Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 63563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Five minutes ago, the fake fiancé, fake wedding, fake marriage thing was my greatest concern.
But now, add my maid to the mix—dear lord, should I really use that word? Now Elisa has been turned into a statue with the bloody cursed ring on her bloody finger. Bloody fucking hell.
“Try and…and smack her!”
Meryl looks at me in horror. “I’m not going to smack her! What the heck is wrong with you? That would be assault.”
“Not assault-style smack! Okay, yeah, maybe that’s not good. Just…uh…grab her shoulders and try to shake her out of it.”
“She’s in a trance! What if I shake her and her neck snaps?”
“That probably won’t happen.”
“You shake her then!”
“If I shake her, it would be more forceful.”
“Restrain yourself and do it.”
With a sigh, I reach out toward Elisa’s shoulders, but my hands pause in mid-air. “I can’t do it.” I drop them. “We should call an ambulance.”
“And tell them what? About a cursed ring? They’re not going to believe it. Or what if they do, and we get in serious shit? It would be bad. If people found out we’re messing around with curses and stuff, they’ll boycott the papers and magazines because they think it’s bad luck.”
“I think it would actually sell more. People love paranormal stuff.”
“Not bad voodoo stuff like this!”
“Oh, I think you might be wrong there.”
Meryl stamps one heel hard on the tiled stair. “Just shake her!”
“Why don’t I just take the ring off?”
“O…oh.” My future fake fiancé wraps her arms around her middle. She’s scared. And for a good reason. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen every day. Well, okay, it never happens. “Yeah, try and slide it off.”
I can see that Meryl isn’t going to be of any further help. She’s a nice lady, and at thirty-four, she’s only a year younger than me. We grew up in the same kind of environment, sort of. And we both went to Ivy League Schools. Our families both come from old money and then turned it into a mountain of new money in the same kind of arena. When I met her, we had a lot in common, and everyone wanted us to click. However, we just stayed business contacts and sort of friends until Meryl broached the idea of a fake wedding so everyone would stop asking when we’d get married and leave us alone to get on with our lives after the fact.
It made sense. It made a lot of sense. Meryl is smart, and she’s more than just beautiful. She’s stylish, witty, funny, and kind, but we have zero physical chemistry. I’m not it for her, and she’s not it for me. Meryl is driven, and she’s usually quite brave, but this cursed ring business has her shaken.
It even makes me quake a little in the boots I don’t have on, as I’m more of a barefoot kind of guy when I’m painting. In order to make their point known, my toes flex on the cool tile and then curl. Because this is literally some toe-curling stuff right here.
“Ash? Are you going to—”
“Yes. Yes, I’m going to get it off.” It sounds filthy, but neither of us makes a gutter-humored joke about it. It’s not Meryl’s style, and it’s not mine either unless I’m with my brother and cousins. They’re my best friends, and when we’re together, things can get just a little bit crass. And by little, I mean a lot. As in, a butt-ton.
I reach out toward Elisa’s hand. Her hand is outstretched still, her fingers flexed, and she hasn’t moved. She really is still frozen. I inch forward with my index finger, letting it lead the way, closer and closer.
“Arghhhhh,” Meryl suddenly sighs, scaring the heck out of me.
I shiver violently but keep going. I close the distance and only hesitate once when I’m a few inches away. Then, I just go for it. I handled that stupid box just fine a few minutes ago, so I tell myself I can do this. The ring isn’t going to zap me. It’s supposed to lead me to my soulmate or some nonsense, which means good things, not bad. The bad things happen to people who put it on who are not my soulmate, clearly. Look at poor Elisa, frozen as still as a statue.
Thank god I didn’t let Meryl have it. And good thing I made that pact with my cousins and brother. Curse or no curse, we are never falling in love. Not after the whole fiasco of a mess we witnessed our parents go through even though theirs were love marriages. But even if that hadn’t happened, we probably still wouldn’t have believed in love because we’re modern individuals with lots of money and sense. And love is just kind of a ridiculous notion to believe in. Anyway, I’m going to fight this curse tooth, nail and all of that if I have to, that is if, by some very minuscule chance, it actually was real.