Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
My eyes mist a little over the unfettered joy I hear from my brother. We can’t afford a lot of fun things, so he’s being genuine when he says this is at the top of his best memories.
“You’re very welcome. And I left you something there in that box beside you.”
I turn around in my seat, surprised that Julian would offer another present, and I watch as Dylan opens a brown box sitting beside him that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Oh, wow,” Dylan exclaims and holds it up for me to see. It’s an entire box of the eclairs they were serving at the game, which look much better than the squished one in my purse. “Thank you!”
“You’re very welcome. Share some with your sister.”
“Yes, sir,” he says.
Julian’s eyes come to mine. “Good night, Harper.”
“Good night, Julian,” I say, my heart racing a tiny bit, not just from the thoughtfulness of the gift but from the way he’s looking at me right now.
As if he did that for me as much as he did for Dylan.
Julian winks, then disappears into his home before I can even thank him.
Chapter 12
Julian
Isit behind my desk at home, the room arranged in the same manner it has been maintained for years, unchanged not out of habit but by design.
The desk itself is a study in restraint. Dark walnut, hand polished to a muted sheen, its surface nearly bare save for what is necessary: a leather binder centered perfectly, a Montblanc pen aligned parallel to its edge, a small stack of documents squared with mathematical exactness. No clutter. I learned long ago that disorder invites distraction, and distraction is a luxury I have never afforded myself.
Well, I try not to afford myself. My conscience has been reminding me often of late that Harper has become a distraction, but I push that aside.
To my right, the library stretches the full length of the wall—floor-to-ceiling shelves in the same deep walnut, filled for use. First editions and financial texts sit beside architectural monographs, league reports beside biographies of men who built empires and some who lost them later. Every volume has earned its place.
Behind me, the city rises in glass and steel through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but my attention isn’t on the skyline.
It’s on what’s falling through it: snow.
At first, it’s barely visible. Fine, drifting flakes catching briefly in the light before disappearing against the gray sky, like static on an old TV. But as I watch, it gathers into a scene that’s more resolute, soft snowflakes settling against ledges and rooftops as though the city has exhaled and decided to finally slow.
The first flurry of winter.
The quiet calm before the storm always feels different. It’s subtle. Unannounced. Unmistakable.
I lean back slightly in my chair, my gaze tracking the movement of it.
Change rarely arrives with force. More often, it begins like this—slowly, until suddenly it isn’t.
A soft knock sounds against the door.
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens and Percy steps inside, the motion smooth and unhurried.
He carries a silver tray, polished to a mirror finish, upon which rests a porcelain teacup and matching pot. Steam curls faintly upward, delicate and controlled.
Chamomile.
The same afternoon tea he has brought me for decades.
He crosses the room with measured steps, his presence is as pulled together as the room itself and sets the tray down at the corner of my desk.
“Your tea, sir.”
I glance at it, then back to the window, where the snow has begun to gather more steadily now, softening the edges of the city.
“You’ve been bringing me that since I was thirteen,” I remark, more observation than question.
Percy doesn’t miss a beat. “Fifteen, sir,” he corrects gently. “Your preference shifted from Earl Grey in November of that year. You found chamomile… calming.”
A faint smile touches my mouth. “Did I?”
“You did,” he says. A slight pause. “You had discovered, at the time, that your father’s evening schedule was unlikely to change, regardless of your own.”
Percy has always had a way of delivering truth without weight, allowing it to exist without the need to delve deeper.
I reach for the cup, the porcelain warm against my fingers, familiar in a way few things are.
“Consistency has its advantages,” I say.
“It does, sir.”
I take a sip, the taste exactly as it has always been—light, unassuming, and steady. Unchanged by time or by circumstance. By anything at all.
Percy lingers after setting the tray down, his gaze drifting toward the window. “The first of the season,” he observes.
I follow his line of sight, watching the flakes as they catch the light before disappearing into the gray. “It’s beautiful.”
“There is something restorative about the first snow,” he continues, folding his hands lightly behind his back. “It suggests a certain… reset.”
“A clean slate,” I say, leaning back slightly in my chair.
“Precisely, sir.”
“New York doesn’t often lend itself to clean slates,” I add.