Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 130673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
“Mama, I think I’m in love with Rhyland,” I said miserably.
“Oh, cara, I know. You’ve been in love with him since you were six.”
“No, I haven’t.” I flashed her a scowl.
She gave me a private smile. “Okay.”
Shit. I had, hadn’t I?
“Then why did you let me go out with Tucker?” I demanded, feeling irrationally upset with her for a mistake I’d made myself.
“Would you have listened?” Mama gave me a “bitch please” look. Neither of us touched our food. She sighed, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in her housedress. “Look, I knew what you thought of me. You saw me as this little woman who let her husband hit her. You were mad at me for not protecting Row properly from him. And you were right. I was mad at myself too. I didn’t feel like I had the tools and logic to give you life advice when I made such poor decisions for myself.” She pressed her fist to her mouth, tears clinging to her lower lashes. “And by refraining from interfering, I unknowingly sent you into the arms of a very bad man. A man just as bad as your father, as it turned out.”
“No, Mama, I never disrespected you for staying with him.” I pushed my chair closer to hers, putting my hand on hers to stop her from smoothing the wrinkle-less gown. “I was angry at Dad but never at you. You were in a foreign country, in a small, largely unwelcoming town, a mother of two young children. No job, no prospects, no help. I’m sorry if I made you feel…less.”
Now she was crying, and so was I. Not because of Tucker—Tucker was going to prison, I knew. On my seven-hour drive up to Maine, Row had managed to catch me up on all the legwork his private investigator was doing even before the kidnapping scenario. He’d hired someone as soon as he realized Tucker wanted to see Grav. Apparently, my ex had a rap sheet longer than Moby-Dick. He’d accumulated a lot of arrests in several places, including Australia, South Korea, and Greece. From larceny to disorderly conduct and DUI, he pissed off a lot of people in a lot of continents. In fact, it appeared that he returned to the States because no other place would have him.
I was crying because I might have lost the love of my life, all because I was too scared to love him.
“It is Dad I’m still angry at,” I explained. “It’s his fault I can’t trust men. That I want to think of them as disposable.”
“But then look at Marty and me.” Mama’s face lit up. “He put my heart back together when I didn’t even think I had anything left to give to people who weren’t my children and grandchildren. Happily ever afters happen all the time. And they are especially satisfying if the road to them is bumpy.”
“Mama, I screwed up,” I moaned.
She gave me a stern look for my choice of words but let it slide. “Why do you think that?”
“I left him when I knew people leaving was his red line. His parents were very neglectful to him growing up. They blew his inheritance money and left him with their dogs to travel the world.”
“Poor Rhyland. I always had an inkling.” My mother made a face. “He’ll forgive you.”
“Do you think?” I winced. I hoped so. God, I did. But even though Rhyland had been nothing but amazing to me, I knew he had his own limits. He was no pushover.
“Yes. You two will be just fine. Il dolore aiuta a crescere.”
“Hmm?”
“Sorrow helps one grow,” she explained. “Those things you suffered through weren’t in vain. They gave you perspective. They gave you strength. The thing I’ve come to learn about having a partner you love is this.” Mom stroked my cheek compassionately. “It’s not always going to be easy, but it’s always going to be worth it.”
“I need to call him.” I stood up.
Mama’s hand shot out to stop me. She shook her head. Her smile did the chiding for her.
I dropped my head back and groaned. “Ugh, really?”
“Really.”
“But I just got back.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Gravity is asleep.”
“Leave her here.”
It’s not that I was too lazy to make the journey back to New York. It was that I wanted to talk to him immediately. To grovel my ass off.
“I love you, Mama.”
“I love you more, cara.”
RHYLAND
“You’re shitting me,” I sighed.
“Rhyland!” Zeta, Dylan’s mother, reproached me from her doorstep, waving a kitchen towel threateningly at me. “Watch that language of yours. I said she is not here, and that is that.”
“Where is she, then?” I asked impatiently.
It was two in the fucking morning, and I was running on no sleep, no food, and no fucks. I wanted to see Dylan. And since I didn’t have a private jet at my disposal, I’d made my way here in the McLaren, breaking approximately every traffic rule known to man.