Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I clean the kitchen while Reid gets ready and he emerges in a pair of dress pants and a fitted blue shirt, with a suit coat slung over his arm. He looks yummy and another passionate kiss almost derails his plans, but it’s the promise of us seeing each other in a handful of hours that finally gets him out the door.
I shower and do my hair in a loose knot, choosing a simple sundress with a lightweight cardigan and flat sandals. No makeup. No pressure. Just fresh air and a little breathing room.
The streets outside his building are clean and quiet. I wander toward the harbor, passing boutiques with handbags in the windows that have so many zeros on the price tag, I’m not sure I can afford to even look at them. I walk past outdoor cafés filled with poshly dressed and beautiful people, their laughter echoing off whitewashed walls.
I follow the curve of Avenue Princesse Grace, the sea glinting beside me with gleaming yachts and crisp white decks, their flags fluttering lazily in the breeze. Deckhands move about in matching uniforms, scrubbing teak and arranging fresh-cut flowers on dining tables bigger than my entire childhood kitchen. The morning sun casts a warm sheen over the manicured gardens and sleek glass high-rises that line the promenade.
I pass the Japanese Garden, its stone lanterns and koi ponds nestled quietly among the palms, before the path opens toward the Grimaldi Forum—a glass and steel behemoth event venue perched above the water.
It’s beautiful. It’s ridiculous. And it’s not mine.
But, if I want to be a part of Reid’s life, it will be mine. For this small-town Australian girl, this seems impossible and exciting all at once.
I sit on a stone bench overlooking the marina and pull out my phone. The time in Torquay is just past 7:00 p.m. My mum will be home from work by now, so I hit her name and wait for her to connect.
She answers on the second ring and her cheerful voice instantly grounds me. “Lara, love! Are you calling to make me jealous of your view?”
I laugh softly. “No way. It’s not all that great.”
What a lie! It’s fabulous and she knows it.
We talk for a few minutes. I tell her about the gala last night—about the lanterns and champagne, about how I talked for almost half an hour to Brienne Norcross and that she might be the coolest woman I’ve ever met—my mum excluded, of course. I leave out the part about women flirting with Reid, about my moment of self-doubt, and the part where it all felt like too much. I don’t want her to see me as being unsure about any of this, especially since our timing is a bit awkward.
But I do tell her about Posey making me laugh so hard I nearly dropped my glass. About how someone mistook me for a model and asked what agency I was with and Reid beamed at me with amusement. About how I stood in an expensive green dress (worth more than my laptop) that Reid had delivered to the apartment for me and about how I still can’t quite figure out how I got here.
“It’s like I’m playing pretend,” I admit finally. “Like I’m just a footnote in his real life. The flashy one.”
“Oh, honey,” she says. “That’s just the glitter talking. None of that has anything to do with what really matters. The question is—how do you feel when you’re with him?”
“Safe. Seen. Wanted.” I pause, a little hesitant. “Loved… I think.”
I can hear the thrum of joy in my mum’s voice, that I’m getting the things I want and need. “That’s what counts. The rest is noise.”
A silence stretches before she says, “Have you heard from Lance?”
My heart squeezes. “Yeah. He texted me this morning.”
It came in just moments before Reid was ready to walk out the door. I immediately showed it to him, and he scoffed at Lance’s words. You always said I didn’t see you. I do now. I see everything. And I’m sorry.
“What did he say?” Mum asks.
“He apologized,” I say, not bothering to tell her the full message. It was odd… his choice of wording.
He didn’t see me before, but now he does?
It’s cryptic and I wonder if he’s deflecting from the real issue… that he struck me in anger.
My mum exhales into the phone. “And does his apology change anything?”
I stare at the water for a long beat. “I appreciate it but I’m a little sad. Not a deep grieving of what was lost, but just… a little sad. And the fact I’m not grieving our relationship fills me with guilt.”
“I expect that has something to do with the fact that it was over in your mind long before he hit you,” she suggests and admittedly, that resonates. “I think you need to own your feelings as they are because you’re doing what’s best for your happiness.”