Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Are you ready?” Jack asks as The Alden Hotel comes into view.
I nod, grinning at him. I’m ready for anything when I’m with him. He makes me feel like a blonde Jackie next to his handsome JFK.
“I love your smile,” he says.
“I love you,” I counter. “How do you feel now that you said no to the offer on the hotel?”
“Good,” he says. “There’s so much going on, I don’t want to be making so many changes all at once. And my friendships with the guys are important. I know selling the hotel wouldn’t have undermined those relationships, but I want to keep it. For now. Maybe I’m being sentimental, or maybe I just want to beat Bennett before I sell.”
The car pulls to a stop and immediately my door is opened by the hotel doorman. We head inside to the private room Jack has arranged. We’re having a second Thanksgiving dinner with his New York friends this evening. It will also be an introduction for me to most of them. I’ve met Fisher and Byron, and Juniper and Rosey, but I’m looking forward to getting to meet Bennett and Efa, Leo and Jules, and Worth and Sophia. They’re all so important to Jack, so they’re important to me.
Inside the private room, we’re the first to arrive. There’s a bar set up at one end and a bartender, organizing the bottles.
“Champagne?” Jack asks me.
“What are we celebrating?”
Jack grins, that boyish, hopeful grin that makes me so happy. “What aren’t we celebrating?”
The bartender fixes us our drinks, but before I can take a sip, Jack produces an iPad. “I have something for you.”
I narrow my eyes. “An iPad?”
Jack chuckles. “Sure, you can keep the iPad, but let’s play the video on it.”
He stands it up and presses start and the screen comes to life. It’s a video of the road outside of Wilde’s Farm. The camera sweeps down and it’s as if a car is driving along the road with Wilde’s Farm on the left.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I saw you here, outside the farm when I arrived in Star Falls after losing you in New York. I didn’t realize it was you at the time. You were standing by the fence.”
I reach up and stroke the side of his head and we both turn back to the screen. Is this going to be some kind of sentimental film of our history that he’s had made?
The camera passes the farm and then turns right, down a driveway that I know for sure doesn’t exist. “What’s this?” The driveway is flanked by beautiful iris plants that lead up to a huge, two-story, stone-and-timber house. Or hotel maybe. It’s huge.
I glance at Jack, wanting to understand what I’m looking at, but he’s just staring at the screen, smiling. “Look,” he urges me.
The camera is giving a bird’s-eye view of the house, a pool behind it, and what looks like an ornamental pond, overlooked by various balconies and terraces at the back of the house. Then the camera sweeps down into the drive and it’s as if a person enters the building. Inside is a huge entryway with thirty-foot ceilings and a stone fireplace.
“What is happening?” I ask. “What is this place?”
“It’s just a suggestion of what we can build there. Obviously we can change whatever we like, but the land is ours.”
“The land?”
“I bought the land opposite Wilde’s Farm. I thought it would be a perfect place to build our home in Star Falls.”
My heart soars in my chest. “You bought land—why didn’t you tell me?”
“I probably should have. I just wanted to surprise you. Plus I didn’t want you to tell me all the reasons we didn’t need so much. If I could buy the entire goddamn town, I would. I have so much to be thankful to Star Falls for.”
“Star Falls doesn’t need you to buy it. You just need to believe in its magic.”
“Oh, I do already.” He grins at me. “So, you like it?” He lifts his chin at the iPad. “We can build whatever you want to build on there. I just wanted to get something together that looked like a home—”
“A mansion,” I correct him.
He shrugs. “I know we’ll also have a place in New York, but this is the place we’re going to have everyone stay. Our kids are going to grow up here. We need the space. And then, if your father needs to move in later on—there’s a guest cottage in these plans. I don’t know if Bray will want to take over your family home one day. If he does, there’s room for your dad to stay with us.”
Jack has thought of everything and everyone. He’s the most generous, thoughtful man I know. New York was lucky to have him as long as she did.