Page 1 of Timeless

Chapter One

Six Years Later

Amber

“No, Jack.” I turned off the busy street and did my best to put up with my five-year-old. “You aren’t getting a snake.”

“But, Mom!” he whined.

“You can have a dog, a cat, or a fish,” I said, pulling into our driveway. “But I am never letting you get a snake.”

He automatically went into one of his meltdowns about it.A snake. I was spending way too much time arguing over this stupid fucking snake. Every opportunity he got, he was asking for a fucking snake!

I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car, ignoring his threats of disowning me.

I opened his door, catching the end of his threat of him kicking me out of the house and living alone with his pet snake that he would buy himself with the birthday money Will had promised him.

I unclipped him out of the car seat but he had his arms crossed and wasn’t budging.

I sighed. I knew how stubborn he was. It was the only thing of mine he got. Other than that, he was the spitting image of his father, right down to Jax’s eyes and black hair.

“Okay, how about we make a deal?” I said. Jack and I were good at making deals.

His eyes lit up. “But, Mom, it’s the only thing I want for my birthday.” Those eyes, pleading with me. God, he always pulled on my heart. He reminded me of Jax, more and more each day.

“If you can convince Will to help you look after it, then you can get a snake.”

He jumped out of the car and pushed his way past me, running toward the house. I smiled. Will was going to hate me.

I picked up Jack’s school bag and closed the door. I still couldn’t believe he was in kindergarten. It felt like I was just handling being apart from him for a few hours with preschool and now he was gone for full days.

I walked inside as Jack began begging Will to help his take care of the snake. I dropped Jack’s bag in the foyer and slipped off my heels.

I had successfully faced a full week at work, finished the accounts, faced my father down and on top of all that, I had suffered a whole month of nagging about a snake.

A snake. I would not look after it. I would not touch it. I would not feed it. And no mice were being kept in my fridge. In fact, if Will was going to cave on this, he would have to buy another fridge to keep his freaky mice in.

God, I wished I hadn’t encouraged Jack to watch documentaries. Darn that fuckingAnimal Planetdocumentary on snakes.

I went into the kitchen and poured myself a much-needed glass of wine. I was about to take a sip when Jack came in skipping. I narrowed my eyes at him. He better not have sweet talked Will into it.

“Will said yes, Mom.” Jack grinned, confirming my worst nightmare.

Will walked in, looking like his normal calm self. “You okay, Amber?” He glanced at my rather full wine glass and arched an eyebrow. “How was your father?”

Jack groaned. “Why didn’t I get to see Grandpa!”

I clamped my mouth shut, thinking of all the times I wished I didn’t have to deal with Dad. But our firms worked alongside each other. Though he has lots of offices. He didn’t need to be here in my hometown, so very far away from where he used to call home.

“Just great.” I plastered on a large fake smile. I couldn’t let Jack think I didn’t get along with Grandpa, when Jack adored him.

Dad loved Jack just as much and was always putting large sums of money in Jack’s bank account—money Jack knew nothing about. Otherwise, I would be kicked out of the house and it would be filled with snakes.

He was a very mature five-year-old. I wanted to kick myself, still not wanting to believe he was six this month.

“Jack, how about you get the takeout menus and started picking what you want?” Will said, giving Jack a delight. He loved takeout. He already knew the difference between good and bad Chinese.

Jack rattled off the pizza he wanted as well as fried rice. And he hadn’t even got the takeout menus yet.

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