Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
I looked away, my ribs squeezing my lungs painfully at the imagery she’d used. That alert had saved my sanity in the past. She had saved my sanity. I owed her more than I’d ever be able to repay in that department, but that didn’t mean I was willing to eviscerate myself by throwing our relationship on the autopsy table. There were things I’d never be able to say to her, never revisit or rehash just so she could have some of that precious closure everyone prattled on about. But this? This I could give her.
“I never changed my next of kin form,” I told her softly, lowering my voice so only she could hear, since we’d somehow gotten back to damn-near yelling.
“What?” She blinked.
“I never changed the paperwork.” I shook my head. “If anything had ever happened to me, someone would have told you. Probably not the details of where, or how, or why. But they would have told you I was dead. Though it might have taken a couple days to track you down, since the last address I had for you was in New York.”
Her entire expression softened, and the sorrow radiating from her eyes sliced into me with lethal precision.
“So now you’ll know when you head back to your real life,” I continued, my hands curling at the thought of the giant rock on her left hand. “No news is good news. Unless you want me to change it, given that your last name probably won’t be Astor for long, and it might make the fiancé wonder why you’re getting notified—”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “Don’t change it. I mean, unless someone comes along who needs to know more than I do, of course.” She shifted her weight and glanced away before slowly dragging her gaze back to mine. “Is there someone else who should know?”
“Right through here,” Elston said as he pushed through the front door, saving me the awkwardness of replying to Izzy.
“Thank you, Sergeant Rose,” a female voice replied from behind him.
A voice I recognized. My head swung in the direction of the door as my pulse leapt with hope that this had actually worked.
Izzy took off running, and I didn’t bother to stop her as she dodged the tables and blew by Graham. Elston barely got out of her way before she flung herself at the woman. “Serena!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IZZY
Tybee Island, Georgia
June 2014
“I never would have taken you for a cookies and cream kind of guy,” I said, taking a lick of my two scoops of butter pecan as Nate and I wandered Tybee aimlessly. I’d tossed my hair up into a messy bun to combat the humidity, leaving my neck and shoulders bare to the June sun.
“Never would have taken you for an ‘ice cream at ten a.m.’ girl, but here we are,” he replied, flashing that damned dimple. And his eyes? Yeah, those were still just as heart stopping as I’d remembered.
We crossed the street, and his fingers skimmed my lower back as he switched places with me on the sidewalk, walking closer to the street. On a scale of one to ten, that was a freaking twelve on the sexiest things a guy could do that weren’t sexual, which wasn’t helping my pulse settle.
Something within me had shifted the second I’d recognized him last night, and as much as I wanted to go back to being who I was yesterday, I couldn’t, not when I had the inexplicable, chaotic, senseless feeling that I was somehow tethered to this man.
The man I’d called from the airport two hours ago, sitting on my suitcase outside the departures door while Margo watched on, worried that I’d end up stranded.
I hadn’t worried. Not for one second. He hadn’t left me in that airplane or abandoned me in the river. Nate had shown me everything I needed to know about his character two and a half years ago. Which also meant I was terrified my impetuousness had wrecked his day.
“You sure I didn’t ruin your plans for the day?” I looked up at him from behind my cone. “I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally when I changed my flight this morning. It was just that I was standing there, watching the other girls check their bags, and I couldn’t do it.” Oh God, I was babbling, and there was no stopping the flow of words. “I couldn’t leave if there was even the slightest chance I could spend five more minutes with you. And I know that sounds”—my nose scrunched—“creepy. And it’s worse because I didn’t even bother to ask if you were seeing anyone last night, and who knows? Maybe you have a girlfriend, and now I’ve just thrown an entire wrench into your plans—”
“Izzy,” he interrupted, lifting his brows under his Saint Louis Blues ball cap and cupping my bare shoulder with his hand. Crap, his touch felt nice. “I don’t have a girlfriend. If I did, I would have told you last night, and I wouldn’t be here with you now.” A corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk, and my thighs tightened. “Or at least I wouldn’t have a girlfriend anymore.”