Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
It was why he liked music. He loved the chaotic, endless clatter of jazz and how it swallowed the silence in big chomping bites.
Music was a gift. A comfort. A chaotic distraction.
Silence was honest. It made a man face who he truly was. No masks, no noise, no more disguises.
As he neared the surface, a blurred figure took shape.
Jack breathed deep and wiped the water from his eyes. Nick stood, holding a towel and his robe.
“Sir, you have a visitor.” He stepped aside, and Jack’s heart stopped.
She was a radiant vision his brain instantly denied. He didn’t trust his eyes as his lungs forgot how to breathe.
The last of his breath rushed out in a single word, “Daisy.”
She raised her hand tentatively. “Hi, Jack.”
Her face had filled out, and her clothes were new, but her eyes still told a story of hardship that he suffered a pressing need to ease.
Jack rushed up the ladder, water splashing off of him in urgent disorder.
“Sir,” Nick muttered, handing him a towel.
Buffing away the water, Jack quickly covered himself with his robe. He took a step forward, then stilled. “What are you doing here?”
Her smile was brief. Too brief to reach her tired eyes. “You’re not an easy person to find.”
“Yet here you are.” He took another hesitant step.
She reached into her small purse and withdrew a letter. He recognized it immediately.
“You did this.” When he didn’t try to deny her accusation, her face pinched. “A scholarship, for underprivileged women, in my mother’s name.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, too much for Jack to bear, so he closed the distance. “It wasn’t meant to make you cry.”
She slapped the letter to his chest. “The Pamela Burdan Memorial Fund.” Her lips pressed into a tight line. “I contacted the trust. Seeds of Hope? That’s you.”
“I wanted to honor the woman who raised you.”
Twin tears fell from her lashes. “You didn’t even know her.”
“I know her daughter.” He reached for her cheek, sweeping away that vicious tear. “I’ve missed you.”
Her eyes closed as she leaned her face into his touch. He didn’t know how long they had, so he savored what little contact he could get.
“Why didn’t you come for me?”
Her words caught him off guard. “You… You left.”
Looking up at him with those haunting green eyes, she shook her head. “I didn’t know what was happening. Everything was suddenly falling apart. Tannhäuser, the—”
“Shh, shh, shh.” He pulled her into a tight hug, grateful she didn’t push him away. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? You saved me. Again. I think about what could have happened, and I…I…”
He drew back, holding her shoulders firmly as he looked into her glassy eyes. “Don’t think about that.”
She nodded. “I know. I try not to.”
He spent countless nights forcing himself to see the situation from her side. “I never wanted you to see that side of me.”
Her brow pinched as she blinked back more tears. “What side?”
“Ugly. A killer.”
“You were defending me.”
He released her shoulders and stepped back. Over the weeks that followed what would be the last feast, he made a decision to accept who he was. Daisy deserved the truth. “That’s not the first time I’ve killed a man.”
The silence stretched, cool and slow, like a wayward breeze slicing through a balmy summer day. But she didn’t run.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.” She licked her lips and glanced at the nearby garden table. “Can we sit?”
“O—of course.” He fumbled over his words and quickly pulled out a chair. When she touched her throat, he rushed to pour her a glass of water from the pitcher on the tray.
“Thank you.” She sipped steadily, draining the glass as her eyes scanned her surroundings. “Your house is big.”
He chuckled, more tickled by her presence than amused by her words. “Do you like your new home?”
She met his stare and set down the empty glass with a shaky hand. “How did you know—”
“I wanted to make sure you were…safe.” He caught her hand, tracing the backs of her knuckles with his thumb.
“I am.”
He studied her face. Dark circles still hid under her eyes. “Are you happy?”
She shrugged. “Most days. Nights are…hard.”
Jack nodded.
Her lashes lowered as her gaze dropped to their hands. She opened his fingers and dragged her thumb over his signet ring. He sensed her piecing together the things that went unsaid.
Like a toy soldier controlled by a key, every muscle in his back tensed until his lungs were too tight to breathe.
“Was he your first?”
Jack’s eyes closed. The chancellor had been the first of many things. Most of them evil. “Yes.” His throat constricted to a pinhole.
“Screaming,” she said softly, face tight as she dragged her finger slowly over the raised letters.
“Yes.”
Her brows drew tighter. “He put all those marks on you?”
This time, his voice abandoned him. He nodded.
“How old were you?”