Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I shook my head.
I wasn’t close to her, but I could swear I heard her grinding her teeth.
Okay, now what to do?
Hale said I was hostess, I needed to hostess.
In order for us all to have something else to think about while whatever was going down went down outside, I decided to offer to refresh people’s drinks.
I came up with this plan right when we heard shouted from the front, “Ungrateful! You were an ungrateful piece of shit growing up! And you’re an ungrateful piece of shit grown man! No surprise! Just like your father!”
I could feel the deep freeze in the room.
And it included me.
While frozen, I thought…this wasn’t mine.
Not really.
We were too new.
An altercation between Hale and his mother wasn’t mine.
And it fucking was.
That was why I jerked out of my freeze, dashed to the door and through it.
“What the hell?” Samantha Wheeler asked when she saw me.
“Go inside,” Hale ordered.
I ignored Hale, my total focus on his mother.
She was Genny’s age and looked ten years older (in all fairness, Genny looked fifteen years younger than she was, but still).
I guessed that was what bitterness did to you.
“You need to leave,” I told her.
“You think you can tell me what to do?” she demanded, then looked to her son. “Why does she think she can tell me what to do? Why is she even here?”
“Elsa, please, sweetheart, go inside,” Hale said, then he looked over my head. “Bowie, get Genny inside too.”
I didn’t look behind me.
No, I had to focus because Samantha’s face twisted in a nasty way and she spat at her son, “Sweetheart?”
“You need to go,” I repeated.
Her attention locked on me. “Thanks, but since it was you who helped decimate my relationship with my son, I think I won’t listen to you now. M’kay?”
“You approached me.”
“You jumped on it.”
“Of course I did. It was my job. But you hijacked it after you failed to inform me you had a hidden agenda.”
“Like you cared,” she scoffed. “Your follows went through the roof.”
“You used me to hurt decent, innocent people who were grieving. And you didn’t care you did. Like you don’t care now Hale has company and you’re causing a scene in his driveway.”
“You don’t get to judge me, Elsa Cohen,” she snapped.
“Oh yes I do,” I whispered sinisterly. “Because he’s mine now.” I slapped my chest and leaned into her as I took two steps her way. “Mine. And you don’t shout at what’s mine, calling him a piece of shit. So you need to leave.”
“I have things to say to my son,” she shot back.
“I heard some of those things,” I returned. “And I’m telling you, you’re not going to say any more of them.”
She got closer to me, asking, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
I was a Brooklyn girl, the stupid bitch.
So no hesitation, I got closer to her, not as close as I would have liked, because I felt Hale’s arm curl around my ribs, but I didn’t back down.
“I told you who I am. Go.”
She looked up to Hale.
So I shrieked in her face, “Go!”
Her gaze darted to me. “You’re crazy.”
“Go,” I repeated.
“I—” she started.
I pushed through Hale’s arm. He tried to tag the waistband of my jeans, but I was advancing fast, Samantha Wheeler was retreating fast too, and I backed her right into her car.
“Get in and go,” I snarled.
“Fu—”
“You know,” I whispered. “You know. You know what you did to him. Somewhere deep down in that bitter, shriveled heart of yours, you know. You know you don’t belong here. Go.”
After I spoke, for a second, I thought her face would collapse, the huge emotion welling up in her eyes too much to bear.
It didn’t.
She slid out from in front of me and I ran into Hale, who was right behind me, as I tried to get out of her way as she opened her car door.
We moved back together and watched her get in, start up, do an easy circle in Hale’s massive forecourt, but it was only me who walked all the way to the end of Hale’s long drive behind her car.
When I arrived at the end, I stood there, like I could stop her with my super strength if she tried to drive back in.
She didn’t try.
She drove away.
I turned and ran into someone.
It was Genny this time.
I looked into her eyes.
“Hurry,” she said urgently. “See to him.”
I looked to the house.
Hudson and Duncan were there.
Hale was not.
I raced to the front door.
“Upstairs,” Carole said when I got inside, her face full of concern.
I sprinted up the stairs.
He was on the balcony off his room.
I went there.
Approaching cautiously, I put my hand to his back and came to a stop at his side.
The wind combing through his hair, he was brooding at the sea.