Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Where Stiles looked at me as if he alone could fix me. The girl that he could help somehow. I didn’t want help from anyone, or I would have asked. That’s one of the main reasons it ended between us. Stiles couldn’t make me what I didn’t want to become.
My dreams were never to become a lawyer or some fancy designer. No, mine were simple. Easy. Something that made me happy and comfortable. I had a clientele that I loved. Clientele that liked to only see me. They told me all their problems, confided in me when they had no one else. And I loved every minute of it.
And now my world was being ripped away because I tried to save a girl who was destined for nowhere anyway. I wanted more for her. I wanted to save her because I had no one to save me at her age. Failing was what happened, and now the consequences for my actions were to be paid in full.
There was no escaping it.
Ryken knows it, so I must as well.
If Ryken Lord, King of the underworld can’t stop this from happening, I don’t have a hope in hell to save my sorry ass. And no one else is going to fight for me. He already tried that, and in return, he paid his price, too.
Breathing him is my only option. Because if I stop, I will crash and I already tried to do that. He won’t let me.
“I’m going to disappear, and no one will miss me,” I say more to myself as he holds me. How can someone else’s hands hold you up when all you want to do is fall. He holds me for a good minute, before he pulls back, both hands now on my face as he looks at me. My wrist is aching, but I don’t care about that either.
Soon, my life problems are going to be big.
A cut wrist won’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
“What will they do with me?” I ask. The tears have stopped now. His finger brushes my cheek as he looks at me to answer. His eyes are dark again, the same way they were that day at school. The years have been good to his body, maybe not so much to his mind.
“You should sit down.” He goes to move his hands away from my face, but I hold him to me. Shaking my head. “Okay.” He nods his head, staying where he is, touching me. I need him to be physical with me, so I don’t think I’m having a nightmare.
Closing my eyes my hands stay on him. “Tell me. Please.”
“He won’t rape you. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? That he won’t touch you?”
Relief floods through me as I nod my head. “They won’t touch me?”
His eyes squint as he looks at me, and I know what he’s about to say isn’t going to be easy. “He may do other things to you, Barbie. Some things I couldn’t keep off the table. Rape was the only guarantee I could get.”
My hands drop from him, and I take a step back, breaking contact with him. “You only came back to tell me this, didn’t you?”
He nods his head in confirmation.
“When do you leave?”
“The day you do.”
My heart cracks.
“She’s waiting for you. Isn’t she?”
His head nods, and if my heart weren’t already shattered, it would be now.
“You love both of us?” I ask, knowing the answer already.
“I do, but both in completely different ways.”
My eyes are heavy, as well as my heart.
“I should leave, and you should go back to her,” I say, shaking my head and looking around for my handbag.
“I don’t want to. Here and now is where I belong. With you, Barbie.”
“I can’t be that girl again. I promised myself I wouldn’t be that girl, Ryken. Why are you trying to make me be her?”
When I look up to him, he looks like I slapped him. “You aren’t that girl. I just happen to be that guy.”
“You don’t have to be. You choose her. Stay choosing her.”
Stepping around him, I go to the door. But he stops me with his hands. It feels like a never-ending game of pull and be pulled. We are continually yanking at each other, but somehow we never stick. We somehow come undone and go the wrong way, when we should just try to glue ourselves to the very floor we stand on together.
“Choosing you was what I wanted, though.” His hand burns my arm like it’s on fire.
“Boss.” We both turn to Quinn standing there watching us. He doesn’t judge, even though he just saw my crazy. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Not now, Quinn.” Ryken turns back to look at me, but Quinn doesn’t move.
“Boss, they’ve arrived early. You no longer have two days. Tomorrow they will collect her.”