Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“The one and only,” he confirms.
I shake my head, a fierce jealousy cutting through me at the thought that the woman who once held all of their hearts could still be out there. But more than that, she’s close by and more than prepared to try and steal them away from me. Hell, she’s prepared and ready to shoot them down if it means breaking us apart. “No,” I say. “That doesn’t make sense. She’s dead. You all saw her die. Felicity is gone and you shouldn’t allow yourself to hold out hope for a dead woman. You’re only going to hurt yourself. It has to be someone else, another woman who was hard done by you guys, someone who’s still hoping to get you back.”
“There is no one else,” he tells me. “All roads lead to her.”
I fall back onto the couch, the fierce jealousy cutting through me like a knife, but as Marcus glances down at me, that jealousy turns into embarrassment. “Look at you,” he laughs. “I didn’t realize my little Stockholm warrior was the jealous type. What’s the matter? Worried that she’s gonna come storming back in here and take me away from you?”
I narrow my hard glare at him, not impressed with his bullshit in the least. “More like worried that she’s going to come storming back in here and try her luck again, only this time she’ll aim between the eyes,” I mutter. “But for the record, I don’t get jealous, I get even. The bitch shot you. No matter who she is, I want to strangle her, even if it means taking her away from Roman for the second time.”
“Good,” Marcus says slowly, watching me a second longer than necessary, getting a good read on my emotions. “You have nothing to worry about. Whether it was Flick or not, the bitch will end up in a shallow grave for what she did. You don’t get to live and tell that story, especially when a DeAngelis brother is involved.”
“Don’t I know it,” I grumble.
Marcus laughs and I shoot my glare straight back at him. “You better not be laughing at my misery,” I snap.
His hand tightens in mine as he brings it up and presses his lips to my knuckles. “I’m not,” he says, the smirk still playing on his warm lips. “It’s just what you said about not getting jealous. You’re a shitty liar, but it’s adorable.”
I tear my hand free and huff, staring back down at the stupid tongue jar. “I’m not adorable, and I’m not a liar,” I mutter, more than aware that I’m lying right now. “I’m a teller of mystery, never giving away what’s truly on my mind.”
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “You’re a liar, but only when it counts.”
I let out a sigh and kick my feet up onto the coffee table, certain that I should probably be taking some painkillers right about now if I plan to get any sleep at all tonight. “Is that why you’ve been down here?” I question. “You’ve been thinking about what happened?”
Marcus nods. “I couldn’t get back to sleep after your phone call, and without anyone here shoving painkillers down my throat, my mind wasn’t so foggy. I’ve been able to start piecing things together and realized that there was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. It just doesn’t make any sense though. It’s fucking with my head.”
“If it really was her, don’t you think you would know? I mean … the tone of her voice, the way she smelled. You’ve been hurting over her death for months, longing to feel her presence. I just think if it actually was her, something would have clicked inside of you and you would have just known.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “But I wasn’t in love with her. I didn’t hold onto those things about her. If she called me up on the telephone right now, I wouldn’t recognize her voice, not the way that Roman would. Things like that didn’t matter to me.”
“Maybe you should be talking to him about this,” I suggest, that same flash of jealousy pressing up against my chest like a dead weight as the memory of Roman’s lips on mine comes slamming back into my head. “I’m sure he’d be able to answer some of the questions that I can’t. He was the closest to her. He’d know her mannerisms, her voice, the way she moved.”
“No,” he says, his harsh tone slipping back in. “I can’t talk to him about this, not yet. I can’t give him hope that she’s still alive if she’s not. It killed him once. I can’t do it again.”
“But—”
“No,” he says more firmly, gripping onto my chin and looking me dead in the eye, reminding me of the guy I first met when I got here. “The answer is no. You’re not to utter a single word about it unless it’s to me in private. Do you understand me?”