Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
I don’t give any of the hedonistic empty shells a second thought, because the reason I even walked into this mess isn’t here.
“Where is she?” I whip my head toward Bonneville, who’s trying to stroke her hair into submission.
“Uh…she was here. I don’t know where she went. You see, we might have gotten a bit crazy last night—”
“Did you let her drink?”
“No, I didn’t, but…”
“But you threw a party where alcohol was more available than your morals.”
“She crashed the party. She said she wanted to catch up. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I stride past her and into one of the bedrooms, walking in on unflattering bodies in naked slumber, but since none of them is my target, I walk to the next.
It’s not until I reach Bonneville’s upper-floor pool that overlooks the city that I pause.
And it’s entirely due to a soft string of laughter. Very familiar laughter. And it’s not directed at me.
I shove through the entrance with the devil on my shoulder.
Sure enough, Ava’s sitting on the edge of the pool, her dress hiked up dangerously close to her upper thighs so that she can dip her sparkly-pink toes in the water.
My blood roars in my veins upon seeing a half-naked man floating in the pool and grinning at her with boyish charm.
“So what is it you wanted to ask me? You can do so after you join me. Come on,” he says with a note of flirtation that I’m well aware the likes of him can’t help.
Ava is nothing less than a goddess whose altar every man with a functioning dick yearns to burn incense at.
She’s a beautiful rose with mesmerizing energy that intoxicates the flies circling her, but like all roses, her stem is crowded with thorns.
It’s me. I’m the thorns.
“I don’t have my bathing suit.” She’s still smiling at the motherfucker.
If I hold his head underwater, how long would it take for the waste of space to spit his last breaths? Or perhaps I can smash his skull on the edge of the pool?
Choices. Choices.
He opens his mouth that will be ripped at the corners Joker style. “You can improvise.”
“I’ll improvise your early death if you’re not careful, Mr. Elliot.” I stride into the scene and stand by my wife.
Ava looks up at me and a sudden tension overtakes her. Her once-relaxed expression is now frozen in shock and her mouth hangs open, devoid of even a hint of a smile or playful energy.
I hate that she regards me with obscene hatred. That my mere presence is enough to sour her mood. I thought she was getting comfortable around me lately, but perhaps I was sorely mistaken.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers.
“Weren’t you the one who begged me to come home, darling?”
I expect the usual retort of ‘I did not beg you’ or ‘you wish’ or, better yet, for her to play along with the married-couple antics we engage in when in public. However, she lowers her head and chooses to stare at the water.
“We’re leaving.” I grab her arm and yank her to her feet in the midst of her splashing. She follows the motion and the dress finally drops down.
“Do you want to go, Ava?” the idiot who’s begging to be waterboarded asks.
I step forward. “Do you want to breathe for one more minute?”
My wife places a firm hand on my chest. “Thanks, V, but I’m fine. Have a nice day.”
“You, too,” he says with a note of disappointment.
Before I can contemplate his fate once and for all, Ava slides her arm in mine and basically drags me out of the area.
“V was only keeping me company because I couldn’t sleep. No need to be a dick.”
I narrow my eyes on the top of her head. She couldn’t sleep because she didn’t take her meds and the one person she chose to entertain her was Vance Elliot.
Not me. Vance.
“You know,” I say in an eerily calm tone. “The more you take a liking to him, the faster he’ll disappear.”
She swallows and stares up at me with fear mixed with mysterious apprehension.
This is new.
Ava has never been scared of me. Not really. She wouldn’t have battled me every step of the way if she were.
She resents me, yes, but she doesn’t fear me.
Her emotions for me went through a long phase of idolization that morphed into chronic hatred and remained there. In the hatred part.
“And me?” she asks in a low whisper.
“You?”
“What will happen to me? Will you make me disappear as well if you catch me with another man?”
I stop at the bottom of the stairs and lift her chin with two fingers as I speak with chilling calm. “Will I catch you with another man, Mrs. King?”
She shakes her head twice.
“Then the question is redundant.”
“And what if it happens…hypothetically?”