Read Words From The Heart (Spring-Summer Romance Book 2) for Free Online Page A

big difference between feeding one child and feeding three. Add in the cleaning and care of the household, and she never had one moment alone.
    That was, again, her refusing to think about her ex-husband, though he suspected she did anyway in the glances she gave him sometimes … the same manner he often looked at her. It was as if they were each on the other side of a glass wall, their individual visions clouded by the partition.
    Strangely, that feeling, reminded him of Beth. They’d had a mutual attraction from the start, but for the longest time, denied it in favor of political correctness. Late one night, buried beneath a pile of tax season accounting, they’d found themselves sharing a meal, a laugh, and at one point, a kiss. He’d lost his position at the firm after things went public, but he’d gained Beth, and that had been worth it.
    Audrey wasn’t Beth, and he wasn’t an eager single male wooing the pretty girl who flirted with him across the desk. He was a widower, still in love with his wife, and confused about how to go forward. He sought the normalcy that Audrey provided. She fit their lives, her steady, gentle manner what he needed to survive day-to-day.
    He found her attractive as a man. That, in itself, wasn’t wrong. He saw attractive women all the time and acknowledged it. But his vision of her nursing that first night continually returned in his head giving it strength.
    How much of it, though, was his longing for Beth? It was too soon for him to feel anything. He should mourn his wife and think only of his children, not of satiating the ache in his heart in the arms of another woman. Yet, his mind sought numbness that his body didn’t accept, and the vision in front of him grew blurrier by the day.
     

     
    “Bennett, it’s so good to see you, and thanks for coming in on such short notice.”
    Bennett smiled at the woman speaking.
    He and Julia hadn’t been particularly close in the past, so he saw her words for what they were … yet another preplanned offer of condolence. Not that she didn’t mean them, but the sentiment was more for propriety’s sake. She wasn’t alone either. No one else had directly said those words, yet all of them had worn them in their expression. He was now “poor Bennett.”
    He hadn’t realized until facing it over and over again this morning how much he loathed it. Sitting home with his children, it’d been easy to want pity. Thinking on that though, what he’d really wanted was guidance, someone like Audrey to come in and take control. Because the pity of his work colleagues used to be respect, and he’d rather have that than all the cheap “nice words” they could come up with.
    “How are the children?” Julia purred across the conference table.
    Five of them had assembled in the room.
    He tried to smile. “They’re fine … now. I had to hire someone.”
    The other suits in the room perked up at that news, ears turned sharply in his direction.
    “June cried all the time, couldn’t adjust to formula,” he rushed to explain. “The doctor suggested I bring someone in …” He halted mid-sentence. He’d spoken too much.
    “A nanny?” Julia asked. “That’s a good idea, but how does …” She pulled in a breath. “Oh.”
    His face flamed, and he imagined he’d turned ten shades of red. Despite that, he tried to act calm. “You didn’t hear her, day in and day out, every breath. Audrey …”
    “Audrey?” One of the others repeated her name.
    Bennett swallowed. “We really should get to work. Don’t you think?”
    He was grateful to have the subject dropped and relaxed enough, a couple hours later, to accept the offer of lunch. They’d be on a schedule. What would one more hour hurt? Besides, Audrey had suggested it, and she was right. He needed to do regular things.
    Seated in the restaurant, a chicken sandwich in his grip, he was almost human and this day like how it used to be. Until his work colleague, Rick, leaned into his