Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I take a couple of minutes to compose myself before joining Jack on the footpath. The deafening patter of my heart in my ears is heard in my tone when I announce, “The coffee shop is this way.”
“I know,” Jack confesses before he knocks me on my ass with more honesty. “I’ve visited it a handful of times the past few weeks while building the courage to talk to you.”
I hate that his confidence slips around me, but not enough to ask, “What changed your mind today?”
His nervous chuckle does stupid things to my insides. “Do you want the truth?”
I bob my head. “Please.”
His smile makes it seem as if his confession is nowhere as shocking as it is. “Talking to you is the only way I can get Elaine back as my PA. She… ah.. quit when I…” He doesn’t finalize his reply. The shame on his face does it for him.
My worry that he’s only here to secure Elaine back on his payroll flies out the window when he mutters a handful of strides later, “I also couldn’t resist for a second longer. With winter arriving early, you’ve started closing the drapes before sundown to keep in the heat. Traffic is a bitch from New York. If I didn’t leave before lunch the past two weeks, I missed seeing you.”
“You’ve been watching me?” That was delivered entirely different than the screechy deliverance of my question when I shouted the same thing at Silas many months ago. It was brimming with excitement, most likely fueled by the electricity zipping around us.
I thought the spark that forever fired between us would have died at the penthouse.
I was wrong. It is as strong as ever, and I’m not the only one noticing it. Jack sucks in a sharp breath after only the briefest collision of our pinkies, but he plays it cool.
“Yeah,” he confesses before glancing up from his shoes. “And it’s been a lot longer than the four weeks you probably think I’ve been watching you.” He guides me past the culvert in the footpath my heel got stuck in almost two months ago before muttering with a grin. “Sorry.”
His eyes shoot to mine, and they gleam with cockiness when I mutter, “No, you’re not. You weren’t back in Seattle, and you’re certainly not now. Stalking is very much your forte.” His teeth rake his bottom lip, but he doesn’t deny my claims. “The only thing I can’t understand is why. I get Seattle, your protectiveness was as endearing as your presumptions we weren’t strangers, but why now? Why after learning who I am?”
We walk in silence for almost half a block, the intensity almost too much for me to bear, before he eventually mutters, “Because although some things Caleb said last month were shocking, others weren’t.” His eyes return to my face. They’re still uneased but nowhere near as pained as they were months ago when he told me he never wanted to see me again. “Most particularly the part where I was a fool for blaming you for what happened to me and letting you go.” Shame fills his face, but because it is in response to his actions rather than the wrongful ones others did to him, I let it slide. “I knew I was being stupid. I just couldn’t stop it. I was lost and hurting, and since you were the easiest person to take it out on, I unleashed my anger and confusion on you.”
“And Silas.”
It kills him, but he agrees with me. Silas isn’t a good man, but after further research, it was unearthed that he was my grandfather’s first and youngest victim. He was only four when his ‘grooming’ turned sinister.
“I’m making amends with Silas.” Jack purposely brushes his pinkie past mine this time, sending a scattering of goosebumps to the surface of my skin before he murmurs, “Now I’m trying to do the same with you.”
Ignoring the intense zap his briefest touch caused my body, I try to look at his return to my life with a rational head. Forgiveness is a part of any recovery process, but I strongly believe his efforts should remain on himself. If he can’t forgive himself and understand that he didn’t do anything wrong, he will never fully recover from the horrible things he’s faced.
“You don’t need to make amends with me, Jack. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“And neither did you, Octavia, but I still wrongly blamed you.”
Although I appreciate his honesty, I truly don’t believe he owes me anything. He said hurtful things but not anything that wasn’t true. The woman he made the pledge not to run from isn’t the same woman standing in front of him now. She was a coward who ran away when things got tough. This Octavia can admit her mistakes and stand her ground to prove not all mistakes end badly.