Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
That night was the first in a long time that she spent alone, and she wept into her pillow before finally falling asleep.
“Good morning,” Trystan greeted the following day when Iris walked into the kitchen at nine a.m. Her taxi would be there in an hour, and she had time for a quick bite and one last stroll to the lake before she had to leave.
“Morning,” she muttered, avoiding his eyes. Hers were swollen from the tears she’d shed last night, and she’d rather he not see that.
“Iris.” His tone was admonishing, and she knew it was because she refused to look at him, but she didn’t give a damn. He’d put her through hell last night with his cold-shoulder treatment just because she’d had the gall to lay out her own terms for their relationship, and now he wanted to play nice again?
She shoved a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and tapped her nails impatiently against the marble countertop while she waited for it to pop. She buttered it and smeared it with strawberry jam before grabbing a mug of coffee and sitting at the island to eat, instead of at the banquette with him, as she’d done on so many other mornings.
She heard his deep sigh from behind her, but ignored him.
“You’re mad at me.”
“Ya think?” she muttered beneath her breath.
“I know.” His deep voice came from directly behind her and she yelped in shock and nearly choked on her toast.
“God, you scared me! Was it necessary to sneak up on me?” she seethed, turning toward him to blister him with a look.
“I didn’t sneak You were so focused on ignoring me, you simply didn’t notice me coming up behind you.”
“I have to finish my breakfast. My taxi will be here in forty minutes.”
“It won’t. I cancelled it,” he said, and she gaped at him.
“What? How could you even do that? How did you know which taxi company I contacted.”
“There’s only one in town.”
“But why would you… Is this your way of trying to keep me here against my will?”
“Jesus, no, not at all. I made other arrangements. A taxi wasn’t needed.”
“I don’t need you to make my arrangements for me.”
“Iris, I was making the arrangements for us.”
“Wait. What?”
“Well, you did ask me to come away with you, didn’t you? I couldn’t just up and leave. I needed to arrange our flight, contact Chance to come and fetch us, make sure Luna’s travel documents are still in order, pack, rehire Quinny, then set him to work getting my apartment in London livable for us. Then I also had to contact Miles about shutting down this place. Thankfully, he said to just lock up and go. His mother and stepdad live close by and will sort it out. All in all, it was fucking exhausting. I fell into bed at eight then woke up this morning only to discover that you didn’t come to bed last night. What the fuck, Iris?”
“Wait, so you’re coming with me?”
“Of course I am. Was there ever a doubt?”
“Well… yes,” she said. “When you made no effort to talk to me after our initial discussion yesterday, I assumed you needed more time to think. Then when you simply disappeared for the rest of the day, I thought I had my answer.”
“Woman, you threw all of this at me yesterday with very little warning. You just said you were leaving and I could either come with you or lose you. I needed a minute to process. And plan.”
Iris wrinkled her nose in acknowledgment. She had sprung it on him, she knew that, but once she’d heard the road was fixed, she’d simply jumped into got to get home mode. She didn’t even know why she’d reacted that way. Hearing the road was open had set off all kinds of alarm bells in her and an urgent need to leave.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It just felt like, with the road open, there was no reason for me to be here any longer. I didn’t feel like I had a place—or a right to be—here. This isn’t my home, Trystan. I’ve missed my family and my life. I wanted to get back to them and I guess, a small part of me still believed I should get out before you kicked me out.”
“Oh, Iris.” The disappointment she heard in his voice gutted her and she nodded.
“I know. It was an unfair, baseless assumption. And I really shouldn’t have flung all those ultimatums at you. It was wrong.”
His lips twitched and his eyes gentled.
“It certainly lit a fire under my arse. Here I was thinking, we’d spend a few days exploring the area, maybe staying in the next town over for a couple of nights…”
She winced. “That does sound lovely. But I can’t afford to just lounge around here indefinitely on vacation, y’know? Maybe some other time?”