Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
He was too busy giving everything to his daughter.
Which resulted in a husk of a man unable to muster basic human kindness for his nanny. Yet able to exude sex appeal to her at the same time.
My butt found the soft cushion of the sofa before I consciously made a decision.
My thigh brushed up against Beau’s. It was warm, strong, solid. Too close for employer and employee to sit. Too close for even platonic friends to sit.
I should’ve moved. But I didn’t.
Beau was staring at my profile, I knew he was. I could feel the weight of his gaze, my skin tingling with every passing second, my breath heavy.
I stared at the coffee table. “Tea. Toast.” The words were solid, strong, and I willed myself to be those things too.
Beau didn’t respond, but I did see his large form move forward and heard the clatter of porcelain signifying he was doing as I told him.
We didn’t make conversation as he drank and chewed, though I was desperate to know what happened. It must’ve been bad to get him in this state.
My mind skated over every interaction I’d had with Calliope. Her sharp wit, her confidence, her kindness.
More importantly, my mind catalogued every interaction she’d had with Clara. The way she spoke to her, saw her. She made Clara feel smart, strong, and intelligent. She didn’t treat her like she was sick or weak. I knew how much that meant to Clara, I’d seen her entire being light up in Calliope’s presence.
I wanted to vomit at the thought of anything happening to Calliope, of the pain it would cause Elliot, Beau, and Clara.
Beau leaned back on the sofa, letting out a ragged sigh that tore through the air like a serrated blade.
“She wasn’t breathing,” he murmured.
I finally found the courage to look at him.
He was staring straight ahead, into nothing, his posture rigid. “When I pulled her out of the water. And…” He rolled his lips. “And I’ve been preparing. Planning to hold a body, a smaller one, but a lifeless body in my arms. And… fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair as if he wanted to tear it out at the roots.
“I was glad,” he whispered. “That I wasn’t holding my daughter’s lifeless body. Just that of a woman I have come to think of as a sister. Who my brother loves with everything he is. And…” he trailed off again. He couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence.
The pain in his words, the shame painting his expression, was too much for me to bear. I feared I didn’t have a sophisticated enough internal dictionary to say anything that would help him.
So I didn’t try. Instead, I acted on instinct.
Slowly, I reached out and pulled him into me. I expected resistance. I was ready for the rubber band to snap back, Beau realizing that this kind of intimacy didn’t belong here, with me.
But he let me pull him down onto my lap. Technically, his head collapsed onto my lap. Like he had been struggling to hold it up all that time, and he simply didn’t have the power to do it any longer. I swallowed my gasp of shock. Fighting off my body’s instinctual reaction to his weight, his scent. It didn’t feel too heavy. Didn’t feel wrong.
In fact, it felt right. Perfectly so. To be on this sofa, the one that I had snuggled with Clara countless times, with Beau’s head in my lap.
Of their own volition, my fingers found their way into his damp hair, running through the strands. I reveled in the thickness of it, the surprisingly silky strands. The scent of juniper stronger so close to him, piney, woodsy. Beau.
He let out a grunt of pleasure. I froze for half a second at his sound of contentment, one that I felt in the core of me. I had elicited that sound from him. It was me who he let hold him in his time of greatest need.
Granted, I was the only one here, but I didn’t linger on that thought for long. I continued what I was doing. It should have felt strange, exquisitely so, to be in such a compromised position with Beau.
Except it didn’t. Not even a little bit.
Beau was in the kitchen when I woke up the next morning.
Normally, when I found him there, he was busy cooking, which was handy for him, giving him a tangible reason not to interact with me.
But there wasn’t anything on the stove, no ingredients laid out with a militant neatness that gave me a headache. It was deathly silent without the small sounds of Beau cooking. I hadn’t realized how much those sounds comforted me until I didn’t have them.
Beau was standing at the sink, cupping a mug of coffee, staring out the window.
Tentatively, I stepped into the kitchen. He startled when he caught me in his peripheral vision, head swiveling to stare at me.