Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
The kid walked quickly to me, clearly relieved. He kept glancing at Mrs. Ashby, who was still staring at all of us like she had no idea where she was.
When the boy reached me, I asked, “What’s your name?”
The child looked at Cass’s grandmother as if waiting for permission to speak to me. Mrs. Ashby had disengaged from the encounter and was holding on to Renly’s arm as he escorted her out a side door and into one of the endless rows of neatly trimmed rosebushes.
The boy watched the old woman leave. All the excitement he’d shown when he’d wanted to show off his picture was gone.
“It’s okay, Mother Ashby’s just a little tired right now, but I’m sure she’d love to see your picture tomorrow,” I said gently even as I shifted my gaze back and forth between Cass and the boy. I reached out to pick the little boy up so he could sit on my lap. He seemed surprised by the move but warmed up quickly and eventually leaned against my chest as he studied his picture.
When he handed it to me, he said, “It’s a rose. ’Cause Mother Ashby says I’m her little rose. Like the big ones out there,”—the boy pointed toward the garden of roses—“but little.”
“It’s a beautiful picture,” I told him. “Did you sign it?”
When the boy looked down at his picture in confusion, I used the opportunity to study Cass. He’d sat back down in his chair, but he looked ashen. He couldn’t take his eyes off the little boy in front of me.
“Sign?” the kid asked curiously.
“Yeah, every great artist signs their work with their name,” I explained. “What’s yours?”
The child looked around the room as if to make sure it was okay before answering with, “Channler Charles Ashby.” He held up four fingers.
“Do you mean Chandler Charles Ashby the Fourth?” I asked. Ice filled my veins when Charles nodded.
Even though all the direct male descendants of the very first Chandler Ashby shared the same first name, the fact that they had different middle names meant they didn’t need numbers after their names at all because suffixes were only needed when the full names matched perfectly. Either way, Cass was considered the fourth Chandler in the Ashby family. He’d mentioned his father having another son with a different wife, so that child would likely have not even had a suffix at all but if the Ashby patriarchs had decided to stray off the beaten path when it came to how their heirs were named and titled, it was foreseeable that they could have done the same with Charles. That meant that in the Ashby line, the little boy would have been the fifth Chandler.
But if the child was introducing himself as the fourth Chandler, that meant that Cass—
Cass chose that moment to stand. In his haste, he knocked the metal chair over, startling Charles. Then he was striding down the walkway that led back to the main part of the mansion.
I was torn between leaving the child by himself in the suddenly empty solarium or trying to find someone to take him. Thankfully, a frazzled woman came running toward us.
“Charles!” she called. He jumped off my lap and ran to her. The woman and I shared a few brief words before I quickly said my goodbyes to the little boy and then all but ran to catch up to Cass.
I knew that even if I managed to catch up to him, it wouldn’t matter because my Cass had disappeared the second he’d seen Charles. To outsiders, he would look calm, but the knowledge that his beloved grandmother had seemingly replaced Cass with Charles meant one or more of the compartments inside his head would be all but ripped apart and then only one thing would happen.
All hell would break loose.
CHAPTER 27
Cass
The room I was in was virtually pitch dark, but my eyes, out of necessity, adjusted quickly. More importantly, my other senses kicked in. For once, I welcomed the darkness. I reveled in it. The silence of it. The protection it offered. Even though I was never truly safe, the little room that kept me locked away from the rest of the world was the only friend I had. It literally had my back.
I took a long drag on the bottle of beer that was in my hand and finished it. I knew it wasn’t real. None of it was ever real. But at some point, my brain had started giving me little gifts like a frosty cold beer or a greasy burger that was so big I could barely open my mouth wide enough to take a bite of it. There was never any taste to it or the beer, though, so I’d never understood why my own brain would sabotage me. And what the fuck was the useless organ doing by giving me a beer? A beer? Why not a strawberry milkshake that was so thick it took a spoon to “drink” it down?