Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
He said all this while walking to his closet, and into his closet, and while in said closet.
However…
Her husband?
A woman?
I quickly grabbed my shirt and yanked it on.
It had gotten ripped in the sex frenzy.
Fabulous.
He came out of the closet tugging on a long-sleeved tee and still sporting a face filled with thunder.
“I’ll just take off and call you later,” I said.
He stopped dead and scorched me with his angry stare.
“Sorry?” he asked.
“I’ll get out of your hair. This is a family thing.”
“I don’t want you out of my hair.”
Now it was me who was staring, but it wasn’t scorching. It was surprised.
He kept speaking.
“I want you here. I want time with you. We’ve fucked around too long. Now we’ve stopped fucking around in the shit way and started doing it in the right way. I want you to spend the day with me. I want you to spend the night again. Do you need to get home to Cadence?”
I thought about my conversation with Nora that morning which included her telling me to take all the time I needed, even if I needed six months. She’d fly Cadence home after spring break and would send shipments from Goldbelly so we could have sustenance and barely leave the bedroom.
“Not particularly,” I said slowly.
“Then why are you saying you’re leaving?”
I tossed a hand to the door. “Is Imogen still here?”
“No. She and Duncan left. But Chloe and Judge are still here because I told her to stay because I have a few things to say to her.”
“Maybe you should say them without me.”
His head ticked before he asked, “What’s going on here?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he carried on before I could get a word out.
“I’ll tell you where I’m at, Mika. I’m not a twenty-five-year-old guy, figuring shit out. I’m a grown man who knows what he wants. That being you. So to finish our earlier discussion, as far as I’m concerned, we don’t have anything to figure out. We’re there. Would I have liked us to have a lazy day getting to know each other better in a variety of pleasurable ways? Yes. Did I want that interrupted by my well-meaning, but meddling-and-nosy-as-fuck daughter? No. That happened. Chloe will be Chloe, and she’ll aways be Chloe, as she’s been from the moment she left her mother’s womb. If you want me, she comes with me, and like me, you’re going to have to deal with it.”
I didn’t take even a millisecond to think about it.
“I’m totally in,” I replied.
“Then stop talking about leaving.”
I beat back saluting.
But that motion was in my, “I have my orders, Dr. Pierce.”
“I’m totally getting you a nurse’s outfit,” he muttered.
“I’m totally fucking you in it.”
The scorch was back in his gaze, but I liked this one.
“Come here,” he ordered.
Damn, he was bossy.
I loved it.
I went there.
He hooked me with an arm, pulled me close, kissed me hard but closed-mouthed, then he let me go, took my hand and led me out to the living room.
Chloe was snuggling Venus like nothing was amiss.
Judge was on a couch and Boris and Serena were crawling all over him.
It was naptime for Ace and Nala.
Chloe practically preened when she caught sight of us.
I felt Tom’s heat come back (not the good kind this time), and I knew he saw his daughter’s expression too.
Chloe didn’t miss her father’s reaction.
“It was Mom’s idea, Dad,” she said quickly. “You had some conversation with her last night, and it upset her. She was worried about you.”
“Because you told her about Mika. She confronted me about Mika. I was in a bad mood. Then Mika came over, and my mood lifted significantly.”
“I can see that,” she replied gleefully.
“Chloe, for God’s sakes,” Tom retorted with exasperation. “You have to learn to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”
“Are you honestly saying that to me right now?” she demanded.
“I’m honestly saying that to you right now,” he returned. “And it’s not about me and Mika. It’s about wrangling your mother into your plots, which made her phone me last night, as you intended, and went on to make her feel what she felt fifteen minutes ago.”
A shadow moved over Chloe’s face.
“Exactly,” he bit off.
“How could I know—?” she began.
“Your mom and I are done,” Tom declared. “It’s over. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have a life together. We didn’t love each other. And there’s a big difference between her ex-husband having a woman in his life and seeing what she saw when you walked in on us. She’s been with Bowie for a long time. If I walked in on them as she walked in on us, it would hurt. It’s reflexive. Love is the heart. The heart is a muscle. And muscle has memory that doesn’t die.”
That was tragic and romantic and amazing and beautiful and so very, perfectly, profoundly correct.