Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 178343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 892(@200wpm)___ 713(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 892(@200wpm)___ 713(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
The look on his face is the equivalent of a boot grinding my heart into pavement.
Because I can’t figure out what to say, I finish with, “have to go,” then clamp my mouth tight, swallow, and spin away, scrambling clumsily to get the alarm turned off and myself out the door.
I close it, not letting myself look back. Because if I look over my shoulder, if I see that pain in those piercing green eyes for one more second, I might not go. But, I have to. I have to go, so I can think, so I can breathe, unscramble my brain so that it can make decisions. So I can be true to myself and keep the promises I’ve made to myself.
After I close the door, I stand there a minute, trying to get my head together so I can make my feet work. I hear glass shattering on the other side. He’s whipped his drinking glass.
I stare at the floor for a beat, tears blurring my vision, before I stiffly make my way to the elevator.
16
Killian
“Is she okay?” I ask.
“Who?” Susanna croaks, sounding like I woke her.
It’s midnight and my wife has been gone for a few hours. I’m drunk. Almost blind-drunk; took a minute to find Susanna’s name in my phone and get it dialed.
“Violet. Who ya think I’m talkin’ about? I need to know if she’s okay.”
“What do you mean?” Susanna asks.
“She’s not there?” I demand, feeling like the floor is about to give way under my feet.
“No. What’s wrong?”
“We had a… fight,” I say, putting a shoulder against the wall to steady myself. My vision doubles for a second; I blink a couple times.
A fight. Understatement.
“Where the hell is she?” I demand.
“I’ll call her. I’ll call you back.”
I stare out the window, tempted to track her down on my phone app. But she doesn’t want me to do that stuff, does she?
My eyes move to my phone that’s still in my hand and my thumb hovers over the app on the screen.
I need to know where she is.
A minute later, I’m breathing out relief after processing the location on the screen.
Violet’s grandfather’s house. I was there once, just before we left to get married.
I sit down and tap out a message to Susanna.
I found her. She’s at her grandfather’s. Leave her be tonight. Sorry I woke you.
Susanna: I called and it went to voicemail. She’s prob asleep.
Me: Sorry I woke you.
Susanna: Bad fight?
Me: Yep.
Susanna: How mad should I be at you? As her bestie, I have to take her side, even if she’s in the wrong.
Me: I’m in the wrong. Be mad at me.
Susanna: Make it up to her. Send her flowers. Give her oral. She’ll forgive you. Girls can’t resist a downstairs kiss apology.
Susanna: Sorry. Highly inappropriate.
Susanna. < heart emoji>
***
I’m woken by banging on my bedroom door. I touch my phone to bring the screen to life. A screen full of missed calls and texts. I only take in that none of them are from my wife before I look at the time. Eleven o’clock.
“Killian, can I come in?” Patricia asks urgently, rapping on the door some more.
“What the fuck?” I call out.
My housekeeper pokes her head in.
“Are you sick?” she asks.
“I was asleep,” I clip.
She looks dumbfounded. Probably because I never sleep this late.
“The security desk called. The police are on their way up to talk to you.”
“I’ll get dressed,” I say. “Do me a favor and offer them coffee to buy me a minute, please?”
She backs out.
I swing my legs over off the bed and stare into space. The cops.
The cops.
I woodenly walk into the bathroom and take a piss, then turn to the sink and stare at myself as I turn the water on. Her perfume is on the counter, one of her black hair ties wound around my hairbrush. I run the bristles through my hair. I look like shit. I feel like shit. I drank the better part of that big bottle of whiskey and passed out somewhere around dawn. My eyes catch on the thick band of gold on my finger. I flex my fingers and stare at it before soaping up my hands.
The cops.
Fuck, Violet. Baby, fuck.
Her face flashes through my mind. Her face the night we met. The image of her in my bathrobe the morning after we spent our first night together, talking on the phone about me, not knowing I was listening as she beamed with joy at what we were starting. The panic in her eyes at the hospital when I got jumped. Her dimples. Those gorgeous dents in her cheeks that make me happier than a kid on Christmas - the kid on Christmas that got everything he wanted instead of a pile of big fat nothing like I usually got. Happy tears shining in her eyes in Vegas when she listened to me recite my vows. The look on her face and strength in her voice when she vowed her promises to me. There’s a knife in my heart right now. I can’t see it but fuck, do I feel it.