Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
He got as far as the kitchen, where I was putting some of the finished chicken cutlets on the plate.
“That smells amazing.”
“My fried rice is pretty good too.”
He inhaled deeply. “Okay, I’ll stay, but only for you, Mr. Harcourt, not your son. And I’m staying in here.”
“Thank you, Finn,” I said, smiling at him.
“Come back,” Kola crooned, gesturing for him.
Finn only glared.
Wick walked back over to the table and sat down beside Harper. “I’m sorry I was a jerk earlier. But you completely schooled me, so that should make you happy.”
“Yeah, it does,” Harper goaded him.
He crossed his arms on the table and then put his face down into them.
Seconds later, Harper leaned down and kissed Wick’s temple. “I’m still going to marry you, and now we can play your cousins who are coming to visit at Christmas and mop the ice with them.”
Wick’s head popped up, and he turned to Harper. “Ohmygod, we can.”
“And you hate those guys.”
“Yes, I do.”
Harper smirked at him.
“You hate your family?” Sam asked him.
Wick turned to my husband. “Some of my family, yessir. Don’t you hate some of your cousins? Doesn’t everyone?”
After a moment, Sam nodded.
“Yeah, see?”
“Stay in there,” Finn demanded as Kola got up and moved quickly around the table, his eyes narrowing, stalking his boyfriend. “I’m not kidding.”
“There is hot oil in here,” I told them both. “Knock it off.”
Finn looked at me, glanced at Kola, and then bolted for the back door. Kola was right behind him with Dobby in hot pursuit.
It was a very enjoyable dinner.
Sam and I drove to Lake Geneva, which was this beautiful little town that he’d been to many times but I had only visited once before. There were a million things to do, and just walking the streets was fun. We stayed at the Bordeaux House, in the Falconer’s suite, which Sam had booked, sight unseen.
“This is fantastic,” I said as we used an actual key we were given—I couldn’t remember the last time I had been given a metal one— that was attached to a tassel, and unlocked the room.
It looked as though we had stepped through a portal in time. I had never seen so much brocade and velvet. There was classic striped gold-and-white wallpaper, window treatments, an enormous armoire, a bed with a serious kingly canopy, and a huge chandelier over the bed. There were mirrors on the walls of the bathroom, everything was gilded, and we were walking on thick maroon carpet.
“What the hell?” Sam sounded a bit horrified.
He jolted at the large ceramic Great Dane in the bathroom, was not a fan of the glaring portraits on the walls, didn’t understand why there was another chandelier in the bathroom, and wasn’t sure why there was so much heavy draping of fabric off every surface.
“What the hell?” Sam repeated, walking around the rather small area. “This is a suite?”
I had to FaceTime Hannah to let her know we arrived safely.
“Is that velvet behind you?” she asked me.
“Yes.”
“Is it maroon?”
“It is.”
“Dad, why did you book the two of you into a Victorian brothel?”
He growled at her.
“I thought you got a suite.”
“I did,” he snapped, leaving me sitting on a wingback chair across from the bed by a window, to walk through the tiny space again.
“Are there mirrors on the walls in the bathroom?” she asked me.
“Yes. How did you know? I didn’t walk in there with my phone.”
“I can see it on the website,” she told me. “And you’re supposed to have a balcony there if it’s an actual suite, and the toilet and the shower are separated by a wall.”
I chuckled.
“It’s too bad you didn’t get the Fishmonger’s Wife suite. That one is all done in black, and there’s a widow’s walk that’s attached.”
“Stop.”
“Oh no, I’m wrong. They had to cut off access to the walk because some people fell off. They think there might be a ghost up there.”
“Ghosts throw people off things? Since when?”
“Did she say ghost?” Sam asked from the balcony he was out on.
I was dying. So was my daughter.
When we went downstairs to go find a place to have lunch, we were presented with the itinerary for our stay, and that evening our meal included a murder mystery.
“No,” Sam told me.
I was cackling as I pointed out that the following day, we were supposed to walk the Geneva Lake Shore Path, which was only eight to ten hours long.
“No,” Sam was adamant.
Saturday night was a special event at the Black Point Estate and Gardens that apparently, Aaron had paid for and signed us up for as a surprise. It was a black-tie Gatsby-style party, and the tickets were very much in demand.
“No,” Sam whined, and it was adorable.
We sat down on a bench overlooking the lake, and his sigh was long.
“Why did you do this?” I asked him.