Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Ugh. Madison.” Frankie gagged. “He was in Chapel Falls last week. Did I tell you? Went around moping about how much he misses you. The lying scumbag. Took both Deidre Sweeting and Jean Caldwell into his bed with his crocodile tears. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Frankie. Mean gossip is beneath us.”
“Aw, Dal.” I could picture her exaggerated frown. “But nice gossip is so boring.”
We both giggled.
“How’s school?” I changed the subject, from fear that if we spoke about Romeo for too long, I’d break down and confess that no matter how much I hated him outside of bed, inside of it, I was his number one fan. “Anything interesting happen?”
“I failed most of my midterms, which I guess is fascinating. At least to Momma, Daddy, and our nosy neighbors.”
I sighed. “You need to make an effort, Frankie.”
“Oh, but I am. I’m making an effort not to lose my V-card before marriage. And that’s plenty difficult.”
“Frankie. You know what happens if you give the milk before he buys the cow.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be bought. Maybe I want to partake in the goddamn twenty-first century.”
If only things were that simple.
We both knew we were products of our upbringing. That we played by the rules of the place we came from.
Human nature, for all the progress it had made, was still tribal by nature. Moving to Potomac had freed me, though I’d exchanged one cage for another.
“Is there anyone in particular that tickles your fancy?” I glided down the banister from the second floor to the first, just to see if Romeo would bark at me for doing so. To test whether he’d stopped watching me through the security camera.
The house remained eerily quiet. So far, he was fulfilling his part of the bargain.
My sister’s grin traveled through the line.
“There are lots of somebodies.” Her voice became somber at once. “Are you sad, Dal? That you might never have sex because you are married to a man you hate?”
I couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t tell her I’d already done the deed.
That it was primal and exhilarating and celestial.
That all I wanted to do was have sex with my husband—and the things that came with it.
I especially didn’t want to tell her how fun sex was when she toyed with the temptation of having it herself—and out of wedlock.
I was no prude, but I also knew what troubles awaited her if Chapel Falls deemed her compromised. Unfortunately, I knew it firsthand.
I froze by the kitchen’s entrance, barefoot. “I’m sure it’ll happen for me one day.”
“Yes. You’ll break him at some point, and he’ll give you a divorce. I’m sure of it.”
But that would mean no more life-altering, earth-shattering sex with my ridiculously hot husband. No more orgasms beneath his talented tongue. No babies with his gray eyes.
No. I didn’t want a divorce.
Not at all.
After I hung up and finished my third dinner for the day (Hettie’s bistek tagalog and fried lumpia), I retreated to my room to read my Henry Plotkin books, which Romeo had returned from exile. Time for a reread ahead of the fourteenth and final book in the series.
“Shortbread.” Romeo’s arrogant voice snarled from the jaws of his study. “Come inside.”
You mean…just like you did today?
Giggling to myself, I followed his instructions.
He sat behind a mahogany desk, working on his laptop, a library of literally every unreadable book I’d ever come across behind him.
“Yes?” I bent down to tug my funny socks up over my Minnie Mouse sweatpants.
“Is it Halloween?”
“No.”
“Then why are you dressed as a toddler?”
I swaggered deeper into the office and flashed him a sunny smile, knowing those, in particular, soured his mood. “Comfort first, right?”
“Wrong.” His fingers skated over the keyboard. “Comfort is what mediocre people strive for once they realize the currency of success is hard work.”
Naturally, I gravitated to his library and noticed the bottom row of fifteen or so books. Linen hardcovers, absent of dust jackets and any indication of the contents within.
I fingered one, teasing it out of its slot before poking it back in. “Are these for decoration?”
He didn’t even turn to see what I’d referred to. “No.”
“How can you tell which book is which?”
“By opening them.”
“Is this some weird aesthetic thing rich people do to keep paupers guessing what they read?”
“You are a rich person.”
“Yeah, but I’m an abnormal rich person.”
“You’re an abnormal person. Period. And no, this is not some weird aesthetic thing rich people do to keep paupers guessing what they read.”
“Then…the bookseller sold them like this? That should be criminal.”
“They came with dust jackets.”
My lips parted, appalled at the idea of trashing them. “What happened to them?”
“They’re now on the books I gave you.”
“What books?”
Surely, he didn’t mean those books.
“His Filthy Touch. A Lover’s Thrust. Blindfolded by my Professor. Dominated by Two Alien Alphas. Must I continue? I lose a brain cell for every second we discuss them.”