One More Kiss (Forsaken Sons Book 1) by Elizabeth Lennox (good summer reads .TXT) 📕

pearl encrusted wedding dress.  He’d never even seen the damn thing.  He just knew what it looked like from Kinsley’s description of it.  Carl would look like an ass in a morning suit, Lincoln thought disgustedly.  He’d look like a fool, but if that’s what Kinsley wanted, she could be married to the fool for the rest of her damn life!  It was none of his business.

Lincoln had no idea what time it was.  The screwdriver slipped from his fingers, the edge slicing through the skin on his thumb but he ignored the pain and kept working.  Several scrapes later, he tossed his tools away in disgust.  Glancing at the time, he swore under his breath.  Kinsley would be here soon to start work.  He walked over to the computer in the corner of his workroom and pressed some buttons.  He’d thought about firing her, but that wasn’t right.  She hadn’t promised him anything.  And she was a damn good assistant.

So instead, he sent her an e-mail with a list of things he needed her to do, then headed back up to his house.

An hour later, he heard the beep coming from his security system indicating that she’d entered the warehouse.  Then a second beep sounded when she opened the door to his workroom.  He resisted for all of two seconds before he walked over to the security console and flipped on the cameras.  Sure enough, Kinsley was standing in his workroom. She didn’t touch anything, which he appreciated. But he could see the defeated slump in her shoulders.  He watched as she headed into her office.  He didn’t have cameras in her office, considering it an invasion of privacy, so he couldn’t see her any longer.

But he watched when she took her lunch out to the pergola, sitting for several minutes with a large bag in her lap.

For a moment, he considered joining her.  They’d spent so much time together, and the least he could do was share lunch.  She’d obviously brought enough for two, reverting back to their previous schedule of sharing lunches.

But before he could make up his mind, she stood up and, without eating, walked back into the warehouse.  He saw her walk through the workroom and back into her office, head still bowed.

She didn’t leave the office for the rest of the afternoon.  He knew because he stared at the console, watching for her.

At five o’clock, she left.  From the exterior cameras, he watched her get into her silver Prius and drive away, but he couldn’t see her expression.

For a long time, he didn’t move.  Didn’t think.  He was too angry still, so he just stood there in the silence of his house.

Finally, he went back down to his workroom and continued…he might have gotten some work done, but the reality was that he mostly just damaged his hands some more.

Chapter 17

Five days.  Kinsley stepped through her apartment door on Friday night, her heart heavy as she wondered what Lincoln was doing now.  She hadn’t seen him in five days and her whole body hurt with longing to just…talk to him.  To explain.

Carl had come by a few times, but she’d explained again that even if she didn’t ever find happily ever after with Lincoln, she still wouldn’t marry Carl.  She didn’t love him.  After being with Lincoln, she knew what real love could and should be and it wasn’t the lukewarm, comfortable feeling she felt for Carl.  Real love, the kind of love that could sustain a couple for the next forty or fifty years, was the stuff that she felt for Lincoln.  It was the kind of love that made her ready to do practically anything to be with him.

Standing in the middle of her apartment, she looked around, heartbroken that she’d done this to Lincoln.  She hadn’t been clear enough with Carl and she’d hurt Lincoln’s feelings to the point where he wouldn’t even come into work.

Oh, she knew that he was tinkering with something.  She’d seen the…whatever it was…on his worktable.  Kinsley never knew what he might be building or tweaking.

But he wouldn’t come in while she was there.  Which meant she either needed to do something to change the situation, or she needed to resign.

The idea of never seeing Lincoln again, of not laughing with him or making love with him, was simply not a future she could contemplate.  She had to do something.  And whatever it was, it had to be brazenly clear that she loved him and only him.

But what could she do?

Walking into her bedroom, she slipped off her shoes and placed them carefully in her closet.  But as she did that, her fingers slid against the plastic cover of her wedding dress.  Standing up, she took the dress out of the closet and unzipped the bag, pushing it out of the way.  With tears sliding down her cheeks, she stripped off her clothes and put on the wedding dress.  It still fit, although it was a bit loose around the waist.  “Not a surprise,” she muttered as she turned to look at herself in the mirror.

She still loved this dress. It was perfect in every way. The long sleeves fit her arms and the waist nipped in, making her appear almost ethereal.  The satin skimmed down over her hips to fall down to the floor in a graceful sweep.

Kinsley pulled her hair up and slipped the veil over her head.  The veil was the perfect foil for the dress.  She couldn’t count the number of nights she’d pictured herself in this dress, walking down the aisle towards…not Carl.  It had never been Carl in her dreams.  Before meeting Lincoln, the man waiting for her at the end of the aisle had been a blurry male form.

“No!” she said to the silence of her apartment.  Looking around, she huffed a bit, pacing back and forth.