Holding You Read online J.L. Beck, Cassandra Hallman (Blackthorn Elite Spinoff #1)

Categories Genre: Romance Tags Authors: , Series: Blackthorn Elite Spinoff Series by J.L. Beck
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Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
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Heading toward the door, I plaster a smile on my face and pull it open. My father is waiting on the other side, and I let my gaze drag over him. He’s wearing an expensive tuxedo, his hair is slicked back, he looks dashing.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs as he looks me up and down, examining me like I’m a thing rather than a woman. “The limousine is waiting whenever you’re ready.”

He turns, motioning me to follow him, but instead of falling into step beside him, I turn on my heels and speed walk down the hall toward the living room.

“I’ll be right there, I’m just telling Mom goodbye,” I call after him.

“Well, hurry, child,” he orders, and I automatically start walking faster. Having been conditioned to listen to my father’s every command, it’s a hard habit to break.

Entering the large room, my eyes fall on my mother, who is sitting on the leather rocking chair near the window. It’s where she always sits.

Facing the window, she looks outside, admiring the stars, maybe, but when I get closer, I can see the vacancy in her lifeless blue eyes. And I realize that she isn’t looking at anything at all. Her eyes, like always, are empty. No life, no joy or happiness.

Kneeling in front of her, I take her slender hand into my own.

“Hey, Momma. I’m leaving now, but I’ll be back in a few hours.” I talk to her like she is a child and not the other way around. She gets upset easily, and I don’t want her to have a breakdown because that would make it ten times harder than it already is for me to leave.

“Okay,” she answers, not even looking at me.

Her voice is flat, just like her eyes, which don’t hold a single drop of emotion. Sadness clings to me, along with anger that flows through my veins like molten lava.

“I love you, Mommy,” I whisper even knowing she won’t say it back.

She’s the only person I truly love, and the reason I’m still here and not a million miles away, hiding from my father. At the thought of leaving her here with my father, a shiver ripples down my spine.

I can’t leave her here, and I can’t take her with me either. It’s a bad combination. She gets so upset, and so quickly, anything out of the ordinary or off routine will set her off. I wouldn’t be able to make it out the door without her having a toddler-size meltdown.

As I suspected, she doesn’t answer and continues looking out the window and into the nothingness. Sighing, I move to stand and give her a fleeting kiss on the cheek. Sucking air into my lungs, I let the familiar scent of her lavender shampoo soothe me.

It’s going to be okay… I say mostly to myself. I turn and walk out of the room, hoping that I can find a way to get us out from under my father’s thumb before it’s too late. Before he finds out my biggest secret of all.

2

Carter

Slamming the door shut behind me, I sink into the leather seat of my town car. “Go,” I order the driver, who immediately puts the car into gear and pulls out on to the road. Usually, I’m not such an asshole with my staff, but the last twenty-four hours have been nothing but a nightmare, and unfortunately, they’ve been at the receiving end of my bad mood.

The tux I’m wearing feels too tight like it’s suffocating me, and all I did was think about her. Lorie, my ex-girlfriend as of yesterday, the woman I thought I was going to marry and have kids with.

Yesterday was the day she decided, that apparently, we don’t have a future together. She said we don’t want the same things.

It came out of the blue, baffled me, blindsided me even. I didn’t see it coming, and maybe that’s why I’m so fucking mad about it. I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like someone messing up my plans.

Part of me wants to say it wouldn’t have been so bad had I seen it coming, but it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. She didn’t want me, and there was nothing I could do to change that.

I try to focus on the passing trees outside my window, but I can’t stop my mind from thinking about her, about how she just left. The truth is, we never had the perfect relationship, no fairytale love story. We just worked, made sense, and the sex was amazing. That was good enough for me, but obviously not her.

When we pull up to the hotel a few minutes later, I tell my driver to take the rest of the night off. “I’ve got a room booked for after the gala. I’ll call you in the morning when I’m ready to be picked up.”



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