Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 88270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Freya is waiting impatiently at the bottom of the stairs. “It is Pancake Sunday. Are we having pancakes with blueberries?” she demands, her hands on her hips.
“Didn’t you have breakfast at Lily’s?” Blake asks.
“No. I was saving myself for blueberry pancakes. It’s Sunday,” she explains as though it is the most obvious thing in the world.
I laugh. “Blueberry pancakes it is then. I’ll make them.”
“And maple syrup.”
“Wouldn’t be the same without maple syrup,” I agree solemnly.
Blake hauls his daughter into his arms and hoists her onto his shoulder. She squeals with delight and rests her hands on the top of his head. In the kitchen, morning light dances across the granite island. I set to work. I already know where everything is from last night.
While I cook, Freya chatters to her father about her night at Lily’s house.
In no time at all, I set a plate with fluffy pancakes stacked high and a bowl of fresh berries I found in the fridge on the table. Freya beams as I slide into the booth beside her, her small hands already reaching eagerly for the syrup. Blake sits across, his eyes meeting mine with that intensity that makes my breath catch.
Between bites of pancake, Freya asks if we can paint the joint-effort family portrait that I told her we could the other day when I went to visit her in her room. "Please? You promised!"
I smile at her enthusiasm. "I’m not sure Daddy will want to join in.”
“Of course, I want to join,” Blake says, looking from me to Freya.
“It’s gonna be messy. Very messy. Your clothes will get dirty,” I warn with a laugh.
“Don’t you know? I like it messy. The messier it is, the more I like it,” he says in a cartoon character voice.
Freya claps her sticky hands together with excitement. "Yes! Yes! Oh yes!"
Blake stares into my eyes, his gorgeous gray gaze deep and searching. It stirs that familiar longing in my body, and I have to accept the fact that I'm becoming sloppy—letting emotions bleed through. Suggesting something as intimate as a family portrait when this isn't my family. It is extremely careless, especially after Carolyn’s warning this morning.
But I can't help it. Part of me feels the need to memorize this, capture the happy moments before they slip away. The more I enjoy—the laughter, the touches, the warmth—the clearer it becomes that it will break my heart when it comes to an end. It’s now like a ticking clock in my mind, counting down to heartbreak. But I don’t care. I’ll take the pain when it comes, but now… this is my family. Blake is my husband, and sweet Freya is my stepdaughter.
"I never knew you liked to paint," he tells me, his voice low. Fork paused midway to his mouth. "How have we been married all these years, and I didn’t know this?"
I pause, my heart skipping. Choosing my words carefully, I respond. "We really haven’t been very close, though, have we?"
"Right," he says, his tone thoughtful. A flicker of something in his eyes. “Why haven’t we been close?”
I shrug, my heart beating wildly because I might have been caught. The lie feels too thin on my tongue, and panic is now fluttering in my chest like trapped birds—does he suspect? Is this the moment it unravels?
I decide to say less as I should have done from the start. I truly am becoming way too sloppy. "I don’t know," I murmur, forcing a casual smile. "But things change."
Leaning forward across the table, his knee brushes mine under the booth. It sends sparks up my leg. "They do," he says, his eyes narrowing slightly. "But not without reason, usually."
Thankfully, Freya saves the day. "I’m finished. Can we start painting now? Please?" Her excitement cuts the tension like a knife.
She pulls his attention away, and I exhale, relieved that the tense moment has been diffused. At least, momentarily.
Chapter Forty-One
BLAKE
Ican't believe I'm painting! Dirty and elbow-deep in paint with my daughter and… a woman who looks and sounds like my wife, but behaves nothing like her.
The three of us huddle around the easel in the middle of the conservatory, painting a family portrait that we're building layer by layer. Me at the center with Freya on my lap, and Carolyn beside us, wearing that soft smile I've come to crave. It’s like some scene straight out of a feel-good movie where the stoic businessman rediscovers his heart through family chaos. Dust motes dance like tiny fireflies in the golden beams of light pouring in.
The air carries the sharp, heady scent of oil paints and turpentine. Freya giggles nonstop, her small hands smeared with cobalt blue and cadmium yellow from the tubes we've squeezed onto the palette, her curls tied back with a ribbon that's already slipping loose.
And Carolyn—God, she looks so sexy and alive in my shirt. Faint flecks dot her cheek like freckles. She guides Freya's brush gently, her voice soft as she explains the strokes.