Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 149(@200wpm)___ 119(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
My eyes flick from his straight down to his mouth. I lick my lips. Yesterday’s kiss still lingers there. I can still taste him. Anytime my mind had a free moment it drifted back to the kiss. I find myself tilting my head back.
This moment feels real. As though we are a happily married couple in the kitchen making dinner together. He leans down to kiss me, but a popping sound from the steak has me jerking back. I grab the handle, pulling it off the stove.
“Can you set the table?” I ask, trying to hide the fact that my face has warmed. I’d silently asked for a kiss and he had almost given it to me.
“Sure.” He stands there for a moment watching me.
“The plates are in there.” I point to one of the cabinets. He picks up a piece of paper from off the counter. I walk over, setting the pan on the counter. I look down to see what he’s reading. I notice it’s a sheet that tells him how to cook dinner. I bite my lip so I don’t laugh because as mad as he makes me, it’s adorable that he’s trying to make me dinner.
He builds empires but he has a cheat sheet to make dinner. I take the paper from his hands.
“I think you can set a table without instructions.”
“They aren't even on there.” He almost sounds annoyed.
“There was no way that Grant could have predicted that I was going to ask you to set the table.”
“He predicts most things.” This time I can’t hold my laugh in.
“Are you finished?” he asks, his own lips twitching into a smile.
“Set the table,” I order him.
“As my wife wishes.” I plate our food while he does his best to do as I asked before taking our plates into the dining room.
“Maybe we could watch tv while we eat?” I suggest. Heath looks down at his watch.
“Culinary Masters doesn't start for thirty minutes and I already set the table as you requested.” He motions to the table. “How about we eat and then we can watch it while we have dessert?” he suggests. How does he know what I watch?
“Deal,” I agree as he pulls my chair out for me. I sit, digging into our food. All of this feels way too normal. I feel relaxed and comfortable around him for the first time. More so when we sit down on the sofa and I pass out with my head in his lap somehow.
13
Heath
She’s always saying that she’s too heavy and needs to eat less but as I carry her into her bedroom, I don’t feel it. If anything, she could use a few more pounds. Her cheeks aren’t looking as round as they ordinarily do. I wonder if she’s stressed out about the grocery store. Maybe the feasibility study will ease her mind. She’s tired. I do know that. We weren’t more than ten minutes into the cooking show on television and she closed her eyes to “rest for a sec.” The next thing I knew, she had fallen asleep. I may have nudged her to rest her head on my lap—for her own comfort.
I cycled through three shows, which is what I think they call binge watching, learned how to cut herbs (rolling them up, who knew?), and that bread is difficult. I’ll stick to buying it from the professionals.
I would’ve stayed there all night but I figured she would rather sleep in her own room. This wasn’t an excuse to get into her bedroom. Not precisely. Okay, maybe it was. I hadn’t been in here in forever. It was her own space and I tried hard to observe that. Our townhouse is one of the traditional walk-ups I bought for around twenty million a week after I laid eyes on Orchard. It’s a long, thin home where every floor serves a different purpose. The master is on the top floor whereas Orchard’s room is a floor beneath mine. The bedroom is in the back overlooking the garden and her reading room is in the front facing the street.
Sometimes when I’m climbing the stairs, I’ll catch a glimpse of her sitting in front of the fireplace in the reading room, her feet up on a fuzzy cushion, sipping on a cup of coffee with the book lying unread in her lap as she stares out the window. Maybe she dreams of an escape while I’m imagining kissing my way down her neck, stripping her out of her clothes and taking her so many times that she can’t go into that room with the memory of us tangled together.
Her bedroom offers no views from the stairs. It’s just a long corridor ending with a white painted door that’s almost always closed. I nudge it open with my foot and proceed to the bed with its lemon yellow duvet cover. Gently, I lay her down and cover her up with the throw at the end of the bed. She murmurs something soft and sweet that I don’t catch and curls up on her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. My protective instincts rise up and lodge in my throat like a rock. I need her to be happy. I wonder if she knows how important it is to me that she is happy.