Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100188 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“Don’t you fucking say it,” I warned, a mixture of relief and embarrassment beginning to fill my face despite knowing I’d done absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.
“I’m sorry,” Saint said. And the look on his face was awful. He looked miserable—such a far cry from how he’d looked just moments before when we were laughing together. I wanted to climb back on his lap—kiss him again and tell him it was all okay. I was so relieved that it wasn’t some big joke—that he really seemed into me the way I was into him. But maybe he was right. “My boss wants me in Dallas by morning. I can’t stay here with you and face him, Augie. I can’t.”
“Okay,” I said instead. “Go.”
Saint stood staring at me, forehead crinkled in confusion and indecision. I could tell he was torn between wanting to stay and needing to go.
“It’s okay,” I repeated softly. “I understand. You have to know I wouldn’t want to do anything to put your job in jeopardy, Saint.”
“Augie…”
I made my way toward him slowly, careful not to step on any of the debris on the floor, until I was standing in front of him.
“One more kiss good night?” I asked with a smile.
He swallowed and stepped into me, wrapping his strong arms around me. Instead of kissing me though, he tucked his face into my neck and hugged me tightly. My entire body relaxed into his arms immediately, and I felt my throat tighten with an unfamiliar emotion. A possessive feeling I’d never had before as long as I’d lived.
You belong with me.
The next day at work I found myself daydreaming about that last kiss with Saint. Well, all of the kisses with Saint, really. But that last one had been the most heart-wrenching mix of sweet and desperate, and it somehow left me feeling an aching emptiness inside way worse than anything I’d felt before. Saint had pulled back from the hug and kissed me with everything he’d fucking had. And the kiss had burned away any final suspicion I’d had about him playing me.
There was no way on earth someone could have faked what that kiss had been between us.
Earlier that morning, I’d thought back to the dinner I’d had with my family a few nights before. Brett had only stayed long enough for one drink before disappearing for some kind of meeting at work, but that hadn’t stopped Mom and her brother from being just as annoying as my cousin.
Uncle Eric had asked me for Melody’s antique writing slope, which she had left me in her will almost a year before. I’d had to explain accidentally forgetting it at home.
That writing slope had been in my family since it was handcrafted in 1790 for a distant ancestor named Margaret Baker, who at the time had lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire called Penn and had a passionate, forbidden love affair with a local craftsman. I’d spent hours reading Margaret’s small collection of love letters inside the ancient wooden box, along with the diary she’d kept after her lover’s untimely death only two years later. It had been the central romance story of my young years until I’d discovered the Jude Devereaux paperbacks stashed in a shoebox under Melody’s bed one summer at the Hobie farmhouse.
In fact, the tiny intricate key Margaret had used to lock her writing slope had become the first key of my collection. Melody had given it to me years before, and I now wore it on a chain around my neck under my clothes. The only times I took it off were for things like my self-defense lessons when I feared it would get snagged on something. There wasn’t much monetary value to the items inside the box, but the words were raw and pure, private and intimate. I held the key near my heart more as a symbol of respect than anything else, as if I was guarding someone’s innermost desires, and in Margaret’s case, innermost pain as well.
When my grandfather had delivered the slope into my possession after Melody’s funeral, it had come with a lecture about understanding its value and keeping it safe. As if I didn’t know that. I had multiple degrees and certifications in art history, antiquities, and appraisal. And all of it had been born out of a genuine connection with my own family history and artifacts. To finally have Margaret’s slope in my possession was a bittersweet feeling.
So when Grandfather had asked to see it the other night at my house, I hadn’t been surprised. I’d assumed he was checking up on how well I was keeping it safe. I’d never known him to be particularly sentimental, but maybe he had feelings I was unaware of. After retrieving it from my bedroom closet, I’d brought it out to him for inspection. To my surprise, he’d pulled a duplicate key out of his pocket to open it.