Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
“I’ve got to go,” she stated coldly.
I flinched as if I’d been hit. It felt as if a bus had slammed into me.
“Violet—”
“I’ll see you at the airport. You’re still going to be there, right?” There was a frailty to her voice that I hadn’t heard in years. No, that I’d never heard. It was wounded, unsure.
I hated myself.
“Of course, I’ll—”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, honey…”
But I was already speaking to dead air.
I stared at the phone for a long time.
Swiss squeezed the back of my neck. “She’ll come around,” he told me with confidence.
I kept staring at the phone. “Yeah,” I replied weakly, without any confidence.
I spent the rest of the night hoping, praying that I had not lost my daughter.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kate
I had not heard from Violet in two days. I’d called her constantly, but each time it went straight to voicemail. She was screening my calls, which was understandable.
I’d sent her a couple of texts, telling her I loved her and that I would always be there for her, but other than that, I refrained. I barely restrained the urge to buy a ticket to Paris to see her.
Two days. Two more days and I would see her face. And if it was contorted with anger or hatred, I didn’t care. I just needed to see her.
Swiss was doing a wonderful job at keeping me calm, distracted, at eating the small feast I had cooked the past two days. I cooked when I was nervous, so the fridge was bursting with food.
Hence Macy arriving to pick up the majority of things I’d cooked that would go to waste otherwise.
Swiss and I were leaving tomorrow. We’d have one night in the suite together to get our bearings. Despite all of my nerves and anxiety, I was almost excited to be traveling with Swiss. To see him outside of this environment, yes, but also to have a whole bunch of new experiences with him.
He was packing. A duffel. With some tees, jeans and one other pair of shoes.
Despite having to rebuild my entire closet with limited resources, I had accumulated a lot of stuff. More recently I had accumulated stuff because Macy, Caroline and Freya took me shopping when my portion of the divorce settlement landed in my brand-new bank account.
My bank account. Under my name.
I was reasonably sure that divorce settlements weren’t meant to be paid out that quickly or a divorce itself was not usually settled in a matter of days. Then again, most divorces were not sped along by bikers threatening to torture and murder the man who was giving up the majority of his assets.
Maybe the Sons of Templar should add that to their repertoire.
I made a note to mention that to Swiss as I ran toward the front door. Unlike Swiss, I did not just have a duffel. I had a suitcase. A rather large one. Mostly because I was uneasy about what I would wear to the airport to see Violet, so I needed a lot of options.
Her entire life, she’d seen me in expensive, perfectly tailored clothing curated by her father. Designer blouses, sheathe dresses, heels. Hair styled just so, makeup light but purposeful. She’d never seen me in jeans.
My daughter had never seen me wearing them. Such thoughts hit me every now and then, the little realities of the life I’d lived that had escaped me when I was doing the big things like running away and falling in love with a biker.
I suspected it would take years for all of those things to stop hitting me at random points in the day. But they were no longer puncturing my skin in the same way.
So my thoughts were on outfits when I opened the door. What best would communicate to my daughter the person I was now without making her mother look like a stranger?
I supposed I probably already looked like a stranger. My hair was jet black and longer, worn in wild, bouncy curls. My makeup was heavier, sultrier. My face rounder because I was… rounder. I’d gained back the curves I’d lost while in the hospital since Swiss had made it his mission to get me looking ‘healthy.’ Every pound I gained was a new part of me for him to worship.
I certainly wasn’t fat, I was the size that my body was designed to be. But compared to how malnourished and small I was before… Yeah, the change was profound. I realized I’d tried to teach my daughter to love her body all her life when the example I’d been setting for her was the complete opposite. She’d only ever seen me half starved.
“Why are you ringing the doorbell?” I asked as I opened the door. “I know you want to make sure you don’t walk in on anything, but—”