Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 148184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
I eat like a raving lunatic, shoving chicken and strawberries into my mouth at a breakneck pace. It’s not until the air stirs around me, sending a chill down my spine, that I glance up to find I’ve got company.
Andrea doesn’t look great.
Not in an, I survived a brutal beating way, but in an, I’m not taking care of myself way. Her usually luscious black hair is dull and limp around her face. Her eyes, still yellow with bruises, are puffy and heavily bagged.
I gasp. She’s wearing sweatpants and an oversized sweater. Not that I expect her to bust out the Prada for breakfast, but I’ve never seen her any less than perfect. At least not since…
I swallow my food and try to give her a smile. “Hi.”
She doesn’t return it, ignoring me on the way to the refrigerator.
Shoving another bite of chicken in my mouth, I keep my gaze locked on her as if she might explode at any moment. Of the two of us, I’m the far more emotional one. Yet as someone who’s been victimized my entire life, sometimes that explosion can be cathartic. Talking about it always helps, and that was how Rose and I kept each other sane. How we survived.
My chest tightens, thinking about Rose and all the ways I failed her.
I won’t let it happen again.
Andrea heads toward the exit, but I call out to stop her. “Come here. I want to talk to you.”
I don’t know if it’s the command in my voice, or she really doesn’t want to be alone, but to my surprise, she turns around and plops onto the stool next to me. “What?”
“Sit with me, please. Eat.” This time, I don’t smile. If she’s only staying because she sees me as her boss’s wife, then I need to be as hard as he can get.
With shaking hands, which I pretend not to notice, she pops the lid on a bowl of salad and digs a fork into the leafy vegetables. We sit in silence and scarf down our food.
I slow things down, so I don’t scare her off before I get the chance to question her. Or, at the very least, offer comfort.
When all my food is gone, I shift on the stool only enough to study her. She looks tired, almost like my insides feel right now. So worn down by the world, there’s no going back.
“How are you?” I ask, immediately feeling like an idiot. It’s the dumbest question I could have asked.
She glares over her bowl and swallows hard. “Peachy.” Her tone is razor-sharp. Lucky for her, I’ve got experience handling prickly tempers.
“You’re right. Stupid question. I panicked. How about this… can you tell me who hurt you so I can go find them and kill them for you?”
Her eyes fly wide, and while I meant it more as a joke, I don’t hate the idea. At the very least, I could send Kai or Alexei to do the honors.
This new bloodthirst should terrify me or send me into a fit of fear and turmoil, but it doesn’t. Killing the men who hurt her so badly seems like a fucking public service.
“You’re going to do that all by yourself, are you?”
I shrug. “What’s it matter as long as you get their heads in a box at the end of the day?”
She sniffs and sits up to study me. “You sound a bit like your husband, you know that?”
This time, she looks almost impressed. I wait, holding my breath, for her to answer.
“It was two of your ex-fiancé’s brothers and one of the council members… Bach, maybe. I hadn’t spoken to him before.”
I finally breathe and nod once. “Thank you for telling me. I know this is all terrible. You can talk to me if you want. You were there the day Adrian saved me, you saved me, so you know I’ve been through the same things.”
She jabs her fork into her salad hard a few times. “Yeah, maybe. Does it go away?”
“What?”
“The fear. Before, I feared nothing. Now, it’s like I wait for them around every corner. As if they will pop out to finish what they started.” Her voice wavers like an old record, scratching and breaking on the end.
I want to draw her into a hug, but I know she doesn’t want to be touched right now. Instead, I settle for facing her on the stool. “It goes away…with some distance and some time. Be patient with yourself as you heal. Once your body no longer shows the scars, the mental ones can leap up and grab you long after.”
She scans my face, but I don’t know what she’s looking for. After a moment, she seems satisfied and eats another bite of her salad.
I won’t fail Andrea like I failed Rose. It’s as if the universe is giving me a chance to right my wrongs. If I had left with Rose when she asked me to the night of the ball…she might not be dead right now. We might still be together.