Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
A woman exits the building just as I arrive at the entrance. I slip in before the door closes and take the stairs to the top floor. As there’s no bell, intercom, or camera, which is a stupid and careless statement some artists moving in James’s circles are trying to make, I bang loud enough on the door for the whole neighborhood to hear.
Rachele opens it a moment later, looking the worse for wear in a red silk robe that hangs open over a matching negligee with her hair tangled around her face and her make-up smudged. When we lived together, she never allowed me to see her in any state other than perfect. She wouldn’t let me in the bathroom or dressing room while she got ready. She got out of bed with her hair tamed into a braid and a sleep mask on her forehead that hid half of her face.
Sighing, she ties the belt of the robe around her waist and walks barefoot to a kitchenette in the far corner of the open-plan room, letting me see myself in.
“What do you want?” she asks, filling a glass with water from the tap.
I close the door. “Where is he?”
She takes a bottle of painkillers from a disarray of magazines, unopened mail, dirty wine glasses, and empty peanut packets on the counter and shakes two pills onto her palm. “Doing meditation in the park with his Taoist group.”
Good. That means I don’t have to throw him out of his own place with a humiliating kick on the ass so I can have this conversation with Rachele.
She leans her backside on the sink, facing me as she puts the pills in her mouth and gulps down the water.
“Long night?” I ask. “Or did you have too much champagne at my engagement party?”
She puts the glass on the counter next to an ashtray that holds a few burnt-out joints with red lipstick marks on the butts and plants her hands on the sink behind her. “What do you want, Sav?”
“You know why I’m here.”
“Oh.” She bats her eyelashes. “Did I upset your little Anya? Why, Sav. You didn’t tell her. How naughty of you.”
I close the distance, stopping on the other side of the counter. “I asked you not to be a bitch to Anya. We had an agreement, and I kept my end of the bargain.”
“Did you?” she asks with a small smile.
“Did I break your lover’s fingers?”
“What do you want from me, Sav?”
“I already told you what I wanted. As you can’t be anything other than a bitch, I’m going to put this in a different way for you.” Leaning in, I say in a menacing tone, “Stay away from Anya. Don’t come near her. Don’t talk to her, and don’t as much as look her way. Am I clear?”
“Jesus.” She laughs, but it’s nervous. “You need to get a handle on your possessiveness. Don’t make the same mistake you made with me. Don’t keep her on a leash like a lapdog.”
“No one kept you on a leash. You always liked to stray.”
“Fuck you,” she says through clenched teeth.
I put emphasis on every word. “Stay away from my fiancée.”
“Or what?” she taunts.
“Don’t make me embarrass you by getting a restraining order.”
Her dark eyes flare with indignation.
Yeah. That’ll be quite the scandal. Her pride will take a serious knock.
“Get out,” she yells, pointing at the door. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
“With pleasure.” I walk backward, taking in the woman I once loved. Now? I only feel relief that it’s over. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
Uttering a frustrated cry, she grabs the glass from the counter and hurls it at me. Luckily for me, her aim is shit. It shatters against the wall, breaking into pieces on the snazzy varnished concrete floor.
I turn around and walk to the door, crunching glass under my heels. When I grip the handle, she says in a rush, “I’m pregnant.”
Good for her. I push down the handle.
“I’m expecting Archie’s baby,” she adds, the words like barbed wire, but their hooks have no effect on me.
I look over my shoulder. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you.” I mean that, and for the first time in my life, I can say it to her without bleeding red from the black hole I call my heart. I motion at the glasses with wine sediment in the bottom and lipstick stains on the rims. “Perhaps you should lay off the alcohol and the weed.”
Her angry scream follows me through the door as I close that chapter of my life once and for all.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Anya
Saverio bulldozes ahead with the preparations for the wedding. It’s difficult to plan a ceremony when you don’t have a date. It’s like doing everything in reverse, deciding on the decorations and flowers and cake without knowing when it will take place. He shortlisted a few venues so that he has options if one or more aren’t available. Every day, he asks me for a date, and every day, I tell him I’m not ready.