Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 104919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 525(@200wpm)___ 420(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
I looked around the room, remembered I was in Montana in front of a family of ranchers likely raised here under God. They most likely didn’t like coarse women who swore like sailors. “Pardon my French,” I added quickly. Andrew’s eyes crinkled with amusement, Harriet grinned, and I carried on.
“So yeah, it takes a village to actually make me look like I do at those events. What I’m trying to say is there were a lot of people in that room, but I only really saw Duke. I know that sounds utterly cliché, and if I were hearing this story I’d think I was full of bullshit.” I paused. “Fuck, pardon my French again. Anyway,” I waved my hand in Duke’s direction. “You made him, you know he’s a handsome macho man in a way that no other men in Hollywood or real life are actually macho men.” I glanced at Tanner. “Well, apparently they’re like this in this family or just in Montana.”
He grinned. “Just this family, darlin’.”
I nodded. “Yes, well it makes sense, seeing the lineage. You’re from a bloodline of stone-cold hotties. Anyway. It was something more than being attractive, because I’d been around many attractive men in my career and I wasn’t impressed easily. Duke impressed me because...” I trailed off, lingering in my memory far too long, thinking of the way his gaze had hit me. “He seemed like the most real person I’d met maybe ever.”
I paused again to take another sip of my margarita—because I was becoming too sober and this was getting too real—and I had to finish. The air beside me was weird, considering Duke was occupying that air and he’d gone still. I chose to ignore that. “Of course, this scared the sh—life out of me. I decided it was far too scary to be real so I proceeded to act like I do to anyone else.” I paused again. “Cold. Professional. A little superior.” I glanced around the room. “It’s necessary in my business. I’ve been burned badly a couple of times when I let myself trust people and I’ve become jaded. I learned to protect myself by crafting a reputation of being...difficult.”
Harriet laughed. “We women who are worth it are always difficult, my dear. Makes us more interesting.”
I loved Harriet and decided I’d adopt her. Or kidnap her.
I smiled at her and used her encouragement to continue. “So I did to Duke what I do to everyone. I acted like Anastasia Edwards...”
I didn’t have an end to this story. Because it did not end happy like a mythical love story. Duke had not had the same reaction to me. The world hadn’t stopped spinning when he met my eyes. It hadn’t been love at first sight. No fireworks. No love. Nothing beyond my cold treatment and his professional distaste.
Love at first sight was not the reason I was sitting here. Murder was.
That day, I’d swallowed my reaction to him and treated him worse than I treated others, if I was honest. I never got over the way I treated him. It had kept me up many nights, self-hatred burning all over my skin. I’d lapsed into fantasies of what might’ve happened had I been a normal, well-adjusted woman able to be warm and inviting.
Everyone was now looking at me expectantly. “Then what?” Harriet prompted.
I opened my mouth, struggling to find the lie. Where had they all gone? Underneath it all, I was nothing but a lie. But in this house, with these people, I was unable to find a single one.
“Then I saw through her bullshit,” Duke said, pulling me into his side, kissing my head. “And I made sure she knew that she couldn’t act her way out of everything.”
So yeah, that had been a fucking disaster.
Because the drunk version of me had let myself sink into that feeling, until we were called to the dinner table, at least. I’d been shocked sober enough to move quickly and not make eye contact with Duke.
Dinner-table conversation had been easy, with Duke asking about the ranch, his father updating him on things I didn’t quite understand. There was definitely tension between Duke and his brother. I was infinitely curious about that, until I reminded myself it was not my place to be curious about such things.
I managed to eat almost an entire plate full of delicious pot roast and mashed potatoes, and all because the tequila needed something to soak it up.
Then came dessert.
And the pie, staring at me, showing me just how fucked up I was, and how I could never sit at a table like this and fit in.
Most people would’ve just shut the hell up and eaten the piece of damn pie. It was the polite thing to do. But I was not most people. I wanted to shut the hell up and eat the damn pie. I couldn’t. Physically couldn’t. The pie represented the last shred of control I had over my life, my body.