Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Swiss nodded once, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah, suppose you’re right.” He clapped me on the back. “Plus, if they were, I could trust you to put them in their place, if I wasn’t there to look out for her.”
I grimaced, unable to speak, only managing to nod my head.
“After everything she’s been through, last thing she needs is another man ruining her life,” he finished, twisting the knife even further.
The worst thing was, he was fucking right.
And I somehow had to figure out how to undo what I’d done.
Chapter Four
VIOLET
It had been days since he left me naked in his room at the club. After he’d simultaneously rocked my world and ruined it.
I hadn’t found the time to seek him out before now. Mom had been obsessed with getting me ready to go back to school, with me helping her furnish her new home. And despite the need I felt, I wanted to help her. She was starting over, literally. She was building something. She was happy. I wanted to be part of that so desperately. It was like I was getting to know a new person. I was knowing my mother as the real her instead of the woman my father had molded her into.
He'd called me. My father. Spoke to him long enough for me to smash my phone and tell my mom I dropped it. I got a new number then buried all my rage and sadness deep down.
The shopping was a distraction, taking care of the last-minute plans for my first semester on campus. I was nervous. The first two semesters in France had been an adventure for me. Almost removed from reality. I’d been caught up in perfecting my grasp on the language, experiencing my new identity as an adult, falling in love—or thinking I was falling in love. Then I hit the earth with a thud that came as a punch to the face. Everything else had happened quickly, and I’d barely been able to catch my breath since.
It felt unreal that I was going to college now, somehow fit into the normal, expected path for me.
All through my last years of high school, I had been restless, anxious to start college, to experience that lifestyle. To escape the small, stuffy town I grew up in.
Now I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay and work at the café, I wanted to bask in the New Mexico air… And yes, be close to Elden.
I imagined what that might be like.
We could move into the small house Mom and Swiss used to live in. I’d work at the café part-time, maybe finish my degree online or at the local college thirty minutes away. We’d go riding on the weekends. We’d party, me nestled in his lap, his arm around me, claiming me.
Life would be simple and easy.
Of course, this was just a fantasy but one I wanted desperately, even though a few months ago I had much bigger plans for my future. I’d wanted to change the world. Wanted to experience new cultures, new cities. I’d wanted success. But those were my father’s dreams merged with my own.
College had always been my father’s dream. I didn’t even like the idea of elitist institutions that turned teenagers into rabid creatures, focused on grades, extracurriculars, and whatever was needed to gain them entrance into a school that made millions off them.
I just had to figure out a way to tell my mom I did not want to go to the Ivy League college she’d been so proud of me for getting into. I wouldn’t be living the life she literally went through hell to give me.
Then there was the news that I wanted to be with Elden. A man the same age as her. Yeah, that would not go down well. At all. I’d have to talk Swiss down. He would go crazy protective. But I’d convince them. Somehow.
But I needed to see Elden first. Needed to remind myself that this thing between us was real, that it wasn’t just a fantasy.
I’d finally found the time to go to him. It was early in the morning, before my shift at Oliver’s. Julian had finally decreed I could be trusted with the espresso machine, high praise coming from a man who took coffee as seriously as he did. I had never had a job before. My father had forbade such a thing.
I’d only worked a couple of days, and the work was hard, but ‘d enjoyed it. Julian had already planned on me working whenever I was home from college.
Everything was moving much too fast, my life returning to its regularly scheduled programming as if my life, my family and my entire world view hadn’t been dumped on its head.
And all I could think of was Elden.
Hence me walking toward his closed door. But I didn’t make it there. Because the door opened.