural seriousness, but positivity swells from him. It’s a general aura, a feeling of Yeah, we can do this. We’ve got this.
“I’m glad too,” he says.
We go on eating, and then I ask about his knuckles. “What happened?”
“Last night, after you told me… what you told me, I went outside and beat the hell out of a tree. I lost control. I rarely do that. Never might be more accurate, but thinking about that scumbag doing what he did…”
I stand slowly, walk around the table, and gently take his cut hands in mine. “Oh, Luke.”
He stands too, cradling both my hands in his, bringing to mind how men and women stand beneath altars when they’re giving themselves to each other, when they’re pledging everything.
“I can’t stand the idea of anybody hurting you,” he says, leaning down and moving into what’s quickly becoming my favorite position. It’s when he’s close but not kissing me. I can feel how badly every inch of him wants to collapse against me, like last night when he yanked down my shorts, when he rubbed with obsessive heat until my world blistered into a million starry points of euphoria.
“As long as I’m around, I’ll never let that happen.”
I stand on my tiptoes, moving my lips to his, ignoring any nerves and ripples of anguish from the memory of the guidance counselor. Yeah, even thinking his name is still a challenge.
“How long will that be?” I whisper.
“Until you get sick of me…”
That will never happen, I almost reply, but then we’re kissing, fully consumed by the act as we always are, lost in it. He moves forward, directing me across the room, against the kitchen counter. When he lifts me, I feel completely weightless, like I’m floating.
My legs wrap around him. He pushes forward, letting me feel his lust. It’s got new significance after all this family talk. I shouldn’t feel hurt when Luke swiftly moves away. Even my body acts on instinct when I hear footsteps running down the stairs. I hop off the counter and straighten my outfit.
Dad runs into the room with a beaming grin, so consumed with whatever he wants to say, he doesn’t notice how strange it is for me and Luke to be standing on one side of the dinner table.
“I think I’ve got it,” he says. “A way to make the mob back off. I think I’ve got the kill switch.”
“Well done, Andrew,” Luke says.
That’s the first time I hear it—the tone Luke uses to say Dad’s name. It’s weird, but I can’t quite figure out why. Something to do with their secret past?
“Well done, Dad. That’s amazing.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Luke
We can’t go on like this forever. Me and Andrew pretending not to know each other. Me and his daughter sneaking around behind his back. Even if the mafia wasn’t after us, it would be a mess. Especially after what Violet and I shared, all that talk about family. It felt like we were close to coming outright and saying we wanted it—me and her—wanted that life we framed as hypothetical.
The awkwardness of this scenario is highlighted by the three of us sitting together at the table. The closer I get to his daughter, the more I feel like I must reveal the truth. We can’t keep this secret locked away forever. Especially now that I’m sensing Violet may want the same things I do. Impossible, magically, she sees the future I’ve envisioned. I think. I hope.
“They were clumsy with the information they gave me,” Andrew says, gesturing excitedly, drawing my mind back to countless memories. “They’ve got an online system for their business fronts. When I started doing my digging, I created a second account, just in case they locked me out of the first.”