Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“I could ask you the same thing. I’m asking you to trust that this doesn’t affect us.” He reached for me, but I retreated. Hurt flared in his eyes and I hated that … but he was hurting me too.
“Of course it affects us. You’re a fool if you think your secrets won’t affect us. They would eventually come between us. I …” I stared at him, taking in every inch of his handsome face, hating him a little but myself more. Because hadn’t I known it would end this way? “I need all of you … I need your trust … I don’t know if that’s fair or not. To want all your secrets. To know about your family, where you come from. I really don’t. And I’m sorry if it’s not fair. But just like you know who you are, I know who I am. And I know that I need all of you, and not having that will fester between us.” Because it would make me question if he could love me the way I needed to be loved. I’d never been loved enough by my father; I’d been loved in the wrong way by Nathan … My soul was battered and bruised by the men who had come before Walker. It wasn’t his fault.
But the reality was, they’d left wounds, and those wounds meant I’d need the man I loved to show me in every way he could that I was everything to him. That I had him in a way no one else did. I didn’t know if that was realistic or right, but it’s how I felt. How I needed it. “So if … if you can’t give me that …” I exhaled shakily, tears pricking my eyes. “This has to be over.”
Walker’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and a heavy silence hung between us as the color drained from his face. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, staring at me in stark disbelief, as the only sound in the room was the scrape of his fingers against his beard.
Finally, and just in time, because I thought I might puke with the suspense, Walker dropped his arm. Looking defeated.
He said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
His answer was written all over him.
I turned as my tears fell, and the effort of holding in the sob that wanted to break free was excruciating. Even as I hurried into his living room to grab my purse, I hoped he’d call out to me. That he’d stop me from leaving.
But I got to the front door, and then I was outside.
He never called my name.
The sob I’d been holding back burst out of me as I reached my car and fumbled to get in.
I struggled to contain it, to keep the gaping hole that had opened in my chest from swallowing me. My mind went into autopilot after I decided I didn’t want to be alone, but I couldn’t go to Monroe because Brodan was Walker’s best friend.
Instead, I drove to the estate, and the guards, faces stricken at the sight of my tears, let me in.
I parked outside Aria’s and had barely gotten out of the car when her front door opened. She came toward me, wearing a thick cardigan against the bitter December air. As I climbed the porch steps, her expression softened with sympathy at what she saw on my face.
“Sloane?”
I burst into loud, messy sobs as reality crashed down on me.
It was over.
Walker would never hold me in his arms again. Never kiss me or touch me or hold my hand. I’d never see his eyes crinkle with amusement and tenderness for me. Never feel protected and needed in the way only he ever made me feel. Never smell him or connect with him or sit in perfect silence with him.
The hole in my chest cracked wide open, and Aria rushed for me, pulling me into her arms as I sobbed against her shoulder like the love of my life had just goddamn died.
Thirty-Six
SLOANE
Sometimes I got so used to living in Scotland that I forgot to take in its beauty. As a distraction, the past few days I’d forced myself to look around me. The Highlands in the summer were lush and wild, but as winter moved in, there was a starkness to its beauty. Emerald and olive greens gave way to burnt umber, smoke, and amber. Clouds with heather-colored bellies hung above a North Sea tinted by its reflection in the sky. Mountain peaks in the distance were topped with snow. Naked tree branches glowed copper in the early setting sun.
We get to live here, I reminded myself as I drove to Monroe and Brodan’s.
Every day I tried to remember something good.
It helped keep a heartbroken meltdown at bay.
Callie was in the back of the car, cooing to Nox as we drove him home. It was just past three thirty and the winter twilight was drawing in. We’d had Nox since nine o’clock in the morning. The car had lulled him to sleep, but before we’d left the cottage, he’d thrown a baby fit, and I deduced he was missing his mom and dad.