Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
“Yes. When you were ten.”
“Yes. When I was ten. But she kept a series of journals of all the things she wanted me to know, and when I turned twenty-one, they were released to me. She started writing them even before I was born. I’ve read all of them a thousand times, it seems.”
“How many are there?”
“Ten.”
“Ten? That’s a lot.”
“It’s almost as if she expected to die young, but she didn’t mention that idea in her musings.”
“I think maybe she did.”
“I’m glad to have them. It’s the only way I really know her. Ten was a long time ago. In some ways I feel I know her more than many kids know their mother. She wrote opinions about everything and anything. And to that point, one thing she wrote in numerous places was her desire for me to find my perfect rose and never let money or power stop me from tending it, or I’d burn in a flower bed of ashes. We’re new, I know, but I think maybe you’re that rose, Sofia.”
Her cheeks heat and her lashes lower, dark against her pale skin, before her eyes meet mine. “You really are so…”
“I am so what?”
“Overwhelming in all the right ways. I wish I would have met your mother.”
“You would have liked her. She loved fashion. She did a lot of charity work and hosted a fashion gala for the children’s hospital the year before she died.”
“That’s incredible.” Her brows dip. “She seems different from your father. You seem different when you talk about her versus him. Were your parents close?”
“They were. She called him a tiger, and he said she defanged him. From what she’s written, he was a different man when she was alive. I try to remember him through her eyes, but he’s not been that person in two decades.”
“Loss is difficult. We both know that.”
“He can’t use that as an excuse this many years later,” I say, sliding my hand under the table to steady my knee as my foot taps with the agitation only my father can draw from me.
“You’re clearly not close to him. Is your brother?”
“He pushes me. He coddles my brother.”
“Ah. I see.”
“You see what?”
“He’s the weak member of your pack. You can protect yourself. He cannot, therefore, he’s the one your father fears he’ll lose. Maybe he felt he didn’t protect your mother enough, and now he’s the one who’s the most vulnerable.”
She’s right. She’s one hundred percent right. That’s exactly what’s happening, to the point of my father being irrational and jeopardizing us all. Letting my brother do whatever he wants is not protecting him. In fact, under the present scenario it might be hurting us all.
“I read a lot about grief these past few years,” Sofia adds. “The fear you will experience another loss can be debilitating. I’m so ridiculously afraid of losing my father that I almost talked myself out of Paris and blamed you. Ironically, some of the things you said to me in Hawaii helped me find logic. Your father seems like a man shaped by heartache and hardened to the point of being unbreakable. Let me guess. He never remarried.”
“He did but it was a short marriage, though long enough to produce Grant. He’s considerably younger than me. As for the relationship with my stepmom, my father was never all in. His fixation was always my mother.”
“Where’s Grant’s mother?”
“Remarried and in another state.”
“Seems to me that your father’s broken inside and armored up on the outside, but your brother came after your mother died. He’s the one person who won’t let him seal himself off. It might actually be good that he’s like he is with him. It might be all that keeps him human.”
“This is one hundred percent a reaction to him losing my mother, but that’s why they make therapists. I went to one. He never did, and now that he didn’t get one, Grant needs one.”
“Therapy helps. We bury things that find a way to the surface. If we have the right tools on board, we know how to handle defeating behaviors.”
“Right. You’re right.” I was always made to believe I was strong. I was the leader. Grant was taught he had to try to catch up. That was never going anyplace good for us or him. My mind races, replaying the past behaviors that have torn us apart as a family, and I’m not sure how long I’m silent, but I can feel Sofia watching me.
“You want coffee?” she finally says softly, as if not to break my thought process, but clearly also not wanting to just walk away.
I blink her back into view, and she’s so damn beautiful and smart. In that moment, I know now why I wanted to marry Anna. I was a coward, running from real emotions. Anna would never have made me love on a deep enough level to allow her the power to hurt me. Sofia broke that barrier with me the minute I laid eyes on her in that bar in Hawaii. I just didn’t know it yet. But I know now. She’s different from Anna or any other woman I’ve ever known.