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)
“No, and the biggest issue I have is a lack of information. Anna keeps telling me my brother is in trouble.”
“You believe her?”
“Yes, but I don’t think it’s all his doing, or she wouldn’t be nagging me to get involved. At the very least, she pushed him in the wrong direction. Based on her rambling this morning, he’s losing his shit, I know my brother; he doesn’t do stupid shit when he feels that way. But I’ll know his state of mind when I see him. And if he’s truly losing his shit, he’ll unload on me.”
“Then you need to see him before your father, right?”
“Exactly. I’m going to try to see him in the morning.”
“Okay,” I say, finishing off the last bite of my truly delicious ravioli. “Let’s just say it’s really a problem. Will your father just fix it?”
“I’m not sure it’s that easy. If he’s made promises, meaning my brother, to the wrong people, it could be messy. I’m not sure how I could be dragged into it as Anna has claimed, since I’ve been detaching myself from the family business for a year now, but I am still a principal.”
“Couldn’t your brother have told these bad actors you’re the decision maker?”
“Yes. And that’s my one worry. And exactly why, no matter what, I’m done with the family business. If my brother and Anna are in the mix, I’m out. And I’m telling my father that officially tomorrow. I’ll help him with the clean-up, but I’m stepping away from the main corporation.”
The flight attendant takes our plates and brings us chocolate cake, and while the subject turns to Paris and the hot cocoa it’s famous for, I can sense the tension in Ethan. There’s trouble for him on the horizon of a mammoth nature.
And I’m not sure he believes he can walk away or jet off to Paris and make it go away.
He knows more than he’s telling me, is my guess. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just knows his brother and his wife, aka his ex-fiancée, well enough to be certain this situation is going to get sticky. And with the wrong people involved, I pray that doesn’t translate to bloody. I’m officially worried about Ethan.
Chapter Forty-One
Ethan
My brother is a ticking time bomb. Anna is the kind of woman who revels in knowing she owns the code to push him over the edge.
If he’s wood, she’s fire.
But as I lie in the plane and watch Sofia sleep, her body facing mine, her hand beneath her cheek, I can feel how different she is. At times, she’s fire in my blood, but she’s also the calm in the storm. She’s the ocean, deep and blue, a vast sea of new life and experiences I didn’t know I needed until I met her. I hate that I’m taking her home in the middle of my family drama, but I want her with me. I want her in my home, in my bed. It’s only because of her that I’m trying again with my father, and I truly hope I can get through to him.
I reach out and press my hand to Sofia’s face, and when she looks at me, her eyes light as if I make her happy. And that’s what I’m going to do. Make her happy. She captures my hand and brings it to her lips in what has to be the sweetest thing a woman has ever done to me. She’s honey and happiness, and I will protect her from everyone, including my family.
It’s hours later when we exit the flight and climb inside a private car to head to my apartment. “Is it crazy that I’m starving?” she asks as we start the ride.
“I am, too. When we’re closer, I’ll order us pizza from a twenty-four-hour joint I love.”
She glances at her watch. “And I’ll be jogging in the morning, considering it’s ten. But I don’t care. I want that pizza.”
“Well, I have a full gym at my place. You can jog to your heart’s content.”
“A full gym? I can’t even fit a treadmill in my house.”
It’s way too soon for me to tell her to make my place hers, but I want to, which is insanity, I know, but I’m not fighting what I want with her. I want everything. I feel that every time I look at her. “Wait,” she says, glancing out the window and then at me. “Do you have an apartment here in the city?”
“Yes. I do. I thought you knew that?”
Her brows dip. “Maybe. Yes. No. I don’t know. I read you had one. Yes, I Googled you, but that was confusing information considering you stayed at the hotel with me.”
My lips twitch. “How else would I easily negotiate with our future star designer?”
“That was a little sneaky,” she says in a playful chide.