Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
If I left, I didn’t think I could come back, but she’s amazed me again. She’s given me an option that I didn’t think would be there.
“I have to get back to Nashville. There’s only so much I can do from here. Smitty has sent me everything to sign electronically, but I want to make sure I have all of it taken care of without an inch of leeway before my cousins catch on. Also, I know if I leave and make it public, they’ll follow me back. Of course, Smitty will be here with you, and I’ll have security watching your place. They won’t get to you, I promise.”
“If you leave, the only thing I care about is that you come back. Eventually. When you can.”
“You’ll wait?” I ask.
Her eyes sparkle, and she squeezes my arm. “Of course I’ll wait. But Sterling?”
“Hmm?” I’m not thinking about the company. I know I should be, but it’s hard to focus when I want to think about Weland and all the things I could do to her instead. How she’d smell aroused, how her eyes would darken, and her pupils would get huge, and how I’d be able to make her moan and then lose all the breath it takes to even do that because I’d kiss her until she was breathless. Senseless. Until there was just me for her.
“You owe me a song,” she says.
“A song?” Of all the things in the world, that’s what she’s going to ask for? But it makes sense, given how she’s nothing like anyone I’ve ever met.
“Yes. One that we’re going to write ourselves, day in and day out. We’re not going to stop until we’re corny, classic, and cheesy. Isn’t that right?”
“It is.” God, I want to get back here. I don’t even want to leave in the first place. Leaving is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and this is coming from a man who found a fake wife, spent the past four years keeping her a secret from the world, and just started a company overnight. Or rather, moved the old one over overnight. “That’s definitely right.”
Chapter twenty-one
Weland
Idid talk about technically, and technically, Sterling has been gone for three weeks. Actually, it’s been twenty-three days, but who’s counting?
Me. Obviously.
I’ve been counting.
Counting down the days, the hours, and the minutes.
My family has been amazing. They’ve kept me from going out of my mind. They’ve been there for me like they always have. They haven’t once tried to talk me out of this. They’ve just been there with their jokes and their humor. We’ve played all the board games we love as well as cards. We’ve watched movies, cooked together, and talked.
I’ve also been busy with my students. Thank goodness for my work.
Beans has kept me entertained. He’s been a great bud. He’s taken to sleeping beside me on my bed, and I don’t mind his snoring and night-kicking one bit, even if it is disturbing. Dog cuddles are so good that they more than make up for it. I don’t know how Smitty knew what I needed, but he did. He kind of works miracles like that. Not just for me but for Sterling too.
He hasn’t called. And he’s not a texter.
But he has sent me a few emails, keeping me updated about what’s going on with the company.
When his cousins found out about the company, they threw a hissy fit to end all hissy fits to the power of hissy fits, and now they’re pouting. Sterling isn’t really sure what their next move is going to be, but as for his new company, it’s safe. All of it. There isn’t anything they can do.
I haven’t received an email from him in two days. I’ve been checking my phone neurotically, refreshing my email whenever I pick it up just to make sure it’s updated.
It’s a very Sterling thing to just show up on my doorstep, which he does right after dinner. One minute, I’m getting ready to take Beans out, and the next, he’s there, ringing my doorbell and thrusting a guitar case into my hands when I open the door.
“For you. I’ll tell you all about it tonight, I promise. It’s one of those rare, historical, expensive, played by a certain rockstar guitars, and I know you’ll never want to play it because you’ll be scared that if you do, it will lose some of its magic. But I can’t think of a single other person I would want to play it and infuse it with even more magic, which you would, of course, because you have the purest form of magical everything I’ve ever known.”
I know I said I wanted to live our own corny song lyrics, but this is above and beyond. I let out a squeal and launch myself into his arms. He sets the guitar case down and hugs me so hard that I’m lifted clean off the ground. “You have some magic too.” That’s the best I can do because I’m starting to sniffle and get hot in the eyeballs.