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)
Pain bursts on my skin as he sinks his teeth into my lower lip and bites hard. A metallic taste explodes on my tongue as his hand slides up my nape, fists my hair in a rough grip, and he tugs me back.
I’m panting as blood coats my tongue, my lip throbs, and my scalp burns. But the pressure only lasts for a second before he releases me and wipes my blood from his lips like a gothic vampire.
“Why…?” I whisper.
“That’s what happens when you touch what you shouldn’t, Ava. You get hurt.”
I shake my head, my chin trembling. “I just…I just wanted to prove I’m not a kid. I…” I take a step toward him and then another, wearing my heart on my sleeve despite the dull pain. “I like you, Eli. I always have.”
“And I don’t.”
Three measly words nearly smash my entire world to smithereens. I struggle to remain standing, to look at him through my blurry vision as spikes grow in my naive heart. The heart that he blew life into—life that’s currently being sucked out.
“Because I’m a kid? I’ll be eighteen next year—”
“Because I couldn’t care less about you or your glittery, entirely idealistic feelings. Turn around and remove your distasteful presence from my sight, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear your embarrassing confessions.”
When I do no such thing, too busy searching for the pieces of my splintered pride, he steps around me.
“This is my first and final warning. If you attempt anything this foolish again, I’ll ruin you.”
And then he’s walking away, leaving me with a shattered dream, a broken heart, and a deep, crushing hatred for love.
And him.
10
AVA
PRESENT
The longer Eli stares at me, the tighter the tension slithers around my neck and squeezes like a venomous snake.
I’ve been lethally poisoned by him before—it was both painful and irreversible. It took all my resolve to escape his orbit.
I spent sleepless nights and precious tears on the bastard, and I had to adopt a complete change of mindset to escape him.
After the day he so cruelly stepped on my naive heart, I thought I wanted to die.
Stupid, really, when I think about it now.
But at that moment, everything morphed into black smoke and I felt so miserable, I contemplated plotting my demise.
I’m so thankful Creigh found me in the greenhouse before I could entertain those dark thoughts. He let me cry on his shoulder for an hour without saying a word, and I’ll never forget the comfort he provided me.
It's an absolute tragedy that I wasn’t head over heels for him instead of his tyrant brother, but then again, one can’t simply dictate the demands of their heart.
I threw the pink letter I wrote to him in the nearest rubbish can and, for good measure, kissed Vance to wash away Eli’s bloody kiss.
Cecily stopped me before I did something more stupid, like shagging the guy just out of spite. My friend and I snuggled in my bed, and she listened to me blabber and cry and curse him while I drank myself to sleep.
Honestly, if it weren’t for Creigh and Cecy, my life would’ve ended that night in the most embarrassing way imaginable.
To think I was naive enough to even consider that option grates on my nerves.
No, I’m not the healthiest person mentally, but I’m surrounded by people who love and appreciate me, and I had to focus on them instead.
So I spent the years that followed getting over him by converting all that admiration and affection to hot-blooded hate. It worked like a charm.
It’s still working like a charm.
Except that he seemed to insert his distasteful presence in my way after I got into his uni. For the record, I only did that to be with Cecy, Glyn, and the rest of my friends. It absolutely had nothing to do with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, as I preferred to call him.
Not one single bit.
And yet wherever I went, he was there either physically, like a dark lord lurking in the shadows, or virtually through others. He was like a damn parasite one can’t get rid of.
That night before my imagined accident was one of many where he just dished out his orders and expected me to follow them like I was still the idiot Ava who ceased breathing whenever he looked in her direction.
He ruined all of my relationships. Though it’s a stretch to call them that since he scared the guys away before we even started dating properly.
James at school ditched me because I was high maintenance. Later, I found out from Lan that Eli had threatened his application to Oxford and his dad’s spot in the gentleman's club.
Harry said my tastes were too expensive for his liking, even though I never asked the loser for a penny. Eli apparently worked his devious ways to nearly drive his family’s business into bankruptcy.