Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
How pathetic that it made me elated.
But alas, it did.
I went back to the kitchen to get a water bottle—I always got extra thirsty after our encounters—strolling past his office again on my way upstairs.
I halted, noticing he no longer had his eyes trained on the screen. His elbows now rested on his desk, and he cupped his head, staring downward.
He looked exasperated.
Dissatisfied.
And no longer in hate with me.
Romeo and I slid into a routine.
A routine where I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and he stopped bothering me about it.
This mostly consisted of lunch dates with Hettie, trips to local libraries, and Henry Plotkin binges in anticipation of the fourteenth and final one.
Not exactly life on the edge.
This evening crawled by like any other. While I hovered over the stove, forking down adobo pork belly before Hettie could even plate it, Romeo ate his boring chicken in his boring office.
God forbid he get caught being civilized with his wife in front of his staff.
“You’re not a mop, Dal.” Hettie jerked the pot away from me. “You don’t need to lick the cookware clean.”
“It’s called efficiency. I’m saving water for the drought.”
“The one across the country?”
“It’s called patriotism, Hettie.”
“We both know you finish dinner in point-two seconds every night to kick me out early so you and Lucifer can get freaky.”
Since she’d spoken nothing but truth, I did exactly that, ushering her and Vernon out the door.
By the time Romeo slipped into my room, I awaited him on my duvet, naked, Henry Plotkin in one hand and a highlighter in the other.
In truth, I counted the days, the hours, the minutes until my period. I wanted so badly to wake up in the morning (okay, afternoon) and discover I was late.
Nothing would make me happier than being pregnant. I was sure of it.
Even if my blessing would be Romeo’s curse.
Romeo strode to me and attempted to pry my fingers off the hardcover.
“Wait.” I pouted, tugging it back. “Madison is about to—”
He stood deathly still. “Madison?”
“The character. Henry’s sister.”
Madison the Scumbag, on the other hand? I hadn’t heard from him since the showdown at Le Bleu.
I’d be lying if I said I felt good about the way we’d left things. Not from guilt. Madison used me as a tool against my husband, who then used me as a tool against Madison.
If I were a judge, they’d both be convicted of crimes. It just sucked to know the three of us were stuck in this power, ego, and money limbo.
I released the book, allowing Romeo to set it on the nightstand. Then he proceeded to show me heaven in a place that should have been my personal hell.
We did everything but sex. Spent hours exploring each other’s bodies. Each muscle. Each curve. All licked, kissed, scraped, and sucked.
He knew my body inside out. The beauty mark below my right hip bone. Each individual freckle on my shoulder.
And I’d studied him acutely, learning exactly where he was ticklish (between his six-pack and hip bone), what made him suck in a breath (when I covered the crown of his cock with my mouth, then blew air on the tip), and what he merely tolerated because he knew I enjoyed it (when I licked the shell of his ear. It gave him goose bumps).
At two past midnight, he slid his pants over his legs. I lay in bed, lips puffed, hair a mess, body deliciously aching.
Romeo glanced at the poor flower and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “…incapacity to care for a houseplant, let alone an entire child.”
Vernon’s rose had prevailed the impossible—me.
My sun-deprived room, the dirty water it marinated in, and my general inattentiveness.
From time to time, Romeo would tend to it, swapping out fresh water. Once, he’d even taken the tiny scissors I used to trim my eyebrows, clipping the tip of the rose.
Maybe that was why only one petal had fallen from it since we’d started regularly hooking up.
I didn’t know what impressed me more—Vernon’s ability to create a sub-species of rose or my husband’s hidden trait of caring for things with the gentleness of a doting father.
The next morning, I danced around the kitchen island with Hettie, immersed in a chocolate challenge.
Every single brand under the sun sprawled before us. Godiva, Cadbury, Dove, Ghirardelli, Lindt, and La Maison du Chocolat.
Vernon, our judge, sat on a barstool, atop four thick finance textbooks I’d stolen from Romeo’s office for added height. Not that Hettie or I could see him through our blindfolds.
I munched on a raspberry ganache pearl. “Godiva.”
Vernon cleared his throat, interrupting my 4-3 lead. “Mrs. Costa, you have a guest.”
As always, he insisted on calling me Mrs. Costa.
And as always, I visibly shuddered.
I ripped the blindfold off my eyes, gasping. “Frankie!”
But it wasn’t her.
Not Momma, either.
My lungs emptied, a gust of air whooshing past my lips.