River
I sat behind my massive pine desk in the study that I hadn’t occupied in more than a year. This room had been the official office of every Blackstone alpha since my great, great grandfather had constructed this packhouse in the 1800s. I found a certain comfort in the shelves of books, the old Tiffany lamps, the leather chairs that had century-old butt prints pressed into their upholstery.
I was mentally giving credit to the familiar room, but in fact, that feeling of comfort was coming from the small woman who was curled up on the couch with her dark head bent over a book. I had no idea what she was reading; it didn’t seem possible that the shelves of antiquarian books could possibly hold anything that interesting, but she hadn’t looked up in forever.
And I wanted her to look u
