Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
But...what would be the fucking point?
I didn’t want to hide when I had nothing to hide for.
I didn’t want to scrape out a living when the only thing that made sense was already stolen from me.
I’d rather be caught and sent back to my father than exist another day in this country without the one girl I would die for.
So...that’s what I’ll do.
Raising my head, I stared into my bloodshot eyes. Every part of me hurt. My ribs blazed every time I breathed, my cheekbones felt as if they’d shatter at the gentlest touch, my head throbbed, my ears rang, and the bruises down my legs where Jack had repeatedly kicked me threatened to buckle me to the floor.
I couldn’t run.
I wouldn’t run.
I’d wait for whoever walked through that door and put the rest of my battered and bruised life into their hands because...I was done. Jack had effectively shown me that physical pain was nothing compared to the pain of never seeing Neri again.
I couldn’t breathe without her.
I wouldn’t survive a day without her in my life.
I’m done hiding how I feel—
My left leg gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.
Tiredness swarmed me.
My blood-dirty forehead rested against the edge of the sink.
I’ll rest...just for a minute.
I think I passed out because I was stiffer than ever when I rallied round—finding myself curled into a painful ball on the damp bath mat.
I had no idea what the time was, and the painkillers barely took the edge off, but urgency crawled through me.
Wherever Jack, Anna, and Neri had gone with the police, they might be back any moment. Which meant I was running out of time to figure out how to tell her that I’d always love her, even as they dragged me away. I needed her to vow to me that she would never follow me. That the moment I was taken, that was it. She had to forget about me because the very idea of my father getting his hands on her made me dry retch on the turquoise bath mat.
Shuffling to my feet, I groaned with agony as I forced my despairing body into a stumble. Limping into the lounge, I grabbed the ring box on top of the presents I’d bought for Jack and Anna, bit my bleeding lip as I almost rolled my ankle stepping out of the slider and onto the deck, and barely avoided falling face first into the pool as I cursed the uneven steppingstones to my sala.
I eyed up the three stairs to my door.
I swayed and blinked at the room where I’d slept for so long. The shingles were weathered. The plywood in need of replacement. The Perspex windows were now foggy and sun-damaged, but I’d never been so grateful for it.
I never stopped to truly see what Jack and Anna had put on the line for me when they kept my secret and hid me. They were good people. Good, wonderful people who loved their daughter enough to do whatever it took to keep her safe—
Footsteps sounded in the kitchen, ripping me around.
Vertigo scrambled my beaten brain, and I sat heavily on the wooden steps where Neri had found me eating a stolen carrot from her veggie garden all those years ago.
Cursing under my breath, I fisted the ring box. A ring that I’d give anything to slip onto Neri’s finger.
Sweat prickled my back as Jack headed to the sink in the brightly lit kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it down in one go. Anna hugged him from behind, her arms slinking around his waist as he put the glass down on the draining board and twisted in her embrace to hug her.
My chest squeezed where I sat hidden in the dark.
Why were they allowed a long and happy marriage, and I wasn’t?
Why did fate hate me so much to give me my soulmate and then do whatever it could to prevent me from claiming her?
Furious tears pricked my eyes as I cracked open the box and looked at the ring inside. At the golden waves crashing over the band, the crest of each sparkling with diamonds until they smashed together in the centre, splashing into one solitaire that wasn’t as big as I would like but was the greatest symbol of my commitment.
My commitment to Neri.
My absolute desperation to bind her to me for eternity.
Quiet footsteps stepped outside the slider and onto the deck, pulling my head up.
Time stood still as Neri fumbled with her phone, quickly swiping through apps, her entire focus on the bright screen in her hands. The darkness of the garden shrouded me. The solar lights around the pool had faded in recent years, failing to spread their light to where I sat in the shadows.
My heart picked up its beat, thundering to the same song it always did around her. Quick and sharp, hard and sure. She was mine. I’d known it from the moment she first touched me as I broke beneath raw grief. That same grief lapped at my ankles now, whispering of goodbyes.