Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
I can’t resist touching her. I reach down and caress her face, graze her pretty pink lips with the blunt end of my thumb.
The tightness in my chest is unfamiliar. At least it was, before I met her.
I lean down and taste her one more time, letting myself linger against her mouth.
“I love you too, you know.”
She sucks in a breath like I just stabbed her through the heart.
I hate hurting her. I hate that I can’t seem to stop. I hate this fucking situation she had no idea she was walking into.
“All I want is you. No matter what happens, I hope you know that.”
I hear her swallow, and I know I’m fucking her up even more. I need to stop. I need to give her a chance to recover, at least for right now.
I need to leave.
So I caress her hair and give her one last forehead kiss, and then I step back.
Brynn looks back at me, completely lost, and I know she’s only lost because she followed me.
“I’m gonna figure this out,” I tell her as I back up to open the door. “I promise. Don’t give up on me.”
Chapter Forty-four
Brynn
I sit by myself on the bathroom floor for a while after Killian leaves.
I’ve taken the terrible shoes off. I feel like I’ve taken my sanity off, too, and I forget where I put it.
My heart feels ripped into pieces and dragged through mud, but then stitched back together all out of place. It’s Frankenstein’s monster, and it doesn’t beat right.
Maybe I should have changed his name to Victor in my phone.
When I feel like I can stand again, I do.
I wander back upstairs, but I’m in a haze.
I left the room so fast, and for such a clear reason, everyone is looking at me when I come back in. I attempted to fix my makeup a little, but I didn’t have my purse with me, so I definitely do not look my best.
Thankfully, the lights are still dimmed.
“Sorry,” I murmur, my face warm as I make my way back to my spot on the couch.
This time, I can feel Sloane looking at me, but I can’t look at her. I don’t think she suspects anything aside from what Killian said—that I was crying in the bathroom—and that would also explain why my makeup is wrecked.
But I know what happened.
I don’t know how I feel about it, and honestly, I don’t want to dissect it right now.
So I don’t.
I let myself escape to Barbieland and reality, and when that one is over, we watch Crazy, Stupid Love. And I can agree that love is crazy and stupid, so maybe I enjoy it a little more than I did the last time I watched it.
I love you too, you know.
My Frankenstein heart has wings, but also a front-row seat to a reality that doesn’t quite match up with Killian’s words.
Because I don’t understand why he won’t just end things with her if what he says to me is true. Why do the Blue Bloods care who he marries?
When the movie ends and I go back upstairs, I can finally get my phone again. I wish I hadn’t left it while we watched the movie because I was dying to see if Killian would text me after he left, and now I see he did.
“Miss you already.”
I hug my phone to my chest, but then Addison comes in right behind me, and I have to pretend everything is normal.
I refrain from texting him back, but it’s hard because I want to.
God, I want to.
I want to go to his apartment.
Crawl in his bed.
I want him to fuck me and make me forget the bad dream my reality has turned into.
I want him to decimate me and keep all the pieces for himself. He can put me back together however he wants to.
I don’t care if the end result looks monstrous, as long as I can be with him.
Blowing out a breath, I lie back on the bed in Addison’s dress and think maybe I don’t need to go to his apartment for him to fuck me, because I am clearly super fucked already with the thoughts racing through my head.
“You okay?” Addison asks.
No.
“Yeah.”
Definitely not okay, but I feel… hopeful in a way I haven’t since…
Actually, since I saw him at school.
Seeing him shouldn’t heal me when he’s the one that keeps hurting me. What is wrong with me?
You’re hopelessly in love. That’s what’s wrong with you.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Addison glances back over at me as she folds the laundry she left on her bed earlier, saying it was Bedtime Addison’s problem. “Sure.”
“It’s about Sloane.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know anything about her dad?”
She sort of chuckles funnily, then she says, “Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t know at least something about Roger Whitley? His politics are trash and he’s a huge sexist. Definitely wouldn’t marry the guy, but he’s about to embark on his fourth wife, some Italian model. Catalina something? So I guess some women feel differently.”