Total pages in book: 225
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 218500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1093(@200wpm)___ 874(@250wpm)___ 728(@300wpm)
I’d wandered away from the nanny; I was looking for my mother. I found her in the tub, unconscious. The water looked much like this water did, only her arm was draped over the side and red drips were dripping from her fingers, hitting the tiles.
She tried to end it all. I think if not for me walking in when I did, she could’ve succeeded.
After that day, we didn’t see her. For a long time. Weeks? Months? I don’t know. But when she came back, my father doted on her. Things changed. He spent more time at home. Glued to her. She got pregnant for the last time. With Grace. He didn’t dote on us, not much changed for us, we were raised by the help, but she was his focus. He spent a lot of time with her, taking her on trips, buying her gifts. He bought her another place, the Vermont place, and we spent the best summer of our lives there when Grace was born. And my mother was different. She drank more. She was a little more manic. And I think I was different, too.
The fear that seized me pulling Chloe out of the tub is something I’ll never forget. But Chloe wasn’t lifeless. She wasn’t bleeding. And I had the strength to pull her out unlike with my mother when I had to get the nanny, who’d been rocking Naomi to sleep.
I vividly remember the way Naomi was crying. Thaddeus had a fit. Asher was crying. I don’t know where Jonah and Eli were. But I remember the sound of baby Naomi crying mixed with the sounds of the ambulance while fear gripped me that my mother’s skin was so pale.
Chloe’s here. Pulling me from those thoughts. She’s making the bed. Now she’s lying on it and pointing the remote at the television.
Our eyes meet. Her expressive eyes are filled with sadness.
It’s our wedding day and she’s depressed. She’s depressed because she doesn’t like what I did to get her here.
I need air.
I message Kenny who’s got two guys stationed outside in cars in case there’s any bullshit. I tell him to have someone sit outside this hotel room until I get back.
“I need air,” I state. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
Her eyes flash with confusion as I drop the still wet suit pants and my boxer briefs, and change into the clothes I’d brought to travel in tomorrow. Sweats and sneakers. She’s wearing her travel clothes, too. I figured we’d spend the rest of today naked. No such luck.
He’s been gone for a few hours when there’s a knock on the door.
I rise from the bed and peer out the peephole. Room service. And Ken, the guy who held us at gunpoint. Should have known I’d have a babysitter.
I open it and wave the room service guy in.
Ken gives me a nod. I don’t return it. I’m not trying to be a bitch about him doing his job. Though really, what decent person takes on a job where they have to do the things Derek pays him to do?
My thoughts stray to Craig again, who is a solid guy, a good person, a friend of mine who has now been thrust into a world he’s been trying to dismantle. All for trying to help me.
Maybe I can make Derek understand how fundamentally wrong that is. If I pleaded with him, would he give Craig a break and let him live his life without becoming the thing he hates? Derek wants me, clearly, could I somehow wield that into getting him to leave Craig alone?
I fetch my wallet to tip the guy who delivers the cart loaded with dome-covered plates and a bucket containing my favorite wine, which I’m sure this hotel probably brought in for me because it’s not something you’d generally find at a swanky place like this.
I shut the door and sit.
My phone chimes, so I lift it seeing a text from Alannah.
I don’t know how this happened but brace before you click.
There’s a link. I’m feeling queasy as I click it and see a gif on a loop of Derek and I leaving the courthouse today, me in all my designer bridal gown glory, him looking like a thirst trap about to go viral.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I scan the headline.
Derek Steele Marries. But There’s Dirty Laundry Here.
This JUST in. Derek Steele, son of local infamous shipping magnate and real estate developer Michael Steele, just married Chloe Turner of Dayton, OH. While they were both decked out in wedding garb befitting a lavish wedding with five hundred guests, they tied the knot at the Franklin County Courthouse in a simple ceremony today.
Steele, never married, owns The Fifth, The Strip, and the Downtown nightclubs here in Columbus as well as several other establishments elsewhere in the state. Turner was engaged to be married until very recently to local award-winning journalist and accessibility activist Adam Hallman, who recently suffered a spinal cord injury after a horrific car accident.