Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
There’s nothing quite like a cliché. And I should know.
So much for being bold, because I feel physically ill at the prospect of going in there. Not because he’s there. The man whose gaslighting made me question my own sanity, the human facsimile whose ultimate betrayal left me in pieces. This apprehension is not about him, because no one gets to hurt me twice. It’s more about the occasion. This wedding. The direction I thought, I imagined, our relationship was heading.
But I wasn’t lying when I said I had to be here—that all employees of Dreyland Capital are expected to attend. I’m sure I could’ve feigned illness, gone on vacation, or claimed a clash of events. Maybe faked a broken leg. Except, I had to be here. I needed to see this for myself. As penance, if nothing else. Punishment for being taken in by a man.
Something I won’t let happen again.
I also wasn’t kidding or laying it on thick about my feelings toward my ex. I do see red every time I look at him. Like I could punch him in the face until it turns to Bolognese.
“Found us yet?”
I resist a tiny shiver as the puff of Matt’s words brushes my neck. I realize I’m staring unseeing at the table plan. “Can’t seem to find which circle of hell we’ve been put in.”
“The wrathful one. That’d be circle nine.”
I chuckle and add smart to the list of Matt’s charms. Well read. Urbane. And I am so into the rhythmic rise and fall of his accent. Even if it isn’t Spanish. And his voice? Yum. It’s so deep and rumbling, it seems to hit a girl right where it counts.
Then I spot us—spot where we’ve been seated. A table named Paris.
That fucker.
“Found us!” I whip around with a second wind of determination. Paris was our first vacation. It was there he first declared his love.
Well, my place is wherever the hell I want it to be. And while I might not want to be here, some evils are just plain necessary. This is just another hurdle to jump. Something else I won’t ever look back on. An experience that won’t even get a second glance in the rearview mirror of my life. “Shall we?” I add brightly.
“Can’t wait.” His voice is low, and his tone is flat. But his eyes, they’re dancing.
Boy, did I luck out when Cuddle Carl—a pox on his lineage—was a no-show.
“I think you’re trying too hard.” I poke him playfully in his chest. His broad, solid chest. “Tell the truth—you’re a closet wedding fan.” And don’t get me started on the rest of him. Those long, elegant fingers on such capable hands. The kind of hands that might stop a girl from falling. Maybe the side effect of Irish whiskey is becoming fanciful.
“You got me.” His chest moves with an amused-sounding huff. “That’s exactly what I’m doing here.”
“Knew it,” I singsong.
“You’ve had me worked out all along.”
His low tone causes a wash of goose bumps along my arms. And now I’m looking at his mouth, wondering what it would feel like to have those lips on mine. How it would move, the shapes it would make. How he’d taste. Whiskey laced, I’d bet, to match that dreamy (if unauthentic for tonight’s purposes) accent.
“I guess we’d better get this shit show on the road.” I turn to the oversize ballroom doors, and Matt follows.
“Ryan?”
In the doorway, I half pivot, my eyes flying wide as his hands slide around my waist. My body offers him no resistance as he pulls me close, the scent of his woody cologne hitting me so viscerally. My breath hitches as I find our lips are just a breath apart, and for one crazy moment, I think he might kiss me like we’re in some classic movie.
“What are you doing?” My voice sounds kind of breathy, and I don’t have the wits to be annoyed by that.
“Setting the tone. Strangers might walk in together, but lovers love.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Maybe because my blood is pumping so hard, it’s starving my brain. I feel tiny in his arms. I mean, I am physically small, but I rarely feel so.
“We’re not late because my plane was.” His voice is husky and pitched low. “We’re lovers who’ve been separated by sea and by weeks. Everyone here—your colleagues, the people watching us right now, the people you like and the people you don’t—they know the real reason we’re late.” His eyes seem lit from within. “They can sense what we’ve been up to.”
Heat rises through me, like we’ve actually spent the afternoon fucking.
Wouldn’t that have been something.
Oh, my God, am I blushing?
I think I must be in shock. Eighteen months, and not once have I felt that visceral pull of attraction. The whole time, I’ve been deadened from the neck down. Discounting the hate that still burns in my heart, of course. I haven’t wanted sex at all—not with myself, not with anyone.