Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
What happened in the past hour that made her so vehement?
She loves me. I know she does. I’ve seen it on her face, and I’ve felt it in her fingertips.
Bringing my glass to my mouth, I throw half of the contents back, relishing the burn. This is ridiculous. I’m not going to allow her to fuck things up for such flimsy reasoning—for a non-reasoning. She can barely look me in the face.
Maybe it was the diamond. She wasn’t even wearing it. She must’ve taken it off. Maybe I should tell her I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s not a sneaky attempt at an engagement. What does she take me for?
The thoughts begin to churn and turn in my head.
Everything was okay until I mentioned children. I want kids, but it’s a distant, vague sort of thing. I might change my mind—better the right person than the wrong one with ovaries.
Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe she can’t have kids, and it hurts too much to tell me.
Fuck it. I throw the rest of my whisky down my throat before the glass connects with the tabletop. If it’s kids, we can talk about it. It’s not a dealbreaker.
I take a step away from the table only to double back again. How do you ask that? How do I tell her it doesn’t matter when it obviously does to her?
I know she can love me. I know it.
Something’s going on. Maybe it’s the same thing that brought her here—something other than her frank demands and her clumsy seduction. What was the root cause of this? I know what the outcome is. The tattered remains beating in my chest cavity.
I slosh more whisky into the glass, willing her to appear from the room. She’s got to come out sometime, right? I dump the whisky down the back of my throat, hoping to wash away this disdain I have for myself.
She doesn’t fucking love you.
She doesn’t have to.
And you can’t make her.
The fuck I can’t.
My footsteps are loud and purposeful as I stalk down the hallway, ignoring the canvas that cost me a quarter of a million from Sotheby’s. Money fixes so many things, but it can’t fix a broken heart. Not that I intend on settling for one of those.
My feelings are hurt, that’s all. My fucking pride. All that shit is fixable. I know there’s more to this that meets the eye.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I grate out, pushing on the door. “Not until you give me a fucking reason. Half a reason—a drop. Don’t think you can feed me bullshit.”
The room seems empty, the afternoon outside blue and green and yellow, a day full of life. But inside this room, everything feels wrong. A minute ago, it was filled with angry energy. Right now, it entirely lacks energy. Her energy. Her perpetual sunshine and flowers. Her fucking… something is missing and it’s freaking me the fuck out.
“Amelia?” Her name comes out rough. She can’t have gone far, I think as something swells inside me. Disquiet is such a strange word because this sudden worried buzz in my head is anything but.
She isn’t in the closet, the hangers half empty. The clothes we’d shopped together for, the Paris dress, they’re all in the other room and her own clothes are in her case on the bed.
“For fuck’s sake, Mimi.” I push on the open bathroom door, but she’s not there, either. Cosmetics litter the countertop and damp towels are scattered across the floor. How can one person make so much mess?
I storm from the bathroom as the fist squeezes tighter and tighter when something I can’t define compels me to the other side of the bed.
“Jesus Christ!” I drop to my knees next to the sprawled form of the woman I love. She’s on her front, her position awkward, her hair like a veil across her face. Has she passed out? I roll her over, and my heart rolls up my throat. “Mimi!” If I thought she was pale before, now she looks like—
I can’t say it. I can’t think it as I begin to shake her by the shoulders.
There’s no reaction at all.
“Fuck, oh fuck.” I press my finger to the pulse in her neck, then her wrist because my shaking fingers can’t find one. My phone—where the fuck is my phone? I pat my pockets frantically, the same time as I arrange her flat on her back. It’s in my jacket pocket. I almost go and get it as my hands hover over her chest, thoughts shooting lightning quick through my head.
Wasn’t there something about apartment’s smart system being able to dial for the emergency services? Voice activated?
I don’t remember—I can’t fucking concentrate as I reach over her prone figure and knock the landline phone from the nightstand and input the digits. On my knees still, I press my left hand to the center of her chest, interlocking my right fingers over it.