Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Uncle Thane is sleeping over?” Lucy’s words roar from her mouth.
When Thane answers on my behalf with a head bob, Lucy plucks the first book she sees on the shelf, charges for her bed, and dives in. I realize her acting skills are on par with mine when she says, “Henley will read me three stories tomorrow. She won’t let me down.” She hides the wetness welling in her eyes with a slanted head. “Right, Daddy?”
Not wanting to break her heart, I nod.
It appeases her worry, but only a smidge.
It takes reading her a story and running my fingers through her hair for almost ten minutes before she finally lets go of the tension keeping her shoulders taut.
Thane’s eyes lift to mine when I enter the office we were commiserating in earlier. I’m not exactly sure what he had to commiserate, but it was clear his mood after dinner wasn’t as embellished as it was when he was grinding against Henley’s ass.
As much as I wanted to pretend Henley’s presence wasn’t missed this evening, it couldn’t be denied. My mood has been in the toilet right along with Thane’s, and it worsens when I notice a cell phone on my desk. It is new but not the latest model.
“I found that on her bed,” Thane announces when I pick up Henley's cell phone to scroll through an endless list of messages from the only friend she talks about, Amelia.
“Her things?”
I breathe a little easier when Thane replies, “Still in her closet.” He plops down a bottle oddly similar to the one I lost myself in this afternoon, but the scant bit of liquid at the bottom is clear. “That was full when I gave it to her. Her friend swears it had to have been half empty.”
Sliding over the fact he gave my nanny alcohol during a shift, I ask, “You’ve spoken to her friend?”
As he scrubs at his jaw, he lifts his chin. “She said what I had suspected, that drinking isn’t Henley’s go-to coping mechanism, and she’s usually smarter than that.” His eyes drop to the almost empty bottle. “She must have been real upset to down a bottle of vodka in under two hours.” When I remain quiet, silenced by guilt, Thane angles his head so I can’t lie straight to his face before asking, “You fucked your nanny, didn’t you?”
“No.” My lie barely lasts a second. “I didn’t mean to take it that far. I thought one taste would be enough.”
“Come on, man. When is one taste ever enough?” He props his ass on my desk and folds his arms over his chest. “When did it happen?”
“Does that matter?”
“Yeah, it does,” he immediately fires back. “Because from what her friend told me, it was days ago, so why would she respond to your piss-poor attempt of acting like you don’t need anyone in your life now? Why wasn’t it an immediate response?”
“Did it ever occur to you that it was because I was doing a good job keeping things professional between us?”
He throws his head back and laughs. It isn’t his real laugh. It is the one he does when he knows I’m full of shit. “I love how you only ever jump when you think there’s competition. Caroline—”
“Keep my fucking wife out of this.”
My angry roar gives me away in an instant. “So it wasn’t anything Henley said that pissed you off.” He stands to his full height, bringing him an inch taller than me. “I’m a big boy, Brodie. If I said something that made you angry, you should have taken it out on me.”
“I didn’t take anything out on her.” My voice lowers as the truth slips from my lips. “I just told her that she doesn’t know shit about Lucy and me and that she will never really have the chance to learn.”
“You’re a fucking ass—”
“Those aren’t the exact words I said.”
“So?” Thane bites back. “You hurled abuse at a girl who should be scared of her own shadow but for some fucking reason isn’t.” When my expression deadpans, he tsks me. “You’re so caught up in your own woes, you think no other fucker has any.” He nudges his head to the door like Henley is standing on the other side. “I offered self-defense classes because she flinches around any man who isn’t you.” I don’t get the chance to register my shock or my anger. “And Chelsea encouraged her to wear a bikini because when she pulled out the frumpy one piece she had packed, she let slip that she’s never purchased her own swimsuit.” His fond smile pisses me off. “And do you notice how often she tugs on the hem of her shirt?”
“She fiddles when nervous.”
He tsks me again. “She has body issues.”
“No, she fucking doesn’t,” I instantly deny. The woman who has stood in front of me naked time and time again can’t have body dysmorphia. “How could she when she’s perfect?”