Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t bring her into this.
The words feel like I’m literally spitting out battery acid. They burn coming out, and I barely think I’ll make it out of here alive. I’m going to bury us both.
I stare up at her. She’s beautiful and stoic without an emotion whatsoever. I stand straighter, attempting to be the man she needs but wishing I could be selfish. Wishing I could take her and run from it all.
“You’ll get the money I promised you. You can stay here, and I can move into one of my other homes. Or we can stay together… Just not. You can take all the time you need.” I swallow down the harsh reality.
She still hasn’t said one fucking thing, and I’m beginning to worry it was all in my head, and she doesn’t feel the love for me I think she does.
Maybe I’ve imagined it?
Want it to be true?
She doesn’t offer an option. She doesn’t say it wasn’t fake for her. She doesn’t ask anything of me at all.
Right when I think I’ll get a response from her, she spins to leave without saying one damn thing. I’m in front of her, blocking her exit before she can take a step to go.
I grip her oversized cashmere sweater and hold her close. Her leather leggings press against my skin.
It’s almost like she knows I’m full of shit, and I don’t want to lose her. That I’m just ending this because I have to, not because I want to.
The first thing she says to me after everything I just shared with her is, “You’ll get out of my way, or I’ll call the police.” My body turns to ice. She doesn’t even look at me.
“Brook—”
“Get the fuck out of my way.” I’ve never heard such venom from her. It shocks me to my core.
I’m fully aware if I touch her, this will be the end of us.
It’s like she wants us to end too, and it’s too hard of a pill to swallow.
Why isn’t she fighting for us?
It’s a selfish request, thinking she’ll fight me on this. It kills me that she’s not. That she’s just surrendering to me as if I never mattered. As if we never mattered.
I let the devil on my shoulder win.
I can’t let her go.
I try to kiss her, but she pushes me away, warning in a heated tone, “Get the fuck away from me.”
“You have nothing to say? You’re just going to leave?” I ask her, needing to hear the truth.
For once and for all.
Some fucking truth.
No more games.
Lies.
Charade.
I need something.
Anything.
I just want her honesty. It’s all I’ve ever wanted and never received from her. She has this wall that’s built to the fucking moon, and I’ve done everything to knock it down. It’s useless. Almost like she knew this moment would eventually come, and she’s tried to protect herself from it.
I hate that I’m the man who made her think she’s safe, and now I’m stripping it away so easily.
I hate that she may hate me after this.
But mostly, I hate…
That I’m so fucking in love with her it terrifies me to the depths of my core. To the bottom of my being. She’s everything to me, and I can’t hide from that anymore.
If she lets me love her, I will destroy her. I know it. Yet…
In a cool, detached voice, she states, “There is nothing left to say. It’s done. We’re done.” Only then does she look me in the eyes. “It was never real, right?”
I’m once again sick to my stomach, feeling like I could heave at any second, but I suppress it all.
I tell her the truth. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
I want to tell her the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I’m only doing this because if I don’t, my father will destroy not just me but her too. She doesn’t know the hell that would come. She doesn’t deserve that. She’s never deserved any of this.
I want to tell her how important she is to me.
How much I love her.
Want to hold her.
I do none of those things.
I watch her leave instead.
For a moment, I think she’s going to come right back. I just stand there frozen in place, glued to the damn floor beneath me.
One minute.
Three.
Five.
Until I can’t take it anymore. I grab my phone from my back pocket and text her.
Ronan: I’m sorry. Come back to me. Please.
I hate that I sound weak, but love makes you do funny things. Never did I understand that statement until this very second.
Ronan: We can talk about it. Something happened.
She doesn’t respond.
Not after an hour.
Or two.
Or five.
And when I’m sitting there all alone in my bedroom, surrounded in her scent, her decor, and the things from her place, the memories in this bed, I can’t take it anymore and punch a wall with my fist.