Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
I pump again and then again before I shudder and fall over the edge.
An hour later, I’m finally recovered enough to slip out of bed. Evangeline is still asleep even though it’s late afternoon. We wore each other out, and not just with the intense fuck. What happened back at the house in Queens was emotionally exhausting for me. I suspect it took a lot out of the woman I love, too.
I could see the compassion on her face when I told her about the depth of the loss I’ve suffered in my life. I’m not the only person walking this earth who has dealt with grief beginning at a young age. I’ve learned how to shoulder it so I can look at pictures of my parents and my grandma and smile at what was. Buzzy’s death was the hardest because so much went unspoken.
I go to the walk-in closet to grab a pair of sweatpants. I need water and food. For the first time since I saw Evie at Charlotte’s the other night, I’m hungry.
I find the sweatpants and slip them on. I’m on my way out of the closet when the wooden watch box catches my eye.
I pick it up. The weight of it is a reminder of how valuable each watch it holds is.
“You never told me why you love watches so much.”
Evie’s voice turns me around. She somehow slipped out of bed right after me without me hearing it. I’ve always been a great listener. I believe it stemmed from my childhood when Melody would wake up at night. I was the first in the house to hear her whimpers, so I’d sprint to her bedroom to comfort her. I’d read her a story, or sing her a nursery rhyme. I’d do anything to chase her sorrow away. I still would.
Evie brushes past me. “I need a shirt.”
“No, you don’t,” I say, unable to tear my gaze from her nude body.
She pulls on the sleeve of one of my blue button-down shirts. Seconds later, she’s buttoning two buttons to cover her breasts. “The watches, Reid. Most men have one or two. You have thirty-five.”
I motion for her to sit on a narrow black bench that the interior designer had built so I’d have a place to tie my shoes each morning.
She tugs on the bottom hem of the shirt to cover her pussy as she sits. I’m so fucking tempted to drop to my knees, part her legs, and eat her until she begs me to stop, but I can’t. Not now. I need her to know the man she’s fallen for. I need her to know me.
She looks up at me. Her face is bare of makeup. Her lips are swollen from my kisses, but it’s her eyes that I can’t look away from. They’re stuck to my face, scanning it for clues. “Do you love watches because Moses Winston did?”
I close my eyes to not only escape the vulnerability I feel but to ready myself for what’s to come. I have to tell this beautiful woman how I failed the most important man I’ve ever known.
“I read an article in a business journal about you,” she explains. “It was written years before I started working for you. They included some quotes you must have given during an interview for the piece. I remember you saying that Moses Winston was your mentor and you learned to appreciate the value of being on time because he gave you a watch as a gift.”
“I crushed that watch with a shoe the day he was arrested.”
Looking back, it was a stupid move. I should have pushed my pride aside and donated the watch to someone who needed it, but the sentimental value I had attached to it was the driving force in my effort to destroy it and any connection I had to Moses after his arrest.
He ran an investment firm until a client realized that he was stealing from his less wealthy clients to pad his pocket and those of his equally well-off friends. The news reports surrounding his downfall included endless video clips of people despondent over the fact that they’d lost their life savings to Moses.
“Oh,” she mutters. “I didn’t know.”
“He was a con artist, Evie,” I tell her, motioning for her to slide over slightly to make room for me. She does without hesitation, even patting the bench to signal that she wants me to sit as close to her as possible. I do.
Her fingers run along the edge of the watch box. “Did you start collecting these before or after he was arrested?”
I toss my head back and take a slow breath. “My grandfather collected them for me. It took him years to do that. I didn’t know about it until I found the watches a few days after he died.”