Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“Yeah, I do.”
“There’s just this void where that person used to be. But when Dad went, the void was two people wide because Polly just… disappeared. She retreated into herself. She couldn’t cope. That’s such a stupid phrase,” he mutters. “To cope is to survive and we’re all here. We got through it.”
“But nothing is the same.”
“Yeah.” He rakes both hands through his hair leaving furrows where his fingers were. “I mean, Polly is better now. More present. But, let’s face it, when you get picked up drunk in the street and the police shove you in a cell to sober you up, are you going to ring your hardheaded brother to come and pick you up, knowing the only price you’ll pay is listening to him rant and rave as he drives you home? Or will you call your tenderhearted mother, the woman you don’t want to hurt but that you know will weep and see your failings as her own. The woman who might, if you’re unlucky enough, book you both a place at a weekend retreat where there is nothing to do but talk about your feelings. That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. If you want to know the answer, ask Daniel.”
“He went to Thailand to get over the bonding session?”
“So he says.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why does Daniel… why does he…”
“Have a normal name?” The corner of Whit’s mouth quirks with amusement. “He chooses to go by his middle name. His actual name is Orion.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“What for? You didn’t give us ridiculous names.”
“Leif isn’t ridiculous,” I demur.
“No, not if you’re a tree.”
I giggle softly. I love that he can laugh at himself. “A tree or maybe someone Scandinavian.” Or maybe just a wonderfully gorgeous man.
“Which clearly I’m not,” he says, holding out his hands. Look at me in all my glory. I stifle a sigh because oh, I do. “Anyway, we all became very good with our fists thanks to our ridiculous names.”
“That I know to be true.”
Come here.”
“What?” His sultry purr catches me off guard.
“Come here,” he repeats as he pushes back his chair and pats his knee.
This man. He has a heart as big as a house.
Oh my God. I’m a monster. How could I do this to him?
The thoughts come from nowhere, they just sort of drop into my head, the implications of my actions suddenly crystalline. I feel weighted to the spot where before, I’d felt nothing but free. Fearless and reckless, drunk on the power I seemed to wield.
But now, now I feel ill.
I shouldn’t be here—I should’ve left last night. Left after sex. This feels like we might’ve set a precedent. Hell, we shouldn’t even have had sex! Just look at all this food! I mean, what’s it all for? What is this about? Because I like cake? Because Whit likes me?
He is worth so much more than this, worth more than being used by me. Though I guess if I asked him, he’d argue strongly for the opposite. He’d probably insist he’s quite happy to be used. As hard and as often as I like. But that would only be because he doesn’t know the whole of it. And more than that, I now see that he won’t be able to resist adding me to the list of his responsibilities. This is why he was so dead against us. This is what he was trying to do for my brother—to do what he does for his own family. He guides them. Looks after them. And now he’s going to want to do that for me.
Maybe even after I go home.
He deserves better than that, better than me.
Even if he’s not the one living on borrowed time?
Especially so.
The guilt weighs like a stone on my chest, but I push it all away at the same time as I push back my chair. He wants to hold me and despite what I now know, I want to be held. Because I’m selfish and shallow and because the truth is painful.
I could lose my heart to him but what good would come of it? That piddling thing would be no good for him.
Another step closer, the shame and remorse swimming through my head.
What if he fell for me? What a catastrophe that would be.
Do my eyes leak regret as I stand by the side of his chair?
Whatever happens between us, he won’t let me walk out of his life. The realization makes my stomach hurt; the truth feels sickening. I think too much of him to make myself another weight on his chain.
21
WHIT
“Did you eat enough?” I ask as she distractedly, rather than obediently, comes to stand next to my chair. My shirt hangs a little from one shoulder, her silver bangle disappearing under the length of a folded sleeve. I’m surprised I haven’t passed out from a lack of blood flow. She looks so hot in the thing.