Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I pulled the envelope out of the drawer. “Is that all you saw? The picture of Sarah?”
His eyes focused on the envelope in my hand. “What else is there?”
“I…” I couldn’t think of how to explain. “Sarah Sawyer’s your mother?” I asked, though I knew the answer already.
He glared. “You know she is. Why do you have her picture? I don’t even have her picture.”
That sidetracked me. “Why not?” Stupid question, I realized. I didn’t have a picture of my father beyond what I’d found in the trunk.
“My father took them all,” he said.
I nodded, my eyes locked on the black-and-white photograph in his hand. “I didn’t have any pictures of my dad either,” I said. “Not until I found the trunk that picture was in.”
I looked at the envelope in my hand, then at Ford standing there with his mother’s picture, so angry because I’d lied, and the guilt hit me. He’d been through so much. I wanted to yell at him for invading my privacy, for confronting me, for being angry. But where did I get off being pissed that he’d caught me? Yeah, he went in my drawer, but— I glanced back down at the open drawer. He hadn’t been invading my privacy. No—that was me, investigating his family while I was working for them. It hadn’t seemed like that much of a betrayal until now.
I sank down to sit on the side of my bed, looking at the envelope in my hands. I’d done enough damage with lies. For this, I needed the truth.
“When I was cleaning out my mother’s house after she died, I found a whole trunk of my father’s things. I never knew him. He took off before I was born. My mother always said there was another woman, that he left us for her, and he never came back to contradict her story. I didn’t know anything. Going through the trunk, I learned he’d been in the army. And I learned that he’d been involved with a woman named Sarah who loved him. She wrote letters.” I held the envelope out to Ford.
He took a step in my direction, only close enough to lean forward and snatch the manila envelope from my hands. When he looked at me, I felt ice skate down my spine, and a grief I hadn’t expected wrapped my heart. We’d slept together once—this wasn’t a great love affair—but the distance between us, the idea that this was over, left me gutted. I wanted to be in bed with Ford, under the covers, wrapped up in each other. I wanted to see him smile. And I’d fucked all that up.
He reached into the envelope and pulled out a letter.
As he scanned it, I said, “I looked up her name, realized she was a Sawyer. I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but then my former nanny family had a connection to Hope. They knew she and Griffen were looking for someone, and I was between jobs, ready to move on—it seemed like fate. I needed a job, a change, and I wanted to find my father. So, I came here.”
“And lied to everyone about who you are.” Ford’s eyes were fixed on the letter in his hand, but the fury in his tone sent a shiver through me.
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell the whole truth. I passed the background checks because I am who I say I am.”
“Who is your father?” he demanded.
“Paul Williams,” I said, the name still unfamiliar. How had I not even known his real name until I found that trunk? And why had I risked so much to find a man who’d never bothered to meet me? If only I could go back— I hadn’t known how much I would have to lose. I hadn’t seen Ford Sawyer coming, and now it was over.
I could almost feel my heart cracking.
“Paul Williams,” Ford said slowly, lifting his gaze to stare at the ceiling. “The name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
I forced myself to stay in the moment, to listen to him. “I’m not surprised. I haven’t done much investigating, but no one seems to recognize his name or know what happened to Sarah—to your mother.”
“My mother ran off with some guy and left us. I’m assuming the guy is your father.”
“That’s my guess,” I said.
“And what did you want out of all of this? Some kind of compensation?”
“No. No.” I shot off the bed to pace the room, wrapping my arms around myself, rubbing my hands up and down my biceps to warm up. Could I see my breath? It was so cold. Everything was cold: the room, Ford, my frozen heart. I hated this. “No, I don’t. I don’t want anything except to know where he is, where they went, and why he never came back. Did you ever hear from her again?”