Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Funeral.
“Were you there?” I’m all over the place. “Were you at Jace’s funeral? Did you even go?”
“That is not fair,” he growls.
“Did you even care? Do you? You burned the letter. Maybe Jace meant nothing to you. Maybe he wasn’t like a brother at all. Maybe he had you all wrong. Maybe—”
“Alright.” Patrick doesn’t move. He doesn’t even raise his voice. It’s still a low growl, but there’s something different about it. Something final. Something that’s the equivalent of a foot stomp and an angry crossing of the arms. “You’ve made your point. Come inside. We’ll talk. I was a jerk. Just…let’s just…we got off to a bad start. That isn’t what he would have wanted.” He lets out a shuddering, ragged sigh like I’ve ripped him apart too. I’m all sick with trembling regret. My stomach feels like a milkshake made of all the nasty things, times a merry-go-round and multiplied by a ship tossing about in bad weather. Those dark eyes of his drop down to the doorstep. It’s not made of regular concrete. It’s something fancier and a little bit sparkly. It seems like it would never chip or flake. Something stronger than concrete? What could be stronger? “He was like a brother to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t burn the letter. I said that to be a jerk. I…just come in. Please. We’ll talk, but we aren’t getting married. Not over a letter. Not for any reason.”
I can be as stubborn as a big old mule. I can make him pay for his surly ass meanness, but I honestly don’t have it in me to make him pay. Even if it’s just regular me without a letter persuading me with all the love in my brother’s heart to take care of this man, I won’t be able to do it.
“Okay.” I don’t agree, but at least this gets my foot in the door, literally. If that’s all I get, then at least I tried my darndest, and it’s important that I feel like I’ve done that. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter three
Rick
I’ve never felt so wrecked in my life.
I got Jace’s letter and had a good laugh. I thought it was Jace’s way of playing a joke on me, the same way he would have when he was alive. Did it also make me incredibly sad? Of course. Do I wish with every fiber of my being that he was here right now? Absolutely. I do. All the time. Did I take the part where he asked me to look after his sister seriously? I did. I was already starting to make plans to figure out how I could do that, but I never thought she’d take the darn letter literally and show up here.
In lightning-fast time, I might add.
She’s Jace’s half-sister, but she looks so much like him that it’s haunting. She has sandy hair, blue eyes, and a fine bone structure with high cheekbones. It looks different on her than it did on him, obviously. She’s beautiful. He was athletic and rugged. She’s tall and slim. He was tall and jacked. I wonder if they both look like their dad. They must because he’s the parent they share in common.
She lets out a gasp as she steps inside and takes in the place. It’s the gross, ultra-modern design I can’t stand. Then again, if it were any other design, I still wouldn’t be able to stand it because this was his house before it was mine. Glass railings, stairs that appear to float in mid-air, square everything, concrete floors, bare walls with an expensive painting or two here or there, furniture that looks like it’s made out of stone and cardboard and feels about as comfy to sit on. Floor-to-ceiling windows in spots, huge hanging light fixtures, and a metal sculpture in the corner of the huge living room that stands thirty feet tall, almost all the way to the lowest point of the ceiling.
“It was my grandpa’s.” I don’t have to explain this to her, but even Jace didn’t know this about me. I feel…naked.
No, correction. Jace knew just about all my secrets, and he did know my grandpa had money, but he didn’t know the extent of it. Even I barely knew. This wasn’t the house my grandpa had when I was little, which was when I became a burden that he seemed to regret for the rest of his life. He solved that by packing me up, shipping me off, and making sure I never came back home. And when I was old enough to make the decisions for myself, I never came back either.
This isn’t really a home. It’s just an empty shell that’s worth a couple of million dollars. And by a couple, I mean likely fifteen. Maybe more. The market keeps going up and up and up.