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)
Jeff was Jamie’s older brother. Jeff was also a wastrel, a sneak, and a pissant, and I felt qualified to make those judgments, even if I’d never met him, from all Jamie had told me about the degenerate man.
“Do you care that he runs it well?” I asked. “You don’t have many happy memories from there.”
“I care that my mom loved him. I care that he loved my mom. I care, if she was still alive, me doing that would make her happy. That’s what I care about.”
Jamie so very loved his mother, the beautiful Cordelia Oakley (I could also say she was beautiful, considering I’d seen pictures).
He told me the story, and I still felt the depth of the honor I’d experienced when he’d bestowed it on me.
The story was, after her passing, Jamie had found his mother’s journals. As such, he’d read about the love affair she’d carried on with the foreman of the ranch her husband owned. She’d also written about him asking her to run away with him.
She’d had three children by that time, and she was well-acquainted with AJ’s nastiness, not to mention the way he wielded his wealth as a weapon to perpetuate it, which she feared would mean she’d lose her children, so she didn’t feel she could.
Jamie’s real father couldn’t stick around and watch her husband treat her like a chattel.
He’d unknowingly left her pregnant with his son, found himself a wife and started his own family.
So, when AJ had finally set her free, she didn’t go to the man she loved to tell him what they shared. She didn’t want to negatively affect his life, because, by then, he had what he’d always wanted. A wife. A family. And his own ranch.
It was a tragic story, one Cordelia bore the brunt of, but through her journals, she’d unwittingly left some of it to Jamie.
I moved a hand to stroke his jaw and said carefully, “This plan of yours is keeping you from him, and your two brothers, and, darling, none of you are getting any younger.”
“I know,” he murmured.
“It’s also keeping all that from Judge and Dru.”
He said nothing to that, except emitting a soft grunt.
All right.
We were done talking about this.
For now.
I settled back beside him.
He curled his hand on my hip, the pads of his fingers digging in. “I want you to know, you’re heard, Nora. Let me think about it.”
“Okay, honey,” I whispered.
“Have a good night?” he asked.
“The best. Dinner was remarkable. The chefs there are very talented. And my company was second to none.”
He rolled into me so we were side by side, and then he tangled us up together, but he made no reply.
Then again, the physical reply he made worked very well.
“We’re spending a lot of time at my apartment after you proclaimed we’d eventually be living at your brownstone,” I remarked.
“And we’ll continue to do so until the bed I ordered is delivered. I can’t have you in the bed I shared with Lindy, and I can’t ask you to share that bed with me.”
God, I loved him so much.
Even so, I was me.
So I asked, “What if the bed you selected doesn’t fit with my decoration plans?”
“Then we’ll get rid of it.”
“Who’s wasting now?” I teased.
I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Shut up and let me sleep. You never do the work. If I’m going to make us both come in the morning, I need rest.”
“It isn’t me who refuses to let me on top.”
“I’m not a woman-on-the-top kind of man.”
“Because, if you were, you wouldn’t be able to control the rhythm.”
“Precisely.”
“And force.”
“Correct again.”
I sighed dramatically before saying, “If you were anybody else, I might find this vexing.”
There was outright humor in his, “It’s good I’m me then.”
It was indeed.
I snuggled closer.
Jamie held me tighter.
And not long later, we both fell asleep.
CHAPTER 11
DIOR
Nora
Late the next morning, my phone rang in the elevator as it rose to my floor, bringing me home after I’d attended the most desperately annoying committee meeting of women who were planning to raise funds to pay for an exhibition to be brought from a museum in France and displayed at The Frick.
I looked at the screen, felt my face get soft, and took Jamie’s call.
“Hello, darling,” I greeted.
“Hello, baby,” he replied. “I know you have your Skype with your kids soon, but I wanted to run something by you quickly.”
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out, saying, “I have twenty minutes, and I can text them to share I might be a few minutes late if you need more time.”
“I sense I won’t, but I don’t want to make assumptions.”
Again, Charlene had warned Alyona of my arrival because my front door was open before I got there.
I smiled at her, pointed to the phone, and mouthed, Jamie.