Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Since no one said anything, and Nico was still looking at Jamie, Jamie had to say, “You’re right, Nico. It was a cool thing to do.”
He felt Nora’s arm wrap around his waist and she squeezed.
He squeezed in return.
“Do I need to break out the vodka, or are we down with deciding bolsters versus reading wedges?” Darryn asked, then he looked down at his wife. “And just to say, reading wedges are never gonna win, baby. I mean, do you know your mother?”
Allegra turned to Nora.
“They are rather unattractive, dear,” Nora said.
“God, I married my mother, in hot-tall-brilliant-guy form,” Allegra complained.
Darryn grinned wide and white.
Nora squeezed Jamie’s waist again.
“Dad, do you want to see the dress I’m going to wear to the adoption party?” Dru asked.
“No, darlin’, when I see you in it, I want you to stun me with your beauty yet again,” Jamie answered.
Dru shot him another beam.
“I love this fuckin’ guy,” Val announced. She then stated, “We’re all good, but you can still break out the vodka, D.”
“Yankees are playin’, man,” Archie reminded Darryn.
“Fire it up, brother,” Darryn replied as he headed to the kitchen for the vodka.
Archie reached for the remote.
Nora let him go, sat back down and reached for the design sheet of the primary bedroom.
Jamie headed back to the living room.
Darryn abandoned interior design for baseball, and the men sat around the TV, watching the Yankees, while the women remained at the dining room table, spending money.
Oh yes.
Jamie loved family time.
Any way he could get it.
Nora
“Someone turn the furnace down.”
I shifted my attention from Jamie, looking resplendent in his dinner jacket, to Byron, who I was standing with.
“In…deed. We’re all about to catch fire,” Bryan, who was also standing with us, added.
Although I felt quite comfortable, I became alarmed. “Do I need to talk to management about adjusting the thermostat? Are you uncomfortable?”
“No, doll,” Ryan joined the conversation. “They’re talking about the lipstick on Jamie’s collar, and the looks you two have been scorching across the room at each other since you got here.”
Jamie was in a very good mood. Jamie had just officially adopted his beloved daughter. Jamie’s son and daughter-in-law were there. Jamie’s grandson was with his cousin Laird being babysat by Elsa’s mother. Jamie’s real father, his wife, and Jamie’s half-brothers were there.
Jamie was in his element.
This being, surrounded by people he loved.
As such, prior to us coming out tonight, things had become rather…
Heated.
Delightfully so.
“It’s not like she doesn’t look at him all the time like she wants to devour him,” Wallace put in.
“Or like she’s remembering having been devoured by him,” Ryan said.
“Or like she’s preening, because he’s staring at her like he wants to devour her,” Wallace added.
“Or like he’s remembering how he just devoured her,” Ryan kept at it.
“I’m jealous, I want a man to look at me like he wants to devour me,” Byron complained.
“Step behind me in that line,” Bryan muttered.
But I was struck.
I turned my attention back to Jamie, only to find him watching me. When he saw my gaze on him, his danced down the length of me, back up to my face, whereupon he smirked in the most delightfully scrumptious way.
Yes, it was like he was remembering devouring me, and he didn’t mind that I got lipstick on his collar when he did so.
Oh my.
“So, do tell,” Ryan said, and as politeness dictated considering he was talking to me, I tore my attention from Jamie to give it to Ryan. “What’s it like having it all?”
There was only one response to that.
Thus, I gave it to him.
“It is, of course, darling, everything.”
Ryan smiled at me.
I smiled at Ryan, and all the boys.
I then moved my smile to Jamie, who was now talking to Tom, Dru had joined him, and father and daughter had their arms around each other.
Yes.
Having Jamie in my life…being able to claim Jamie as mine…
It was everything.
TikTok
The woman’s miniscule head bounced around in front of a photo of Nora Ellington, wearing a Carolina Herrera pinkish-nude, long strapless gown covered in crystal disk sequins and floating pearls. She was walking hand in hand into a restaurant that was closed for a private party with Jamie Oakley, who was wearing a perfectly tailored, traditional tuxedo.
“The Swans, Holloways, Pierces, Sharps and Oakleys never let things get boring, as you can see,” the talking head in the TikTok video said. “Janora is officially oh-ficial. Because look at that ring.”
A closeup of the Harry Winston Pink Legacy engagement ring that sported a nearly 19 carat pink diamond with colorless diamond shields at the sides rested on Nora’s left ring finger.
“The handsome Jamie Oakley and the gorgeous Nora Ellington are going to tie the knot, and even though we didn’t get a lot of pictures from Chloe Pierce Oakley and Judge Oakley’s wedding day,”—the picture behind the head changed to one of the few photos of Chloe and Judge’s wedding day that had been released to the press—“as you can see, what we did get was fabulous. I mean, who decides mauve as their wedding color? Chloe Oakley did, and she worked it. And now, of course, everyone is doing mauve weddings, such is the trendsetter that is Chloe. That said, Nora has more experience being absolutely fabulous, even more than Chloe. So I suspect we’re in for a real treat when those two get hitched.”