Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
“I’m okay.”
I smile and shift in closer. “I’m a little worried about my defiant little temptress,” I say into her ear, feeling her body light up.
“Why?”
“Because she’s too quiet when there’s information to be had.” I lower back, taking Ava with me.
“If you want to tell me, you will.”
How nonchalant she sounds. “I’m not sure I like what pregnancy is doing to my girl.” I rest my palms on her tummy, covering it completely. How I wish I could do that forever. Be big enough to physically shield them from everything. “First of all, she’s developed a phobia of my cock in her mouth.” She gasps subtly as I thrust myself up into her arse. “And secondly, she’s not blessing me with her forceful demands for intelligence.”
“My Lord isn’t blessing me with his wide range of expert fuckings, so we’re even, aren’t we?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “But she’s still blessing me with her filthy mouth.” I give her tickle spot a quick, warning squeeze and she jolts, sending water over the edge of the tub. And yet she still doesn’t hit me with any questions. What the fuck is going on? It’s easier to be questioned than to give a “talk.” Where are the questions? I frown at the back of her head, willing her on. She’s not going to ask—she’s going to make me talk with no prompts. She’s proving a point.
For fuck’s sake. “His name was Jake,” I say, my lips twisting as I wonder where to go next. Ava doesn’t help me out. I scowl at her back. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
Silence.
God damn her.
“He idolized me,” I go on, scratching around in my brain. Have I even started at the right place? Fuck it. “He wanted to be me.” The stupid fucking idiot. “I’ll never understand it.” I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but this hard? I’m getting nothing back, no questions, no encouragement. Jake’s not even piping in to help me along, which I suppose I should be grateful for since my wife is naked in the bath with me. I turn Ava around, needing her eyes. “I can’t do this on my own, baby,” I whisper. “Help me.”
Her expression falls, and she comes closer, nuzzling into me. “Were you not alike?”
I laugh under my breath, relaxing. This is better. “We were the furthest away from alike you could get,” I say. “In looks and personality.”
“He wasn’t a god?”
My smile is wide as I stroke her wet back, my hands gliding up and down. “He was a genius.” And kind, calm, handsome, smart, and considerate.
“How is that far away from you?”
“Jake had his brain to get him by. I had my looks and I used them, as you well know.” I squint at the space above her head, holding her tighter. “Jake didn’t use his brain. If he did, he wouldn’t be dead.” I swallow, blink, trying to chase away the inevitable flashbacks, feeling Ava’s body stiffen against me. I can hear the question coming a mile off.
“How did he die?” she asks quietly, and everything about her tone and volume, along with her tense body, tells me she’s wary of asking. That she’s sensed something is . . . off.
“He got hit by a car.” I spit the words out fast before I can swallow them back down and choke on them.
“How would that be not using his brain?”
“Because he was pissed when he staggered into the road.”
Jake! Get out of the fucking road!
I wince, squeezing my eyes closed.
“Carmichael isn’t the only reason you don’t talk to your parents, is he?” she asks quietly.
“No.” This is it. “The fact that I’m responsible for my brother’s death is a major contributing factor. Carmichael and The Manor came after and kind of put the nail in the coffin.”
“Jake was their favorite?” she asks.
“Jake was everything they wanted from a son. I wasn’t. I tried to be. I studied, but it didn’t come as naturally to me as it did to Jake.” A bit like charming the knickers off women didn’t come naturally to him. I always think we weren’t alike in looks. It’s not really true, we were identical, but there’s something about how a man portrays themselves that affects their physical appearance. Jake wasn’t confident like me. He wasn’t cocky or rebellious.
He was perfect. Wholesomely handsome. A fucking brainbox.
“But he wanted to be like you?”
“He wanted the small piece of freedom I gained through being considered the one with the least potential. All of their attention was focused on Jake, the genius—the one they could be proud of. Jake would go to Oxford. Jake would make his first million before he was twenty-one. Jake would marry a well-bred English girl and breed well-spoken, polite, clever children. Except Jake didn’t want any of that. He wanted to choose the direction of his own life and the tragic thing is, he would’ve chosen well on his own.”