Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
In the moment, I felt the truth of those words to the depths of my soul.
23
OSCAR
I woke up on January first to an empty bed.
Weak, early morning sunlight peeked through the large picture window, but the sheets next to me were cold. The tuxedo Hugh had dropped casually on the floor the night before was gone. The suitcase he hadn’t bothered unpacking the day before despite my anxious urging to “make himself at home” was also missing.
It took my brain a moment to jump to the shocking conclusion.
He’s gone.
I looked around the room in disbelief. Sure enough, every trace of Hugh had been erased from my bedroom. Before I knew what I was doing, I was half-dressed in the first pair of sweats I found in my dresser. I yanked on a pair of socks and flew downstairs, ducking into the kitchen in vain hopes he would be standing there staring off into space over a cup of coffee.
The kitchen was spotless. Coffee-less.
Hugh-less.
Had he seriously left? Had he misunderstood my… my feelings from the night before? Had I…
I stopped and slapped myself on the forehead. I was an idiot. At no point last night did I take even a moment to make my feelings clear. Yes, I’d asked him to stay, but I hadn’t clarified that I’d wanted him to stay for more than just the night.
Surely, he’d known that, right? How could he have misunderstood me after we had such an intimate connection last night? It had felt like… it had felt like making love. As cliché as that sounded, it had been different. More intense. More real.
At least… for me, it had.
I scrambled into a pair of snow boots by the back door and took off across the snowy lawn in search of my mother. She would know what to do. Meanwhile, my fingers flew over my phone screen.
First, I texted Hugh.
Oscar
Where are you??
Then, I texted Lesya.
Oscar
Do you have a way of tracking Hugh?
When thirty seconds had passed with no response from either of them, I texted Rafa.
Oscar
Have you heard from Hugh?
Thankfully, my mother and several of my siblings were already in the barn when I got there, helping with setup for the breakfast thing.
Mom saw me first and greeted me with a huge smile, a stack of napkins in her hand. “Good morning, sweetheart. How are you—?”
Panic made me grab her by the shoulders, and the napkins went flying. The stabbing feeling in my chest from the previous evening was back, now multiplied a thousandfold. “Mom! He’s gone. Hugh’s gone. I need… I need help finding him. Do you…” I looked around frantically, making sure he wasn’t in here grabbing breakfast. “Do you know if he’s still here? I mean, here on the property, or…?”
Her forehead crinkled in concern, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish, but I could already tell she didn’t have any answers. I didn’t wait for her to respond. I took my phone out again and called Lesya. It went to voicemail.
“Lesya, I know it’s a holiday, but you need to get the plane back to Vermont,” I barked. “I’m going to need to return to the city as fast as possible. Also, please find out if Hugh booked any travel. Do we have a private investigator on retainer? If not, find me one who can… I don’t know… access travel databases or something. Jesus, I have no idea what I’m doing here. Call me, okay? ASAP. I… I want my renaissance, damn it.”
When I hung up, I noticed two of my sisters staring at me like I was possessed. Thankfully, neither took the opportunity to crack a joke.
“It snowed a bunch last night,” Marigold offered. “I doubt Hugh could have made it very far this early. Hell, the sun’s barely up.”
Jasmine rubbed her eyes through a yawn. “Maybe he’s working on a surprise for you. Something sweet. Like a gesture of—”
I grabbed her elbow. “Yes. Yes. You’re brilliant. A grand gesture! Hugh loves those in the movies. That’s exactly what I need to do. If I make a grand gesture, Hugh will understand.” I darted toward the door before coming to a sudden halt as a paralyzing new thought occurred to me. “Wait, shit. How do you do a grand gesture? Who can I hire for this?” I glared at each of my siblings in turn when none of them ponied up a single piece of advice or, better yet, a professional’s contact information. “None of you would shut up when it came to matchmaking for me, but when I’ve found the love of my life and inadvertently lost him through my own stupidity and pigheadedness, you go silent? Come on! Surely one of you knows about grand gestures.”
“Er…” Lily’s wife, Mallory, stepped forward hesitantly. “You could do a message in skywriting?” she suggested.