Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I burst through my entryway, collapsing to my knees. My body was shutting down. One organ at a time. Crawling toward the stairway, I passed Hettie on her way from the kitchen, a bag of oranges cradled in her arms.
“Keep Jared out of the house,” I mumbled.
She didn’t ask what was wrong. She did as I said and blocked the driver with her slender body.
The journey up the spiral staircase was excruciating. Each step seemed to cost me a year of my life. Sweat rolled down every inch of skin. White dotted my eyesight. Finally, I reached Dallas’s bedroom. Though she slept in ours these days, she still loved the room she first occupied when she moved here.
It was full of her books. Of her scent. Of her sweet existence. She spent most afternoons reading on the windowsill.
The relief I felt at seeing her curled in front of her window, a paperback in her lap, was immediate. At the very least, I could tell her what I wanted to say.
She looked like a painting so unique, so special, even Zach wouldn’t be able to get his hands on it. In a pale turquoise dress. Her backdrop a winter realm of pearl-hued snow. Tendrils of her hair escaped her messy bun. I cursed myself for all the times I wanted to tuck them behind her ears but didn’t. Life was too short not to be crazy fucking in love with the girl who wore you down.
Shortbread’s gaze hurdled from the pages of the book to me. Her jaw slackened.
The sky was falling through the reflection of her eyes. Even if I never heard her return the words I was about to say, I knew that was enough.
“Rom!” She tossed the book aside. It ricocheted on the floor. It gave me great satisfaction that she mishandled her book for me. Her books were her entire world.
She rushed to me, collecting me in her arms. Crouching down, she lifted my head, cradling it. I gathered I looked about as ghastly as I felt because her fingers shook so much, she dropped me on her lap with an unceremonious thump.
“What’s going on?” Her pupils danced hysterically in their sockets. “Why do you look so pale?”
“Poison.” I didn’t even have the energy to tack on the “-ed” on the end.
She sucked in a breath and pulled her phone out, calling 9-1-1. I somehow lifted a hand, knocking it back. I couldn’t feel her touch. Her warmth. It felt like I was cocooned in a temperature-less cotton.
“Ambulance on the way.”
“I’m going to kill him.” She buried her nose in my shoulder. I couldn’t smell her rose-scented hair. “Madison. He did this to you.”
My eyelids fluttered shut. I harvested every ounce of my remaining strength. I would only get one chance to say this. It needed to be firm. Clear.
Our eyes locked.
“I have something to say.”
Oddly enough, I was busier telling her what I came here to say than being furious at Madison. Turned out, Dallas had been right, after all. Love trumped hate. Good conquered evil. When you drew your last breath, you didn’t think about the people you loathed. You thought about those you loved.
“This is very important, Shortbread. Are you listening?”
Though I couldn’t feel her body, I could feel her pain. She looked like heartbreak. The way she had on the night I’d met her at the debutante ball. Oh, fuck. Even back then, I was powerless against her, wasn’t I? From the moment I saw her in that ballroom, in her own little universe, surrounded by sweets and a head full of faraway fictional lands, I wanted her.
“Yes.” She trembled, clutching my cheeks harder. Our faces fused together. “I’m listening, Rom.”
“I’m in love with you, Dallas Costa. I love every piece of you. Every cell. Every breath. Every laugh. You’ve bewitched me, and I don’t want to leave this world thinking you don’t know how much you’ve changed me.”
“No, Rom. No.”
Dallas rested my head on the floor. The realization that I’d lost complete control over my body boomeranged into me. She unbuttoned my shirt in a desperate attempt to save me. Her eyes roamed my skin, searching for a telltale sign. A bite mark. Anything she could work with.
For the first time since I met her—and knowing her, maybe this decade—a single tear beaded in the corner of her eye. It crawled down her cheek, trudging past her chin. Just one tear, yet that tear brought me the most joy I’d ever felt in my life. Turned out, my defiant, stouthearted wife could cry. And it only took me dying to happen.
Suddenly, tears washed her cheeks, splashing from her chin to mine. Her brows furrowed at the sight of liquid trickling down my jaw. She catalogued my eyes before realizing it hadn’t come from me. With an unsteady hand, she brought a fingertip to her cheek, collecting a tear.