Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Good.” My father did a good job of attempting to mask his doubt as he rounded the desk. “Why don’t we all take a seat and talk?”
I planted both feet and crossed my arms. “I’ll stand.”
He sat with another sigh. “Very well.”
Three within an hour had to be a record I hadn’t reached since high school. Guilt tried to prick its way through my armor. My father was older and had enough stress without me piling my temper on top of it, but he had always been the one person I didn’t have to pretend around, and it allowed my anger to consume too much space to let any other emotions in.
“Actually, Hank,” Mr. Douche and Schmooze said. “I’m going to grab a coffee.”
“We can have someone bring it in?”
Mr. Daire flicked his gaze to me with a dark brow raised, as if suggesting I would be the one to fetch him a drink.
I glared harder.
“Thank you, but I can get it,” he said. “Please, feel free to continue talking. I should be right back.”
Already dismissing him, I whirled back to my father. He rubbed at the deep grooves between his brows and took a deep breath, waiting until the door closed to speak.
“Aspen, I’m old and tired.”
“You’re hardly old,” I objected, despite knowing the truth behind his words. He met my mother after his first marriage and was in his fifties when they finally had me. He was past retirement age, but I still couldn’t see him as old. “You golfed eighteen and went on an adventure hike last week.”
“And I want to do more of that, but I can’t when I’m tied to this chair eighty hours a week.”
I dropped my arms and stepped to his desk. “Then let me be tied to the chair.”
“You’re twenty-five, Aspen. You’re amazing at your job, but you still have a lot to learn. And this company is all you’ve ever done. I hate the idea of you tying yourself to this job when you don’t even know if it’s what you really want.”
“Of course, it’s what I want. I’ve wanted this my whole life.”
“You refused to do any athletics in school because you feared the time would interfere with being here, and you turned down every summer camp except the random business camp you managed to dig up.”
“Exactly. I’ve given everything to this.”
“But you have so much more to give in your life.” He softened his tone. All traces of the CEO of Quinn Music Group vanished, leaving behind a dad talking to his daughter. “Your mother wanted you—both of us—to have more in our lives than this company.”
“Don’t bring her into this,” I said, my tone hard.
He shook his head and huffed a laugh. Smiling softly, he opened a drawer on his desk. “I was looking for some old photos last month and found something your mother left for you that must have got lost in the shuffle after her death.”
My chest squeezed, and I pressed my hand to the ache, fingering the gold cross I always wore. Despite my Irish father and Puerto Rican mother, I wasn’t a very religious person, but it was my mother’s necklace, and I never took it off.
He laid a leather-bound journal on his desk, stuffed so full it barely closed. Papers poked out beyond the edges and unknown objects stuffed between the pages created gaps. All of it held shut with a coil of leather wrapping around it.
“I should have given it to you as soon as I found it, but I started going through it and clung to this surprising piece of herself she left behind; her handwriting, her memories, her fun anecdotes.” He laughed, stroking his fingers over the cover before pushing it across the desk to me. “But she didn’t leave it for me. She left it for you.”
I stared at the dark, smooth leather, fearing that the innocuous rectangle held a bomb waiting to detonate.
Blink.
Blink. Blink.
I wanted to snatch it up and run away with it. To go hide and learn all of its secrets. I wanted to shove it back at him and pretend it never existed.
Hating the visible tremble of my hand, I grabbed the book and slowly unwrapped the cord.
Nena.
The first word on the first page ignited a burn in my chest. The familiar swoop of every perfectly formed letter sucked the air from my lungs. I huffed a laugh, remembering her telling me how much she practiced her cursive because she thought it would make up for her imperfect pronunciations.
“I may not be able to say it perfectly in words, but I can put it perfectly on paper.”
I shook off the memory and forced myself to take in the words.
Siempre estás en mi corazón.
The words played in my head, remembering them from every night she said them to me when she tucked me in. God, I missed her. The fire grew beyond an ember, spreading beyond my lungs.