Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
My cheeks flush. “Yes. I’m his assistant—and I know how this must look, considering …” I stumble over my words. “You know, I just came out of his bedroom looking like this …”
I smile sheepishly at her.
“Honey,” she says, laughing. “Don’t look at me that way. I might be old, and I might’ve helped raise that boy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see.” She shakes her head, still amused. “He’s a good-looking little devil. Charming as all get-out. This is a judgment-free zone because, heck, if I were your age and had the opportunity, I can’t say I wouldn’t be in your shoes.”
I shrug, grinning at her reaction. “I appreciate your open-mindedness.”
“Of course. I’ve lived long enough to know that you must risk it for the biscuit sometimes. You’ll never get much out of life if you don’t. Trust me on that.” She scoffs, flopping her dough into a pie plate. “I’ve been married and divorced three times—twice to the same man. Lordy, I should’ve learned the first time, but my daddy always told me I had a hard head. Guess he was right.”
“At least you’ve lived your life. You’ve followed your heart.”
“Maybe a little too recklessly, at times.”
I take a bite of bacon.
“What about you, Miss Astrid? Do you follow your heart?”
“I thought this was breakfast, not an inquisition,” I joke.
She laughs. “Oh, I don’t mean to put you on the spot or anything. I’m just chatty. My mom didn’t name me Cathy for nothing.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Chatty Cathy. Get it?”
“Yes, I get it.” I laugh, too. “And you’re not putting me on the spot. I’m just at a point in my life where I’m concerned that my heart is a broken compass, if that makes sense.”
“Three divorces, Miss Astrid. Of course, that makes sense.” She pinches the edges of the crust quickly, creating the most beautiful crimps around the top of the pie plate. “But here’s the thing. I’ve come to believe that your heart compass can’t be broken. It keeps trying to lead you north. What messes you up is when you let your brain and hormones into the mix. They can sabotage even the strongest of hearts.”
I take a bite of eggs and then sit back with my coffee. I watch Cathy fill the pie shell with an apple filling, letting my mind massage the lesson she shared with me. She’s not wrong. It makes perfect sense that we’d naturally be led to our person because the universe has a way of pulling things together with some mystical, magnetic power that I don’t understand. I see it all the time. Cottage cheese and peaches, assholes and politics, cats and laptops. Take one look at a small child and a mud puddle, and the point is proven.
If her theory is correct and my heart compass works just fine, where would it lead me if I could take my brain and hormones out of it?
“What can you tell me about Gray?” I ask, placing my mug back on the table. “Do you have any insights you want to share with me?”
Cathy laughs. “How much time do you have?” She opens the oven and sets her pie on the middle rack. “I think the biggest thing is to remember that he might look like some kind of Greek god, but he’s just a mortal being like the rest of us. That kid has such a good heart in him—sometimes to his own detriment.”
She grabs a towel from beside the sink and starts cleaning up her mess.
I take a bite of toast, pondering her observation. She seems to know Gray on an organic, personal level, so her opinions of him hold water. If she thinks he has a good heart, that means something. But what does she mean when she says it’s sometimes to his own detriment? I can’t help but wonder if that doesn’t factor into his time at Denver. I’ve failed to understand why that version of Gray—the version who showed up in Nashville—is so different from the one I’ve come to know. And I also can’t help but wonder if it’s tied to his relationship with Caroline.
My stomach tightens at the thought of the woman in the picture.
I hate not knowing anything about her, mostly because she doesn’t seem like just another ex who broke his heart. She seems to hold a chunk of Gray’s past that he’s not ready to share … or give up. He doesn’t owe me anything, least of all the insight into his previous relationships, but it does make me feel a certain way to know that I found it so easy to talk about my painful moments with Trace, and Gray keeps his past with Caroline on lockdown.
If I knew what happened between them, I believe I’d understand the inner workings of Gray Adler a lot better. I don’t know why it matters because it’s not like Gray and I are an item. We just fucked a few times this weekend, and I’m certain he’ll want to go back to his normal life when we get back to the city. But what if …