Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“Fuck, Galen, you’re terrible at pep talks.”
“It’s not one of my skills.” He couldn’t let Theo diverge from his path, no matter how attractive Galen found the idea of walking away and never looking back. It wouldn’t work. Theo was too ambitious to sit back and meander through life without some great cause to fight for. He might think he could leave Thalania behind, but the truth was he’d change his mind.
Or he’d spend the rest of his life resenting Galen and that resentment would poison everything.
No, there was no other way.
Theo had to be king.
Galen would do whatever it took to make it happen.
Something had changed while Meg was in the shower. After pulling on one of Galen’s T-shirts, she’d walked out to find Theo brooding, his normally expressive face closed down and discouraging questions. Galen’s mood hadn’t lightened, either. Meg picked at her pasta and promised herself that next time she would most definitely eavesdrop. It was the only way to get reliable information with these two, for all that they claimed they wanted open communication.
Apparently, that only applied to sex.
It shouldn’t sting. They hadn’t promised her forever, despite Galen’s comment earlier, and she’d be a fool to want it.
She was a fool to want it.
Sometime in the last few weeks, Meg had slipped. Her anger and desire had morphed into a deeper emotion that she wasn’t quite ready to put a name to. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. When this was over, she’d go back to her life in New York and she’d only have her memories with these two men and the magic the three of them created together.
It wasn’t perfection. They were too human for something so flawless. What they had was messy and complicated and filled with an intimacy she hadn’t expected. Meg wasn’t sure of much in this world, but she was sure that Galen and Theo cared about her.
It wouldn’t stop them from leaving, but it still warmed her.
“Why an accountant?”
She jumped at Theo’s voice filling the silence at the table. Meg looked up to find both of them watching her. Had he asked the question more than once? She took a quick sip of water. “What?”
“Of all the things you could pursue a degree in, why did you choose something as boring as accounting?”
He would see it that way, wouldn’t he? She fought down her instinctive urge to bristle and tried to sort out an honest answer. “My home life wasn’t a dream when I was growing up. I worked my ass off to get enough scholarships to get the hell out of the town I grew up in, but I knew the only way to stay gone was to go into a stable career. You know that old saying about death and taxes? There is never a lack of demand for accountants.”
“Stability.”
She glanced at Galen. “Yes. There’s the added bonus that numbers make sense to me. There’s no gray area or emotional bullshit. It’s just cold, hard facts. Black and white and red.”
Theo considered the bourbon in his tumbler. “What would you do if you weren’t so concerned with stability?”
“I don’t understand the question.” He shot her a look and she sighed. The joke had been flat. “I don’t know, Theo. I never put much thought into it. Pipe dreams don’t pay the bills. They don’t put food in the fridge. They sure as hell don’t keep a roof over your head. That’s what matters to me—not following some half-baked dream.”
He took a long drink. “Indulge me, princess. If money wasn’t an issue and you had no ties, where would you go? What would feed your soul?”
He didn’t understand how much that question hurt. He couldn’t. “Theo, I grew up in a double-wide that was one inspection away from being condemned. My mother drank herself stupid most days of the week, and when she didn’t have the cash to pay for that alcohol, she used other methods. My childhood was hell. And when she went on a particularly brutal bender, she’d rant about how things were supposed to be different for her. About all the dreams her pregnancy with me had dashed to pieces. Dreams won’t get me anywhere but following in her footsteps.” She set her fork aside. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an asshole, I swear. But what is an entertaining theoretical question for you is one that brings up a whole lot of emotional bullshit for me.”
“It seems we’re all destined for futures that are practical and stripped of dreams.” He downed the entirety of his drink and gave himself a shake. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’m feeling particularly morose today. It’s not a good look for me.”
Galen pushed to his feet and gathered their plates. “Thanks for telling us, Meg.” Here, in this place, he was softer than she’d ever seen him. Not soft. She didn’t think there was a scenario where Galen could be soft. But it was as if the sea and the house had dulled some of his sharper edges. The anger that had rode him so hard for the last two weeks was nowhere in evidence.