Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 85888 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85888 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
“Susie?” asked Cleo. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I, um...”
When Lars saw my face, his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Really I’m fine.” My smile was all teeth and my hands were shaking. Too much adrenaline. “But I’m going to go. You stay. I’ll see you at home.”
“Wait. Wh—”
“It would be best if we talked about this later. Please just trust me.”
Lars got to his feet. “Hang on. What happened?”
“That bitch attacked me,” announced a loud, familiar, and much-hated voice on the other side of the room. All conversation ceased as the band stopped playing. The space between us cleared and there stood Aaron. The not-so-innocent man cradling his poor sore junk with his hands. And oh the venom in his eyes. Not only had I rejected him, but I’d laid him low. Me. His ego couldn’t comprehend the situation.
Meanwhile, his mother, Vivian, started making these high-pitched sounds of rage and distress that really should have broken glass. Just shattered every wineglass and window in the room. Guess she took the sanctity of the family jewels deathly serious. Though I was pretty sure the world could do without more of this particular family.
Deborah and Henning looked between me and Aaron in horror. Talk about trashing their party.
“It’s true,” I said to Lars, keeping my voice down and pressing my fists against my stomach. My spirits sank through the floor. “He said I was only with you to make him jealous. Then he tried to kiss me. So I fed him his balls with my knee. The end.”
Lars’s forehead filled with furrows. All the furrows in all the land. He was confused.
“Whatever shit she’s saying to you, man, she’s lying.” Aaron pushed his way through the crowd, heading toward us. And Lars’s parents followed. The way Aaron walked was...awkward. He was most definitely in pain. As much as he deserved it, I so did not want to be responsible for an ugly scene. Though I doubted there was any way to prevent it now.
Fuck. “I’m sorry—”
“She just fucking attacked me out of nowhere,” continued Aaron. He was the picture of disarray with his suit creased, face red, and hair a mess. I’d never seen him so unkempt. Or in such a rage.
The daggers Vivian were glaring at me were razor-sharp. Ouch.
Lars started rolling up his sleeves. In another time and place, I would have enjoyed the sight. The revelation of his muscular forearms and the way the white cotton of his button-down framed the bulge of his biceps. Due to my life imploding, however, I didn’t have time to gawk.
“I attacked you, out of nowhere?” I asked with much scorn. “Me? Outside the women’s bathroom just now? Are you sure about those facts?”
“What on earth happened?” asked Deborah. “What did you do?”
Though her gaze took in the both of us, Aaron froze. To be fair, he never had been great in high-stress situations. And after he’d had a couple of drinks, he was worse. It was how we broke up in the first place. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut about what a duplicitous shit he was, and how he planned to cheat on me when he got to London. But back to the here and now. With much jabbing of his finger in my direction, Aaron said, “Susie came onto me and of course I turned her down. Told her I’d be telling Lars what she was about. That’s when she lost it and attacked me.”
Someone gasped. Another person snickered. I don’t know who. Each and every one of the seventy-odd guests was watching. This debacle had their full attention. Even the band was hanging on our every word. What a disaster this was turning out to be. Here I was meeting Lars’s extended family for the first time, and providing them with a floor show.
Cleo snorted. “What complete and utter bullshit.”
I gave her a small grateful smile.
Henning slipped a supportive arm around his wife’s waist.
“Oh, really? This doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s just more of the same. She’s always behaved this way,” said Vivian with an evil glint in her eye. “I told you. I said you could do better than some grasping sl—”
“That’s enough,” said Tore. And the man was not happy.
Wish I knew what I’d done to the woman to earn such enmity. Just dared to date her precious son, I guess. But she didn’t matter. Neither did her asshole of a child. The only person who mattered was Lars.
“You were saying something?” Lars took a step closer, his gaze questioning. “You said you were sorry. What are you sorry for, Susie?”
Oh, no. That didn’t sound good. Not at all.
Accusing gazes locked on to me from all around, and fear grabbed hold. The intense expression on his face. This was it, the moment of truth. Lars didn’t believe me and he certainly wouldn’t love me anymore. Not after this. He was going to take the word of his oldest friend. My luck with men always had been shit. Why should this be any different?