Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Your dad and sister are so cute.”
“Yeah, they are.” I didn’t make any jokes this time because their relationship was honestly one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Dad had his own relationship with each one of us, but there was something uniquely soft about her.
“She’s the favorite, isn’t she?”
I grinned as I stared forward out the window. “He sucks at hiding it.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to hide love like that.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I turned back to her, getting comfortable in the seat too, not in a rush to shift the gear out of park. “My dad is not sexist or misogynistic in the slightest, but I know he feels differently toward her because she’s his little girl. She’s so insanely smart and successful, and the fact that she can compete with the guys in poker, graduated at the top of her class at Harvard, showed up all the boys and graduated top of her class while they worked their asses off, just gives him a kind of pride that he’ll never feel toward Derek and me.”
“Does that bother you?”
I shook my head. “No, not at all.”
“That’s sweet.”
“And if you think I’m bad when it comes to Mason and stuff, he’s worse.”
“Really?” she asked. “He doesn’t seem like he would be. Has he hated her other boyfriends?”
I turned my head to her, the windows totally cleared up but forgotten. “No. He doesn’t ask about her personal life at all.”
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “How is that worse?”
“Because he can’t handle it. He sticks his nose in my personal life all the time, same with Derek. Even when Derek got his heart broken and so did I, he never took a step back. But with Daisy, it’s like a don’t-ask-don’t-tell kind of situation. He just…can’t handle it. Daisy is aware of this, which is why she never introduces any of the guys she’s seeing to him. It’s kind of just implied that when she does do that, it’ll be the guy she’s gonna marry, so she doesn’t have to put Dad through that.”
Her eyes softened. “Because no one will ever be good enough for her.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Never.”
“I guess I understand a little more why you have such a problem with Mason.”
“Honestly, I don’t have a problem with him as a person. I just know he’s not good enough for her and I don’t want her to waste her time, but she wants to waste her time. So, what am I going to do?”
“If that’s how she feels about it, then there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, but I know she’s really into him.”
“How?” she asked.
“Because she never would have introduced me to him unless she wanted it to go somewhere. She acts like it’s casual and everything, but I know her better than that. I wonder if she’s pretending it’s casual to him too, but in reality, trying to integrate him so he’ll commit.”
“I mean…you’re making a lot of assumptions here.”
“I know. But I know her. And I can tell that guy is not the happily-ever-after, meet-your-parents, let’s-get-married-and-have-a-bunch-of-babies kind of guy. If they’re monogamous, it’s because he wants to keep her around because she’s one in a million, but he’ll eventually move on…and she’ll be devastated.”
She stared at me for a while, her eyes taking me in with a new look.
“What?”
“You’re really intuitive. Men aren’t like that.”
I shrugged. “I get it from my mom. I mean, I’m nowhere near her caliber, but I inherited a small percentage of her abilities.”
She was quiet for a while, her arms loosening around her waist now that the Range Rover was completely warm, the windows defrosted. “Do you read between the lines with all things?”
Mason’s words came back to me, what he whispered in my ear before he left. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at the time, but now I noticed her beauty more than ever before, noticed every single quality she possessed. If it was true, it was hard to believe a woman like that would want a guy like me, a workaholic, damaged goods, someone who fell so far from grace and needed so much help finding myself once again. I was weak for allowing Catherine to ruin me like that, and I was ashamed of it. Even if Sicily felt that way, I had nothing to offer her, no heart left to give, and I’d rather die than ever cause her pain. So, I lied. “No.”
We opened presents on Christmas Day, having a big breakfast together. The kids got presents from everyone, so that took a very long time for them to go through. Lizzie was moving out next year, but she was still a kid in our eyes, so she was spoiled too. She loved the sweater Sicily picked out.
I felt a little bad for taking credit for it.