Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 59022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
“Is everything okay?” She frowns as she takes in the look on my face.
I know my thoughts are erratic, and when my emotions are high, like they are now, it’s almost impossible for me to hide anything from my face.
“Fine, everything is fine,” I reply briskly.
“Maybe if you have a slice of cake or donut, you’ll feel better,” she suggests saucily. “Your sweet tooth must be jonesing.”
“For you,” the words come out before I can stop them. Forget donuts, I want to lick her up and down.
I hate myself for saying them, but I love the look on her face when she hears them. She lights up and her face turns that sexy little shade of pink that I’ve come to adore.
“You just left,” she whispers.
I cock a brow.
“And?”
There’s enough heat coursing through my body to melt the north pole.
“Grace can hear you!” Her friend shouts out from the room. “Very loud and clear, sir!”
I let Charlie know from the look on my face how much I care about that.
“Can I call you back?” She asks softly.
I wish I hadn’t dropped her off so quickly but at the time I was worried about how attached I already was, and I couldn’t wait to create some distance between us.
Now I don’t know what I was thinking.
“I’ll call you after I finish some business I need to attend to,” I tell her quickly.
“Okay, then, I’ll talk to you later,” she smiles at me before hanging up.
Why am I devastated staring at the blank screen on my iPhone? Why do I feel like the world just ended? What’s this awful pit in my stomach?
What the actual hell?
“My God, did someone die?!” Jayson shouts out when he enters the room.
He rushes over to me in worry, looking panicked.
“What is it, man?!” His British accent becomes thicker when he’s nervous.
“It’s Charlie.”
I’m embarrassed for myself and from the look on his face I can tell that he shares the sentiment.
“You have it bad,” he says in shock. “Real bad.”
“I don’t know if I can handle hearing this right now,” I raise my hand and close my eyes as the whirlwind of foreign emotions course through my veins.
“Well, what are you going to do, Stetson?” Jayson looks serious all the sudden. “Are you going to keep her or let her go?”
“I like my life,” I tell him what he already knows. “I love my freedom.”
“If you keep her, you will without a doubt change your life forever.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Stetson didn’t call me back like he promised—not at all.
He really didn’t call me.
The words echoed through my head from the moment I sat down for dinner, to the second my head hit the pillow in my dark, sad room. Yes, it’s quite sad right now because I am devastated.
He. Didn’t. Call. Me.
I can’t believe it. That’s what the problem is. It’s that I really can’t believe he didn’t reach out and for once, I didn’t reach out to him. I didn’t text him like the old Charlie would have to be cute and check in and to hope desperately that nothing had changed. No, this time I’m letting myself sit with it.
Because Grace was right and yet again, I foolishly believed I could trust my gut. I’m seriously going to figure out a way to get a gut transplant when I’m home because lord knows this gut of mine has made some serious mistakes recently. It feels better to blame something when I know it could be me. I could be the problem, not my instincts, maybe in the end I wasn’t enough maybe. No I shake my head, I know I didn’t make those things up, the moments between us the things we shared.
Before I can go down a dark dumb gut road, I think I hear a noise in the room…no, but then the bed sinks down next to me and strong arms I remember so well encircle me from behind. I feel his beard in my neck, and I melt up against him. He feels so familiar.
And he smells like sweet home.
“Miss me?” He whispers against my ear as he begins to trail kisses down my neck.
“I did,” I admit shamelessly. “A whole lot.”
“Me too.”
And then I forget to think because I’m lost in the vortex of Stetson.
He’s gone in the morning. Just like he was never here and on the bed in all its shining glory is the clause. I’m afraid it isn’t real. I really wish I was imagining it, but there it is in all of its shining glory staring up at me, daring me all over again.
My hands graze the special parchment paper as my gaze draws down to the signature lines and on the spot I signed next to his name is a stamp that says void.
Void as if it never happened.