Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“I’ve got them. I’ll meet you down there in a minute.” Ducking out of the room, I grabbed the bins before anyone could stop me. I practically jogged down the hall to the elevator. If the bins hadn’t been so awkward, I might have sprinted. Setting the bins on the floor, I closed and locked the elevator door, finally alone.
Everything I thought I’d understood about my family had done a sea change. My father and Ford hadn’t just declined to save me; they set me up in the first place. And they acted alone. Those two pieces of information turned everything I knew upside down. I’d spent far too much of my life hating the wrong people too much and the right people not enough.
I let out a gust of air. No, I hated my father and Ford plenty. I didn’t want to hate them more. I was done with hate. My father was dead. And in hell, if the universe was just. Hating him only hurt me. And Ford . . . Ford was rotting in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. I didn’t need to hate him more. He was already paying a price. Maybe it was enough. I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I needed to see him. My father was gone. He couldn’t answer for what they’d done, but Ford was still here, and I had things I needed to know.
The elevator doors opened, and I started for the kitchen, hearing Savannah and Hope coming down the stairs behind me. Dumping the bins on the counter, I pulled out my phone.
I tapped open the text message app and pulled up Griffen’s name.
I want to go see Ford.
Two seconds later, those three dots popped up on Griffen’s end.
And then his answer.
I’ll make it happen.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FINN
The light from Savannah’s front porch beckoned through the dark night, leading me down the gravel path between the Manor and the cottage. I’d managed to wait until just after nine. I would have turned up earlier, but I didn’t want to look desperate, even if I was.
Okay, not desperate, exactly, but close enough, dammit.
That kiss in the hallway earlier had been just a taste of Savannah. And that fuck on her counter had been more than I’d dreamed, but far too short. I needed more. I wasn’t sure exactly how much Savannah would be enough, but I knew I wasn’t there yet.
I’d been counting the minutes since dinner, since Savannah had taken Nicky and headed back to the cottage. It was our new evening routine, and I was surprised to find I didn’t like it. The kitchen was too quiet after they’d gone. Even though before they moved, Savannah and Nicky retired to their apartment behind the kitchens most nights, and I wouldn’t see them again until morning.
Usually, I’d finish cleaning the kitchen, doing any prep for breakfast, and then I’d leave, heading off to my rooms or to watch a movie or hit some balls around on the pool table. It wasn’t like we hung out at night. But knowing she wasn’t down that short hall, behind the door to her apartment—that she wasn’t under the Manor’s roof at all—left me feeling empty. Restless.
It was weird, and I didn’t like it. On top of the day I’d had, I hated the deserted feeling of the kitchens. Inside I was raw, still trying to digest everything I’d learned about my father and Ford, about my kidnapping. No one knew what happened except my father, Ford, and Cole Haywood. My siblings had missed me. I’d missed them so much more than I understood. I’d shut off all those feelings, lumping my siblings under the same umbrella as my father and Ford when they didn’t belong there.
We were all victims, and I was beginning to understand I wasn’t the only one trying to move beyond a painful past. As much as I’d wanted to punch Cole Haywood in the face when he’d made that smugly cheerful comment about how my father’s fucked up will had been good in the end, Cole wasn’t wrong.
If it hadn’t been for the will, I never would have come back here. I never would have found my family again. Not that I was going to be grateful to my father for a goddamned thing. But still, silver linings and all that. I was here, back at Heartstone Manor, and that was something good.
I climbed the steps to Savannah’s cottage as quietly as I could, softly rapping on the door. The last thing I wanted was to wake Nicky up. I had plans, and as much as I liked the kid, none of my plans involved a six-year-old.
Savannah pulled the door open, her long sunset curls and waves spilling around her in every shade from dark blond to strawberry to bold red. When had I last seen her with her hair down? Not since she was a teenager. I couldn’t think. In her faded t-shirt and leggings, her hair tumbling around her, and a pink flush on her cheeks, she was a goddess.