Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Beck frowned her way. “I wasn’t saying that. He’s obviously mine. I thought you were on birth control.”
She felt herself flush. “I was. I had an implant. I was supposed to get it changed out every four years, and my four years were up. I didn’t think about it and I hadn’t been home in months, so I didn’t get the handy reminder. Things were kind of crazy after we found all that information. It looked like my job was on the line and I was told to stay in London. So I guess I wasn’t very careful.”
Beck’s expression softened. “He looks a lot like my dad. Ezra and I share a mom, not a dad. But you hid Ezra from me for a very long time, and when you ran, you ran to him.”
“He was with my uncle. Ezra’s been with my uncle for the last ten years. Before that he was, well he should tell you that story,” she replied, a bit surprised he wasn’t demanding a paternity test. “Have you talked to him?”
His jaw tightened and he sat down at the table, mug in hand. “I need to calm down. I say things I don’t really mean when I get angry. I’m very angry right now.”
She hadn’t imagined he wouldn’t be, though she’d rather thought he would come in yelling and threatening to burn the world. “I’ll go and try to get some sleep then.”
“Kim, please sit down. I have questions. I won’t lose my temper. I promise.”
But he had to be really angry. Volcanically angry. Still, he was here, and she had questions too. “How did you find me?”
“Hutch and Adam found you,” he replied. “Hutch connected you to Francis Bruno, which led Adam to check the CCTV cameras around Malta.”
She forced herself to take a deep breath because she wasn’t going to cry. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry around him again. He wouldn’t view it as anything but a manipulation. “I shouldn’t have bought the shop. That was my mistake. Having any kind of a life. I didn’t for a long time. I stayed in the residence. I didn’t actually leave it until it came time to go to the hospital and have Roman. I guess I thought no one would care after a while. Time is funny when you’re stuck in one place. It goes by slow, and then one day you look up and a year is gone.”
“I understand the feeling. Sometimes it feels like that day was yesterday, and others I’m sure a hundred years have passed since Paris.”
There was an ocean of time between them, but she still felt like not a moment had gone by. He looked the same except for a bit of gray at his temples. She still saw the young man she’d fallen so madly in love with. This was the danger of being anywhere close to Beckett Kent. She forgot all her good sense and longed to be the twenty-two-year-old idiot she’d been when she’d fallen for him. She needed to focus on the problem at hand. “How do you think Levi found me? Do you think he followed you? Or did you follow him? He was in the bookstore before you.”
“Yeah, that’s my fault. We’ve actually been watching you for a couple of days,” he admitted. “Or rather not watching you. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come into town.”
“Roman was sick,” she told him. When his eyes flared and she realized he was about to ask a million questions, she preempted him. “It was a stomach flu. Nothing to worry about. It’s going around the school system. He’s very healthy.”
He nodded as though her response had settled his worry. “I’m glad to hear he’s all right. And that answers why we were sitting around hoping we were in the right place for days. I was careful. It’s why I brought the Lost Boys with me instead of a McKay-Taggart team. I’ve been looking for you for years. All this time, I never stopped.”
“Why?”
He went quiet for a moment. “I can’t answer that now. Not fully. I need to process all of this before I figure out how I feel. I can only tell you that I cared about what happened to you and I was sorry for how it ended. I said things I shouldn’t have said. As for Levi, I’m trying to work out how he found you. He said something about someone holding out on him. I don’t think he expected we would be there. I talked to Ian earlier and told him he might have a leak. I promise you I would never have come here if I thought Levi was following me. I didn’t even know if I was going to make contact.”
She was confused. He was going to check her out but not make contact? “So you wanted to say you were sorry?”