Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 109976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
For days I walked around in a hazy fog. One moment trying to dredge up the energy to walk away from my life and start a new one with him and the next having to accept the futility of that silly dream.
And then there was a write-up in the paper about his new love interest. I died inside that day. I thought I’d go mad imagining him in the arms of another woman. For days after the news broke I’d hidden myself away trying to come to terms with it, trying to put a good spin on things.
In the end I told myself that at least it freed me from unnecessary wishful thinking. From imagining what it would be like to belong to him. I instinctively knew that being his woman would be ten times better than what I had.
Just the way he looks at me makes me melt inside when my husband could barely get a smile out of me. With Gavin, even my heart smiles when I think of him and we’d never even held hands.
I’d been reading up about him as much as I could since our second meeting, and had been following his life in the tabloids ever since. So I knew the type of man he was even though I didn’t believe half of what they wrote. And what’s more than that, there was something about him that seemed to speak to me without words being said.
The more I learned the more I fell in love. I’d cried over him more than I had anything else in my life. I’d been fighting guilt and longing for so long that I grew weary, but somehow in my stupid heart I always believed that he’d come for me one day.
And then I opened the paper that day and read that he was going to marry someone else and the bottom fell out. That day I raged against myself for being stupid. I told myself that had I been courageous it would be me on his arm and not some other woman that he didn’t love.
Then I got mad at him. I knew what he felt, had seen it with my own two eyes. So how could he? How could he betray our mutual love? The sense of betrayal was even stronger than what I felt with Vance.
And then reality set in and I reminded myself that I was married and unavailable. That it shouldn’t matter to me if another man was getting married. I told myself that I should put all thoughts of him out of my head. I could only store away my memories of him like a keepsake.
I’d consoled myself the best I could in those six months since the engagement announcement but the guilt has never left. I’d even tried to make up for it by trying to find some redeeming quality in Vance, something I could live with, but it was no use. I was doomed to a lifetime of heartache and misery.
Until roughly five hours ago when my husband put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. I can still hear the sound of the gun going off, still remember what I felt as he pulled the trigger because I knew what was coming.
I don’t remember calling the cops, but I must’ve because they were there not long after. I didn’t call anyone else, though the first thing I did when they told me I had to go downtown was grab Gavin’s card.
It was worn from the number of times I’d ran my fingers over it. How many times had I looked at it and dreamed? I’d replayed our last meeting together in my head over and over again while staring at his name embossed on the small rectangle.
Wishing that I’d had the courage to reach out and grab what I wanted when I was in the backseat of his car on that rainy night when he came to my rescue.
I felt a shiver now as I felt him get even closer than he’d been and checked back in to the conversation just as it was coming to an end. Now the thought of going back to the home I shared with Vance, of facing the days ahead, left me feeling weak and tired.
I could always go to a hotel, but I had a feeling the reporters would find me there as well.
Besides, no matter where I go, I’m still going to have to face the senator at some point. I threw up a little in my mouth and willed myself not to react outwardly to my rambling thoughts.
I got shakily to my feet when it was over and the lawyer reached out to help me but pulled his hand away at the last second. It was then I saw him and the relief I felt in that moment said it all. I wanted his arms around me until this feeling of loneliness and despair went away.