Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
And if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t go more than a handful of minutes without my mind wandering to Bennett, wondering what he’s doing, replaying a sexy shared moment, daydreaming about his touch, counting down the hours until I see him again …
Would I be able to walk away now and not miss him? Not feel a thing? Never look back?
No. Not even close.
I park the car and help Honor out, locking up as we head to the elevator.
“Yes, Honor.” I press the call button. “I love him too.”
* * *
“Uncle Bennett, we’re home!” Honor drops her bookbag by the foyer rug, kicks off her shoes, and dashes into the next room, her footsteps pattering around as she searches for Bennett.
I slide his spare key into my bag. It was last weekend when he surprised me with it. The thing was shiny, pristine, clearly never used before.
My head spins when I think about how fast everything’s moving, but as long as I’m enjoying the ride, maybe it doesn’t matter?
Sometimes when you know, you know.
“Uncle Bennett, where are you?” Honor trots across the foyer, going the other direction.
“In the study,” he calls from the hall.
I follow her to his leather, cedar, book-scented room and lean against the doorway, watching as she runs to his arms.
“Did you have a nice day at school, Honor?” He’s so proper with her, speaking to her like a miniature adult and not in some cutesy baby voice I hear a lot of parents use.
“The best,” she says. “And Uncle Bennett, guess what?”
“What?” he asks, eyes lit.
She turns to me, pointing, giggling. “Ms. Carraro loves you!”
His amused expression falls. Heat singes my cheeks as his gaze searches mine.
There’s always a chance children misinterpret what they hear or put things into their own words. I should have given her a vague answer, told her I would discuss it with her uncle in private, but I was caught off guard, distracted by this supposed revelation.
Bennett rises from his desk. “Is that so, Honor? She told you she loved me?”
“Honor, why don’t you go wash up and play for a bit before dinner?” I tell her.
She skips out of the room. A moment later, her bedroom door opens and closes.
“She told me you said it first,” I say. “But kids take things out of context sometimes, so …”
“I said it.” He moves toward me. “And she didn’t take it out of context. Though I’d hoped you’d get to hear it from me first …”
“You’ll learn quickly that kids repeat everything …” I chuckle.
He closes the space between us, takes my face in his strong hands, and lowers his mouth to mine, bridging the painfully long forty-eight hours since the last one.
I inhale his intoxicating scent, revel in the way it mixes with the scent of paper and leather and polished wood, and I melt against him.
“I love you, Astaire.” His lips graze mine when he comes up for air.
“I love you, too.”
He wraps me in his arms, and I press my cheek against his chest. Trevor’s heart—Bennett’s heart—strums in perfect rhythm.
When I was twenty-two, Trevor took me to my first theme park. I’d never been on a rollercoaster until that day, and he took me on this ridiculously extreme snake-themed hyper-coaster that went from zero to sixty in three seconds and had one of the world’s tallest peaks and steepest drops.
I’d never held on so tight in my life.
Screamed at the top of my lungs.
And there were moments I was certain I was going to die before we got to the end.
But when it was over, there was this rush, this sense of calm, this strange sense of accomplishment, like I’d conquered some insanely terrifying monster—and that it was never the coaster I was scared of because the coaster was perfectly safe … it was my beliefs about the coaster.
In my head, I’d convinced myself it was dangerous, that it could hurt me.
Maybe this thing with Bennett is happening fast, maybe it’s terrifying, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the best thing about it. And I’m willing to bet it’s just as paralyzing to him as it is to me—but as long as we have each other, we’ll arrive safely together in the end.
* * *
The flames in the fireplace flicker, the mantel clock ticks.
Bennett flicks a page in his book.
Honor snaps a cardboard piece into her Dora puzzle, hair wet from her bath and smelling like vanilla and apricots and dressed in head-to-toe Minnie Mouse. It’s time to put her to bed, but I’m milking every last second of this moment.
Bennett closes his book, watching Honor. I don’t think he realizes it, but he’s smiling.
He does that a lot now—smiles.
Before it was rare. Now it’s constant. It’s like this sweet little thing just waltzed into his life and put his soul a little more at ease, giving him a chance to make things right for Larissa.