Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Anxious in a weird, almost anticipatory way.
“Sure. I’ll take a little of whatever you’re having.” I’d been surprised at the lack of wine at dinner. I suspected he was like a lot of Manhattan hosts, completely free with the booze and light on the actual food. Instead, we’d gotten some excellent tea and a truly lovely roast and potatoes and green beans almondine, complete with a delicious cheesecake I was assured is an Aggie special.
“I’m going to run Aggie home and stop by Harry’s.” Jeremiah stands in the foyer, wrapping a scarf around his neck. He put on a jacket and is helping Aggie into her light coat.
“I told him I can take the subway,” Aggie protests.
“Absolutely not,” Reid insists. He moves toward the older woman. “Since you’re too stubborn to take one of the bedrooms here, you must allow Jer to take you home. You’re precious cargo. Thank you for everything this evening.”
I was surprised at how tender he was with the older woman. He checked on her several times this evening and helped her bring out the food, asking her to sit and eat with us when everything was served. I’d expected a host of servers, but it had been just us and Aggie.
She turns her head slightly, welcoming a light kiss on the cheek. “Well, it was fun to meet royalty. They were far more normal than I expected. Far kinder and more personable than many of your clients. You behave yourself, Reid Dorsey.”
Jeremiah frowns and glances back at me. “Yes, behave. I’m not sure I should leave the two of you alone.”
Aggie pats his shoulder. “They’ll be fine. Ms. Ross, it was lovely to meet you. He doesn’t mean half of what he says, but when he’s backed into a corner, he’s not sure how to get out.”
“I’m not in a corner,” Reid grumbles.
I smile Aggie’s way. “It was nice to meet you. Dinner was excellent. Really, the best I’ve had in a long time.”
I missed a couple of Sunday dinners at Lydia’s because I was working, so I’ve been subsisting on ramen and takeout. Between preparing for the Banover Place job, fighting with my cousin over all things construction, and catching back up after the wedding, I haven’t spent much time doing anything but working, and I think that might have made me a wee bit cranky.
“Just remember what’s at stake,” Jeremiah says cryptically as the elevator doors open.
“You do the same, brother,” Reid replies as Jeremiah leads Aggie onto the elevator and we’re left alone. He turns my way. “Seriously? I shamed you for your boots? You couldn’t come up with anything else?”
I knew he wanted to call me out for that all night. It was kind of fun to pick at him.
“Probably, but why bother when it was right there?” I ask. I’m surprisingly chipper after the talk with Luca, and honestly, the food worked wonders for me. “What were those things? The delicious things that were like bread but also not?”
Reid sighs and crosses over to the bar, pulling out two rocks glasses. “Are you talking about the Yorkshire pudding? It’s a common English comfort food. Luckily for us, Luca spent a lot of time in the UK, so he enjoys English food. Aggie is a very proper Brit.”
“She seems nice.” I watch as he puts in a code to open the liquor cabinet. Odd. I guess he’s got the good stuff under lock and key so the servants don’t take a nip.
He pulls out what looks like old Scotch and pours a couple of fingers into each glass. “She is. She’s a lovely woman. She was our nanny’s sister. She came over to the States when Marilyn got sick and my father kicked her out. At the time Jer and I were at boarding school. We came home that summer to find my father had installed a new bang maid, and we were told we didn’t need a mother figure anymore. I had to enroll us both for fall semester and go to his accountant for the tuition.”
I hate when I feel for him. And I feel for him all the time. I take the glass when he passes it to me. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen,” he replies, taking a sip. “Younger than this Scotch.”
“And what did you do?” Somehow I don’t think he simply allowed it to pass.
“I found her. My father fired her without severance. He tossed her out like she never meant a thing, which I suppose she didn’t to him.” Reid walks over to the windows that offer a spectacular view of Central Park. It’s dark now, illuminated by the moon and stars and the buildings around it. Reid stands in shadows as he speaks, his eyes on the park below. “The worst part was I contacted her often. We had a standing phone call. Once a week. The week before I was coming home, she confessed what happened. She only told me because she knew I was about to find out. Even when she was making not a dime from my family, she treated me like a son. I used the trust fund my grandfather left me to make her comfortable. She was in a filthy nursing home in hospice care because the cancer was too far gone. Sometimes I wish I’d been the one to take my father out, not some random heart attack.”