“You all seem to have a thing for Shakespeare,” I mumbled.
“Vivienne, what are you doing?”
I’d wanted it to be a surprise.
Though I didn’t want to let him go to voicemail.
However, I probably should have given Scotty the heads up about that.
“Scotty is giving me another riding lesson,” I admitted.
Total silence.
Complete.
I attempted to read it and said quickly, “Don’t be mad. You’re a good teacher. It’s just that I wanted to get more practice so I wasn’t such a dud, and we didn’t have to walk the horses so much when you got back home. I hope you don’t mind I asked him, and he’s teaching me, and I’m riding without you.”
“Stop speaking,” he commanded.
I stopped speaking.
“I do not mind.”
Oh boy.
He was enunciating every word very clearly, and his voice was so far from a purr, it wasn’t funny.
It was gravel.
“All is good there?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered quietly.
“Good. I’ll leave you to your lesson, and Vivi?”
“Yes, honey?”
“My father loved my mother. My mother used my father. As I was a young boy, even as I felt it, I had no idea I lived shrouded in his devastating heartbreak that she loved the title he gave her and the life he gave her more than anything, and she felt nothing for him at all. It was only when I was older that it came to me. It helped me to understand a little why he was so distant, formal, unapproachable, and eventually bitter. It didn’t excuse it. But it helped me understand it.”
Listening to him say this, my heart was breaking.
And not for Atlas Talyn.
For his son.
He kept at me. “Your books could soar, and it is highly unlikely you’ll ever be as wealthy as me. But don’t you ever, ever, darling, mistake what you offer to me. Am I understood?”
Oh man.
I was about to start crying.
So my, “You’re understood,” was croaky.
“Quickly, I’ve adjusted my RSVP to Rally and Court’s wedding to give your name as my plus one. Court texted to say she’s delighted you’re coming. Is that all right?”
“Perfect,” I pushed out.
“All right, sweetheart.” Now he was purring. “I’ll text my goodnight.”
