Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
She was keeping herself busy and, in the six weeks since she’d filed for divorce, had tried her utmost to forget that she had a soon-to-be ex-husband lurking in the woodwork.
It would be a lot easier to do if he wasn’t constantly trying to contact her. She’d put his texts on mute and had stopped torturing herself by listening to his voice mails. But that didn’t stop him. He sent gifts, which she returned unopened, and had tried to contact her through Jackson and Gretchen, and various other household staff members—until she’d prohibited them from even approaching her with a phone in hand.
And—worst of all—the divorce proceedings had stalled. The man point blank refused to sign the papers.
She knew why he’d done so… he wanted to irritate her into confronting him about it. Which would be playing directly into his hands. He wanted to see her. That much was clear. He’d come to the house several times demanding to speak with her in person while Gretchen, who refused to be cowed, stonewalled him at the door.
He’d been suspiciously quiet over the last three days and Lilah was trying not to think about what that meant. Hopefully it meant that he’d given up, and if that was true, Lilah should definitely not be feeling this curl of disappointment in her gut. It would be good if he gave up, then they could both move on with their lives.
She walked into the bright studio space, in Green Point, that she was renting for her business.
“Morning, Kirby,” she greeted her assistant/receptionist with a wide grin and placed a latte on the reception desk for the young woman. “How’s our day looking?”
“Morning, Lilah,” Kirby said with a smile, and lifted her latte, tilting it toward Lilah in appreciation. “Thanks for this. I need it, traffic was hell today.”
Lilah offered her a small sympathetic smile, and took a thirsty gulp of her own—too hot—cappuccino. She couldn’t really relate, Jackson had arranged for a driver to take her where ever she needed to be. Lilah rarely drove herself anywhere. She had a driver’s license but she doubted she’d ever have the guts to drive in real traffic after all these years of being chauffeured everywhere. Besides, it had been drilled into her that she never go anywhere without some kind of security, and after the incident at college, she’d never tried to ditch her security people again.
“We have a pretty full day ahead of us,” Kirby was saying, staring at her computer monitor, which reflected back onto her trendy prescription glasses. “We’re wrangling six-week-old golden retriever puppies in our first session. An action shoot with a Belgian Malinois and her skateboarding owner after that, a few standard mommy-and-me shoots for the rest of the day, ending with a senior and his human family.”
“I ever tell you how much I love my job, Kirby?” Lilah said with a grin and Kirby smiled widely back at her.
“Only every damned day, boss!”
“What time is our first session?”
“Not till ten.”
“Fantastic, gives me time to catch up on some admin.”
Kirby saluted her and Lilah laughed. She picked up a stack of waiting messages and mail from Kirby’s desk and, still sipping her cappuccino, made her way to her own desk. She went through her emails methodically replying as needed. When that was done, she leaned back in her chair, put her feet on the desk and flipped through the post. It felt like every second envelope was junk mail and she tossed it in her little wastepaper basket without thought. She’d formed a nice rhythm and had nearly worked her way through the stack, when a smaller envelope caught her eye.
She picked it up and stared at the bold, instantly recognizable handwriting for a long moment, wondering if she should just chuck it like the other junk, but in the end her curiosity won out.
Why would he send her a letter? Was it just to say all the same things he’d been trying to say in his texts and voice mails?
She carefully unsealed the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper from it.
At first glance there didn’t seem to be too much written on it. She plucked her lower lip between the thumb and forefinger, still wondering if it would be wise to read this. But in the end decided she might as well, since she’d already opened the damned envelope.
Lilah read and re-read the short letter—note, really—a dozen times, then read it again. She flipped it over to see if she’d missed anything, but the other side of the page was blank.
What a weird little letter. She didn’t know what to make of it. She should toss it out with the trash, instead she read it again. His words felt so honest, so raw… so unlike Ben and she didn’t want to throw it out. Not yet. She needed to let it simmer for a bit, settle. Then she’d decide what to do about it.