Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Those are all business acquaintances,” he sneers at me, and I’m the one laughing this time as his jaw gets tight.
“Do you actually believe yourself when you talk? You have a rotation of women and none of them have anything to do with your business.” His face goes white. “I mean, I guess you fucking the mayor’s wife will help with some of the bids you have to make.” I don’t stop there. “I don’t think he’s caught on, but then again, I don’t care.”
“How dare you say that.” He even acts like I’ve hurt him with the accusation.
“You fuck your assistant every Thursday.” I shrug. “You fuck Mackenzie, from the bank, every other Wednesday when her husband is out of their house. You fuck Sharonda every Tuesday, taking her out for dinner and then taking her back to her house. I could go on and on. The point is… everyone fucking knows.”
“What’s your point?” he asks.
“There is no point, the point is I’m leaving.” I toss the papers onto the coffee table for him to read whenever he feels like he wants to.
“You aren’t leaving with my son!” he yells so loud that if our son was sleeping, he would definitely be rolled out of bed.
“Our son,” I remind him, “and he’s already gone.” Something I made sure I did when I set this plan in motion. He’s right now sleeping in the new place I had set up secretly.
He looks at me and then up at the stairs before he takes off running up the steps, stumbling along the way until he gets to the top landing. I take that as my cue to get to the front door. I watch him walk out of Wyatt’s bedroom before he walks into his playroom. “Where the fuck is my son?” he roars when he gets to the top step.
“You can have your lawyer contact mine,” I reply and he picks up his hand. Luckily for me, he’s had way too much to drink already, so his movement is sluggish. It gives me a chance to move out of the way before the glass he is holding in his hand flies to the door but shatters beside me.
“You fucking bitch,” he slurs.
I look at him before grabbing the handle of the door and turning it. “Goodbye, Winston.” I dart out of there like the house is on fire, getting to the SUV and locking the doors before I press the button to start the car.
He runs out of the house, and I yell when he stops beside my door, pulling the handle and then it snapping back. He slams his hand on the window, making me jump. “Open the fucking door.” He presses his face to the window and then tries to look in the back, as if I would have left my child in the fucking car. “Open the fucking car, Harmony.” He hits the window again.
This time, I can’t stop the tears from rolling down my face as I put the car in drive and start to pull away from him, hoping like fuck he doesn’t hang on and I drag him across the driveway. He lets go of me as I speed up a bit more, but not before he throws a rock at me. The rock smashes the side of the car, and I don’t even care to stop and assess the damage. It can wait. It can all wait. I know that this is just the beginning. I know that tomorrow, when he sobers up a bit, he’ll have to call his parents, and then I know the real fight is going to start. Even though I know this, nothing, and I mean nothing, can prepare me for it.
CHAPTER 2
Harmony
Six months later
I drive down the street, looking at the beautiful houses from right to left. Big Victorian houses, some looking like they are from a magazine. Especially the house next door to the one we are driving to. I pull up into the driveway, looking up at the one in front of me, the one the GPS says is my destination.
“Is this it?” Wyatt asks from the back seat. I look over my shoulder as he unbuckles himself and looks out the window at the house. I’m even afraid to look at him while I answer him.
“It is,” I confirm, holding my breath as I look at the run-down Victorian house. The front concrete steps have moss growing on them but look to have been cleaned recently. Something I begged the property manager to do when we came for a walk-through last week. That along with cutting the weeds to make it look like someone will soon live here and not like people come here to die. It was bad enough the once-white house now looked dark brown. That some of the windows didn’t open to the outside, and if a big gust of wind suddenly came through town, I was pretty much convinced the house would go with it. “Is it haunted?” he asks, and I finally give in and laugh. Something I don’t do much of these days.