Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) Read Online Free Page B

of my coat.
    “You doing anything this weekend? I can drop it off sometime,” she said.
    I shrugged. “I should be around.”
    My proper upbringing told me I should kiss her cheek as we parted ways, but I had a feeling we had two completely different upbringings and she would find my gesture awkward and hollow.
    I reached my hand out, brushing it against hers. “I’ll see you around.”



 
    SOPHIE
     
    “I’m glad you decided to come back,” Dr. Strong said as I took a seat in her office that Friday afternoon. “You’re doing the right thing, Sophie.”
    Of course I was. At three-hundred bucks an hour, she was delighted to have another client to fill her schedule. Those pretty diamond earrings dangling from her ears weren’t cheap, and someone had to pay for those red-bottomed shoes. As much as certain things about her annoyed me, I promised Dr. Bledsoe I’d give therapy a try, and since Mia was my only sounding board, sometimes it was nice to bounce things off other people for a change. I wasn’t paying for a friend, and I certainly didn’t have to like her.
    “I’m feeling good about things,” I started. “For the first time in years, I can honestly say I love my life.”
    My fingers tugged at my gold chain, pressing the charms into the flesh of my neck. I was beginning to feel the way I’d felt when I still had my sisters around. Alive. Hopeful. Content.
    “Well, that’s absolutely wonderful to hear, Sophie,” she said. She always had to say my name, as if it helped her keep me straight amongst the throngs of patients who filled her day. “Anything in particular happen since the last time we met?”
    I leaned back on the loveseat, draping my hair over the arm. “I’ve just decided to do everything I love, all the time, no questions, no matter what.”
    The light scraping of her pen against her legal pad played against the ticking of the annoyingly loud clock on the wall, grating on my peaceful mood.
    “And I met a boy,” I said coyly, watching her reaction from the corner of my eye. Her blue eyes gazed up from her paper to meet mine. “Well, he’s not really a boy. He’s a man. He’s older than me. Maybe early thirties, I don’t know. He’s gorgeous. That’s about all I know for sure about him.”
    “How’d you meet?”
    “He lives in my neighborhood,” I said. “This past week, we just kept running into each other. We’ve talked a few times.”
    “Have you dated much in the past?” she asked, eyes averted to her legal pad again.
    “I had a boyfriend in college,” I said, voice trailing as I recalled Alex. We dated up until The Incident, when my emotional burdens became too much for him to bear, though if you asked him, I was the one who had pushed him away. It was probably for the best, anyway. He wasn’t strong enough for me.
    “What happened with him?”
    I didn’t want to tell her about my sisters or how they died, or that pitch black period of my life. I wanted to talk about Jamison. About painting. About happy things. About living.
    “Do we really need to go there?” I asked. “That’s in the past. We were young. It just didn’t work out.”
    “All right. Then tell me about this new guy,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. I pretended not to notice when she nonchalantly checked the rose gold watch on her wrist.
    “He’s so not my type,” I said, staring up at the ceiling. “He’s all proper and buttoned-up. He has this thick head of dark hair and this meticulously trimmed five o’clock shadow. Eyes the color of blue ice. Piercing stare. Doesn’t talk much.”
    Her head jerked up and her pen stopped moving. “What did you say his name was?”
    “Does it really matter?” I said with an amused laugh. “This could be something fun. Something to channel my energy into. A distraction from the ticking time bomb in my head.”
    “Mmhm,” she said, nibbling her lip and staring at the coffee table in front of me.
    “Should I tell him about my aneurysm?”