Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Mr. Harcourt,” the therapist—I wanted to say it was Jenner or Jennings. I wasn’t sure since we’d seen so many—shouted, slipping around Kola to charge up in front of me. “This behavior in your children, disrupting my practice and––”
“I’m sorry they were disruptive,” I said, tipping my head at them, watching Jake say goodbye to the woman he’d been chatting with, Hannah furiously typing on her phone, and Harper steering a still fuming Kola toward the door. “But there are sensitivity concerns with how you’ve expressed yourself. It’s interesting to note that so many people think they can say things to someone younger than them that they would never think to utter to an adult, and then reason that they can sort of brush it off, and the younger person will simply let it go. That’s not the case with young people anymore. The majority of them have been taught to advocate for themselves, so they do.”
“I didn’t mean––”
“You were probably trying to break the ice, ask a question about what the T-shirt meant to Jake, and then move to Harper. I understand. The problem is, I suspect you did it without thinking. Before this happens again, you might want to ask yourself, why did I feel the need to comment on Jake’s attire other than, ‘I like your shirt’?”
He took a breath, no doubt to rebut, but Hannah leaned back in. “You know, I’m on a lot of different platforms, and I have a lot of followers, and when they hear what a nozzle you were, I suspect they will have something to say about it,” she growled at him.
He squinted at her, and then she turned the phone. She was on Instagram at the moment, and he saw where it said one point five million people thought she was pretty great.
“You never know who’s coming into your office,” the woman Jake had been talking to assured him, shaking her head.
Hannah grunted and leaned back out into the hall.
“Mr. Harcourt, I––”
“Again, I’m sorry we were a disruption,” I apologized as Jake slipped by us, the last one out, and I followed, closing the door behind me.
We took the five flights down, and when we reached the sidewalk, there was an enormous black SUV beside the curb, and Aaron Sutter got out.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Hannah asked if I wanted to have brunch with you all over at Batter and Berries, and as I love that place, I said yes, of course.”
I was going to tell him we could take two cars so he didn’t have to bring us back, but the kids were already piling into the fancy SUV, so I had no say at that point. As usual, Miguel Romero, Aaron’s longtime bodyguard, chief of security, and driver was behind the steering wheel. The kids all greeted him, loudly, and he got a kiss on the cheek from Hannah, which he beamed over. I offered him my hand.
“Good to see you, Mr. Harcourt,” he said with a smile.
I’d asked him a million-billion times to call me Jory, but that was never going to happen. Same with George, Hannah’s bodyguard. I would always be Mr. Harcourt.
Once everyone was settled, Aaron asked how the latest appointment with yet another therapist had gone.
“You have to ask it like that?” I scolded him.
“I’m sorry, was my inquiry poorly phrased?”
He was a wiseass, and I had no idea why we were friends.
“He called us kids,” Hannah muttered, tucked in next to Aaron, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder.
This, of course, was one reason among many that we were very good friends. My daughter utterly adored him.
“I call you kids,” Aaron reminded her.
“Yeah, but you mean it how Dad and Pa and Uncle Dane and Auntie Aja mean it, like people, what the hell are you doing?”
He chuckled and then lifted his head to look at me. “How are you liking the new van?”
I grimaced. “I miss the old one.”
“Yes, but your new 2021 Toyota Sienna Platinum is lovely.”
“It’s nice,” I agreed.
“It’s because the old one had sentimental value,” he surmised, because he knew me.
I nodded.
“The good news is, with the all-wheel drive, you can go off-roading now.”
“Stop.”
“Which, let’s face it, is probably where the old one went before being sold for parts.”
“Charming,” I muttered.
He smiled at me and then turned to Kola. “Did you end up calling the mobster’s daughter, or did we skip that horror-show-in-waiting altogether?”
Kola groaned. “She was sweet and yeah, her dad’s kind of in the mob, but by all accounts, he’s a very nice man.”
“I’m sure,” Aaron agreed, not wanting to get into a debate with my son on the ethics of business. “So you didn’t call.”
“I called to say we could be friends,” Kola explained, “but I made it clear that I wasn’t ready to pursue anything romantic with anyone.”