Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“I asked first.”
“And I answered. Tell me about your family.”
Her shoulders drop, defeated, and she takes another sip of wine. Sips. Sips are good. “They retired to Newquay a few years back.” There’s a certain edge of sadness in her tone. She misses them. “Dad ran a construction firm, Mum was a housewife. My dad had a heart attack scare so they took early retirement to Cornwall. My brother is living the dream in Australia.” Oh, she has a brother? “Why do you not speak to your parents?” she adds, and it’s a bolt out of the blue. I swallow hard, yelling at myself to give her something. Start the process. Build the picture.
“They live in Marbella,” I tell her, delving deep to find the strength required to speak of my past, even if the information is relatively inconsequential. It’s a start. A step in the right direction. “My sister’s there too. I’ve not spoken to them for years.” I still don’t understand why Amalie continues trying to reach me. Why bother? Why does she still want to know me? “They didn’t approve when Carmichael left me The Manor and all of his estate.” Hated him was more apt and, subsequently, hated me for accepting and embracing it. For falling into the lifestyle. For not listening to them.
Her surprise is warranted. “He left it all to you?”
“He did.” I never expected it. Had no idea he’d put me in his will as sole heir. “We were close.” A stab of guilt grabs me. “And my parents didn’t talk to him. They didn’t approve.”
“They didn’t approve of your relationship?”
I look up at her, bullying my mouth into speaking the words. “No, they didn’t.” I hate the curiosity emblazoned across her face. She has no idea. No idea of the demons I harbor. Of the sins I’ve committed. Or the losses I’ve faced.
“What was not to approve of?”
Everything. But, ironically, they would approve of Ava. She’s not what my lifestyle represents historically, not what I’ve sought, which begs the question why the fuck I’m so attached to her. It’s unexplainable. And yet I am, and here she is asking questions I desperately want to give her the answers to. Except, it’s ugly. All of it is hideous, and the possibility of having it snatched away—by Ava herself, or by an outside force—is a risk I’m not yet prepared to take. “As soon as I left college,” I begin, stretching the truth somewhat—there was no college—and scraping the barrel of strength while restraining my pain, “I spent all of my time with Carmichael. Mum, Dad, and Amalie moved to Spain, and I refused to go. I was eighteen and having the time of my life.” With a baby on the way. How did it all go so horribly wrong? Because you’re a fuck-up. And you’ll fuck this up too.
I gulp back my self-loathing. “I stayed with Carmichael when they left. They weren’t happy about it. Three years later, Carmichael died”—entirely my fault—“and I was left to run The Manor.” And left to spiral into my own form of hell. Which I rightly deserved. After all, everyone I cared about back then was dead. Because of fucking me. I stare at the wine on the table. There’s peace in that bottle. Escape. I grab my water and gulp it down. “The relationship was strained after that. They demanded I sell The Manor, but I couldn’t.” Wouldn’t. I should have sold the fucking Manor. “It was Carmichael’s baby.” And I’d already let him down enough.
Her eyes are wide, a little glazed, and I shift in my chair uncomfortably, praying she doesn’t push for more. I’m drained. Does she sense my increasing despondency? My grief?
“What do you do for fun?” she asks. It’s all I can do not to spit out my water in surprise. Fun? There’s been nothing fun about my life. Not until she breezed into it. But even amid the fun element of our relationship, which is basically me bending her to my will in the bedroom, there’s stress and mood swings and a whole pile of other unexpected feelings. But there’s also a heartbeat inside of me. There’s a purpose. I would question if it’s too soon to share that with her.
If I hadn’t heard her drunkenly confess her love.
Has she thought more about it? Has she concluded she does love me, and more importantly, while she’s sober?
I consider the glass of wine in her hold. What do I do for fun? I peek up, finding her waiting patiently for a reply. It seems, Miss O’Shea, that for fun, I stalk my interior designer and bend her to my will. “Fuck you.”
She can’t contain her shock. “You like power in the bedroom.”
Not at all. I like power over you. It’ll keep the insanity you spike in check. “I do.”