Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Tears prick my eyes as I soak in his words. He swipes them away with his thumb, offering me a tender smile. I’m not sure how I can top that, but I’ll try. Reaching into the front of my dress, I pull a small folded note from my bra.
He snickers, amused, and I roll my eyes. It’s not the most glamorous move, but I’m terrible at memorizing speeches and I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.
“I wrote this last night, when you were sleeping,” I tell him as the clouds continue to embrace us and the ocean waves serenade us with their symphony below. “Slade, for as long as I can remember, I knew you were going to be my husband. While everyone else got to experience the wonderment of not knowing what their life had in store for them, I always knew. Only what I didn’t know was that I would one day fall in love with you. Throughout our tumultuous beginnings, one thing always stood out to me—this glimmer of something deep and profound within you. But you were a fortress that I could never break through. But over these last several weeks, I’ve learned you were never a puzzle to be solved and that I could never break down your walls no matter how much I wanted to. You had to tear them down yourself, brick by brick, when you were ready. Today as I stand before you in a place that fittingly feels like a lost paradise, I offer you my genuine love and commitment. I promise to be patient, to understand that healing and growth take time. I vow to see the potential in us, even when we can’t always see it ourselves. I pledge to never try to fix or change you but to encourage you as you discover the best version of yourself. I love you for who you are today and for the man who continues to unfurl before me with each new day. But above all, I promise to cherish this delicate flower that is love, to let it thrive and bloom in its own time, and to honor its beauty for the rest of our lives.”
Slade lifts his hand to my jaw, lowering his lips to mine as we seal our promises to one another on a mountain in the sky.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.” I throw my arms around him, inhaling his intoxicating cologne as it mingles with the earthy scent surrounding us as he kisses me long, soft, and deep. Who’d have ever imagined I’d one day feel safe, treasured, and adored in the arms of the man who once loathed my very existence?
“There’s one more thing,” he says when he pulls away a moment later. Reaching into his back pocket, he retrieves a folded stack of papers.
“What’s this?”
“Our prenup,” he says before ripping it down the middle. “Our marriage is not a business deal. What’s mine is yours, now and forever.”
Tossing the torn sheets in the air, they fall all around us, until the wind carries them down the mountain and into the infinite sea below.
I’m speechless.
Slipping his phone from his pocket next, he cues a song.
Make You Feel My Love.
With his hands on my waist, he pulls me against him, stares so deeply into my eyes that I swear I feel his love in my soul, and then he presses a tender kiss against my lips.
“Mrs. Delacorte,” he says. “May I have this dance … every day for the rest of our lives?”
“You may, Mr. Delacorte. You may.”
41
Slade
I take a seat and lift the receiver to my ear, blood boiling beneath my skin on what’s already a record-scorching day.
Fitting, I suppose.
On the other side of a glass partition is the very definition of a waste of space.
Oliver lifts the receive on his side. He looks frailer than the last time I saw him, his physique practically swimming in his garish orange jumpsuit. It’s a far cry from all the designer labels he’s accustomed to, and it’s safe to assume the prison fare isn’t up to his standards either, hence why he’s dropped a few pounds since being here. His head is shaved. Gone are his thick, russet locks, the ones he used to run his hands through when he’d spot a beautiful woman.
“You look pathetic,” are the first words out of my mouth. “In every sense of the word.”
Oliver’s eyes drift down. It’s a wonder he can even look at me at all.
“I’m glad you came,” he finally speaks.
I chuff. “Oh, yeah?”
Leaning back, I sport an expressionless face as I prepare to hear him plead his case to my deaf ears. There’s not a single word that exists in the English language that will change the way I feel about him.