Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“Not too bad.”
I have to laugh when I think of that afternoon I spent with Kerris years ago, marveling at her having three kids in as many years. Here I am pregnant with my third in five years, and I can’t even blame it on twins. Walsh and Kerris stopped at three, so far. The demands of running Bennett Enterprises have been greater than even Walsh could have anticipated, especially with my father’s departure.
After more than thirty years as partners in corporate raiding, Daddy and Martin Bennett parted ways. Daddy decided to leave rather than serve under Walsh. Last I heard he was consulting for some of the most powerful CEOs in the international business community. We Bastons always land on our feet.
Only I’m not a Baston anymore. I’m a Bishop. Trevor’s huge family truly embraced me unreservedly, making me feel finally like I have a family, not just a lineage. His Sunday school–teaching mother never once made me feel like a sinner. She made me feel like the girl her son loves the way her husband loves her. Trevor’s capacity to love in spite of flaws, to love without condemnation—I know where he got that now. It wasn’t just red hair his mother passed on. She showed me a mother’s love, something I realized I’d been missing my whole life, and it filled a lot of the holes my own mother left.
The public wasn’t as easy to convince. Bets were laid about how long Trevor and I would last before I cheated on him, dumped him, humiliated him. Occasionally some reporter will still refer to my “wild days” or call me a “reformed bad girl.” Trevor was right about those labels people slapped on my back. Ultimately, they don’t matter. Thank God Trevor peeled back the persona to find the person underneath. Trevor has never cared what they say, and now neither do I.
I slow my steps to match his as we get closer to the house, both of us enjoying even this sliver of time alone without kids everywhere we turn. Much as we love his family, our time alone fuels us both. I can tell he misses the little quiet piece of the world we carve out for our young family as much as I do. After living out loud for so long, it feels good to live just above a whisper.
“Carter’s loving the chance to hang with all his cousins.” I stop a few yards shy of the villa entrance, taking in Trevor holding our one-year-old in his powerful arms.
“You still feel good about leaving him and Grace with my mom for a few days while we’re in London?” Trevor searches my face, pushing back the hair I keep bobbed just above my shoulders.
“If there’s anyone we can trust them with it’s your mother, and all those sisters of yours.” I shrug. “Besides it’s just for a few days. We’ll pop over for Halima’s event and come right back. The kids won’t even have time to miss us. Grace stopped feeding just in time.”
I lean into my daughter, pressing my forehead to hers.
“Didn’t you girl? Just in time for Mommy to go away. You’re gonna be a good girl for Grammy, aren’t you?”
She answers with a bubble and a tiny-toothed grin.
“Can you believe we’re having another baby?” Trevor’s mouth crooks with a satisfied smile.
I just roll my eyes and shake my head. Number three was not planned. I’m in the middle of launching the Haven Home line and planning a Paris fashion show to benefit all the charities Haven’s proceeds support. I’d planned to wait until the dust settled some, but my body had other plans.
I glance down at my brief shorts and tight tank top.
“I just got my body back, besides a few stretch marks, and now it’s time to give it up again.”
“You only get better and better.” He tips my chin up, eyes growing warmer. “Inside and out.”
I lean into him, pausing when the front door opens, his mother standing there holding Carter’s hand. He runs out to us, throwing his arms around Trevor’s knees.
“Someone’s been asking for you, Daddy,” Mama Bishop says, smiling before she slips back into the house, allowing us a few more minutes alone.
“Daddy,” Carter whispers, dark eyes trained adoringly on his father, little arms stretched over his head. “Will you pick me up?”
Trevor holds Grace in one arm, Carter in the other. Carter immediately burrows into his father’s neck.
How the two of us created a shy child, I’ll never know, but Carter’s personality is so completely different from either of ours. Besides Trevor’s dark eyes, he’s the spitting image of me at four years old, his hair Nordic blond. Sometimes I look at him and see my father’s features so clearly, it makes my heart ache a little, though less and less as the years go on.