Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“I’m not sure we should get into that right now.” He got mighty fidgety as if I were putting him on the spot. Too bad he wanted to talk; now I was ready to listen.
“Why? Is it too complicated for you? Fine, there’s the door.”
“Come on, Elena, don’t be like that.”
“You either tell me the whole story, or you get the fuck out right now.”
“Fine, but keep an open mind ok; this happened a long time ago.”
“Keep talking.”
“There might have been a situation where I was kind of intimate with her, Mary.” “You fucked her.”
“Yes. The thing is, I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. The age of consent in Cali is sixteen, but the rest of the world might not have been so understanding.”
“You fucked her. What was she, like sixty?”
“Thereabout! I think.
“That’s disgusting, you disgusting pig.”
“Hey, it was in the past, and besides, I was high. It only happened once, and when I realized what I’d done, I stayed as far away from her as possible.”
“Yeah, Ryder, our past, you were with me.”
“No, this was before we were together. I promise.”
“So, she decided to destroy my life for what exactly?”
“I think she might’ve thought I told you about that night.”
“So, let’s put that aside for now. Tell me, what was the lie they told you about me that got you to leave me at the altar? You never said.”
Once again, he looked as if he didn’t want to share, but he should’ve known that I’d want to know that above everything else. He’d said plenty about being deceived and all the things that came after but had yet to tell me just exactly what it was they’d said to make him leave me and do it in such a callous way.
“They said you killed my child.”
“What?” Of all the things I expected him to say, that did not even make the list.
“They said that when all of you went to Asia together, you knew you were pregnant, and you got rid of it without telling me. They also said you slept with someone while you were there.” He had the nerve to glare at me.
“And you believed them?”
“No, not after I thought about it, but when I pushed back, that’s when they told me what they were really up to. They planned to destroy you. I had no choice but to marry her, or they would’ve come after you, and we’ve seen what they can do, do you understand me? I couldn’t say shit. Then they spent the next five years keeping me hopped up on shit so that I didn’t remember any of it.”
I couldn’t speak for a good five minutes as my body went cold. And then I got so angry I had to hold my breath and count to ten. Those fucking nepo babies and their piece of shit demon incubator are going to rue the day they crossed me. “Why? I don’t understand why. There has to be more to it than Mary wanting to keep her sexual fetishes hidden. She could’ve paid you off, any number of things, but why come after me?”
He looked down at his hands that he’d clasped between his knees before looking up again. For someone who came all the way over here to talk, getting him to do just that was like pulling teeth. I knew he was holding back, but since we’d come this far, there was no way I wasn’t getting it all out of him, no matter how horrible.
“So, tell me, since she wanted to keep it a secret that she likes little boys, what reason did Mary give the others for wanting to ruin my life? Did you ever find that out?”
“Actually, you’re right; she had another reason for not liking you.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that? Did I steal her boy toy?”
“Because you thought you were better than them.”
“What do you mean? I never gave anyone that impression; why would she think that?”
“When you were friends with them, something happened; I don’t know what, but it looks like it started there.”
“When I was friends with them? What could that be? Wait, you mean because I didn’t want to hire her as my manager? All of this is because I wouldn’t fire my mother and hire her?” That doesn’t make any sense. Who would destroy someone’s life because of something as stupid as that?
She’s never managed anyone in her life before her own family; why would she think that I would let her work with me? I barely even knew her back then, and what I did know wasn’t very appealing, to tell you the truth.
She was trying to use me, and I was just smart enough to see through her bullshit. But that does not mean that I thought I was better than her. She’s no different from half the people in this town. What kind of grown-ass woman acts that way with someone more than half her age?