Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I laugh, because it’s my stock answer when people ask me about my job and he’s seen right through it. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“So what’s it really like? I can’t imagine you sit down at your desk or at the piano or whatever at nine in the morning and take a lunch break and then clock off at five.”
I glance up at him and grin. “No. It’s not like that.”
“So what does a typical day look like?”
No day feels typical at the moment. Usually when I’m not writing, or preparing for a tour or a performance of some kind, I’d be at the home Matt and I shared. I’d cook for him, work out. But now? “I don’t really have a routine here in London.”
“Apart from getting coffee,” Beau says.
“Yeah. I know it sounds weird, but it’s a treat for me to be able to walk out in public and go get myself a coffee.”
“And you can’t do that in America? Where did you say you live? New York?”
I don’t want to think about New York. Matt moved out but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to my apartment. The memories of the life we had together and the life we were meant to have together and how it was all clearly a lie. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. “Yeah. Sometimes I can get away with it in New York.” Not since Matt and I split though. The appetite for paparazzi shots of me looking miserable is at a peak.
Beau checks his watch. “Shit, I have to go. I’m sorry. I see my first patient in fifteen minutes and I’m a fourteen-minute walk from here.”
“Don’t be sorry. Thanks for being so nice about me spilling coffee on you and triggering your childhood trauma.”
“Anytime you want to spill coffee on me, go right ahead.” He pauses and his lips purse like he’s considering something. “You want to do this again tomorrow? Coffee and a walk in the park?”
My stomach swoops. My immediate thought is tomorrow he’ll bring the photographers. At the moment, he could make a couple of thousand dollars from tipping off one of them. I don’t want this guy to be a jerk, and he doesn’t seem like he is, but I was engaged to a man I’d known twelve years and I thought he was a stand-up guy. My good-guy radar is broken. “Maybe,” I reply.
He laughs. “I’ll take a maybe. It’s been a pleasure, Vivian Cross. I hope to see you tomorrow.” He gives me a two-fingered salute and heads off in the other direction.
I stand and watch him head out of the park for a few seconds. Should I trust him? Probably not, because I can’t trust myself to figure out which ones are the bad guys. But maybe I need to see him again to test myself—to prove my theory that the men I attract are villains.
FIVE
Beau
I see Jacob coming down the hill to where I’m standing outside Hampstead ponds. He keeps telling me cold-water swimming will feed my need for adventure. I’d get it if we were in Greenland or something, but we’re in Hampstead—home of Harry Styles and Sting—a place where you can’t live in anything but a shoebox unless you’re a millionaire. It’s not like we’re off the beaten track here. Plus, my need for adventure has been dimmed a little since coming back from skiing. I don’t know what it is. My feet are still itchy, it’s just I’m not sure another trip is going to help.
“You’re early,” he says.
I glance down at my phone to see the time. “Yeah, my last patient didn’t turn up.” I had a couple of no-shows today and used the time to Google Vivian Cross. Images of her from our walk have been playing through my mind on a loop. It’s like she’s a song I can’t stop humming.
“You ready?” he asks, nodding at the ponds.
I sigh. “Yeah—shock the shit out of me.”
“It’s better than you think it’s going to be.”
“If you say so.”
“And even if it isn’t, what else were you doing tonight? Hanging out with Nathan and Madison and a screaming kid.”
“Your niece, you mean?”
“How long have you been there now anyway?” he asks.
“A couple of months. The house is so big, it’s not like we’re bumping into each other. And Nathan’s out a lot.”
“Any plans to move out?”
“Probably not before I finish this contract. What’s the point? I’ll be off somewhere after that and I won’t need anywhere to stay.” Maybe I’ll be off somewhere, I think to myself. I don’t have any definitive plans. “And when I come back, I’ll come and stay with you and Sutton.”
He rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t say no. So I’m taking it as a yes.
“Where are you off to this time?” he asks.