Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Pulling in a bracing breath, I turn to him, ignoring the way my heart lurches at the sight of the worry in his eyes. Until I know what’s going on, I can’t even think about forgiving him.
Hell, I still have no idea exactly what I’d be forgiving him for.
“My friend Sydney left a voice message while we were chatting with your friends,” I finally whisper. “She said you’re not who you’ve been pretending to be. She said Clark isn’t even your real last name.”
A pained expression flashes across his face, but he doesn’t look surprised.
And he doesn’t refute the information.
“Well, shit,” I choke out, my throat tight. “Then it’s true?” I shake my head. “I mean, of course, it’s true. Sydney’s not the kind who gets things wrong. I guess I just…” I finish in a soft, shamed voice, “I hoped there was some mistake.”
“Maya, please,” he says, sounding as miserable as I feel. “I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you tonight. I swear it. That’s why I had my friends come to meet us at the club. I wanted you to hear from people who know me that I’m not some kind of—”
“Some kind of lying creep?” I finish for him, my stomach churning.
He winces. “Something like that, I guess. But I promise, I never meant to hurt you.” He searches my face, his gaze burning into mine as he adds in a whisper, “I never meant to fall in love with you, either. But I did. And the thought of losing you because I waited too long to come clean makes me physically ill. Please, just give me the chance to explain.”
I chew my bottom lip, torn between the part of me that just watched him go out of his way to help a kid in trouble and the part screaming that liars never change. Once a liar, always a liar, and I can’t build a future with someone like that.
I learned that from watching my sister nearly ruin her life before she wised up and kicked her liar to the curb. That’s not a lesson I want or need to learn firsthand.
But still…
There’s so much good between us, too much to run without giving him the chance to explain. That was never my plan.
I didn’t have a plan, honestly, I just wanted to get to Sydney and get some answers.
“You’d better start with your real name,” I finally say, pushing on before he can reply. “And don’t try to hide anything. Like I said, my friend is on to you. I was on my way to her place to get the entire story when Bennie…”
“Tried to mug you with a water gun?” he supplies when I trail off. “You were good to him, by the way.”
“You were better,” I say, grudgingly.
He shakes his head. “No, you were the one who got through to him. I meant what I said. You’re a wise woman. Wise and kind and beautiful and I don’t want to let you go. But…if after you hear me out, you want to leave, I’ll call you a cab myself, okay?”
I pull in a breath and let it out slowly, my teeth chattering a little as I nod. “Okay.”
He strips out of his suit coat. “Here, take my jacket. You’re shivering.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. We’re almost there.”
“I insist.” He wraps the coat around my shoulders, surrounding me with his warmth and the clean, evergreen-and-fancy-hotel-lobby scent of him. The smell is already so familiar, so sweet. I’ll never be able to walk through a forest or the Ritz-Carlton in Portland without thinking of him.
Anthony Whatever His Name Is will haunt me until the day I die.
“Last name?” I demand, unable to wait a second longer.
“Pissarro,” he says, putting an arm around my shoulders as we move out of the alley onto the main street.
I frown, the name resonating for some reason, but I can’t put my finger on why. Still, “That makes sense,” I say, glancing up at his classic profile, one any ancient Roman statue would be proud of. “You’re way too Italian to be a Clark.”
His lips quirk. “Thanks. Though that was my gram’s last name when she died, and she was as Italian as they come. After my grandfather passed away, she married a Clark, though he was long gone by the time I moved in with her. She had a thing for men with heart disease, apparently.”
“So that was true? About living with your grandmother when you were little?”
He nods. “I stuck to the truth as much as I could. I hated lying to you, but once I started, I…didn’t know how to stop. Not without ruining your experience. I mean, you came to the city to procure a certain kind of service, not a boyfriend.”
Boyfriend…
The word is still enough to make my heart run screaming in giddy circles.