Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 68688 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68688 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“Sweetheart.”
I hadn’t even heard him behind me, which seemed impossible when he was the size of a bear. I carried on like I didn’t hear him, walking past the cars parked at the curb, the sidewalk empty of pedestrians.
“I’m talking to you.”
“And I’m ignoring you.”
He grabbed me by the arm and forced me to face him, using an amount of power that reminded me how small I was—and how strong he was. “You are not the butt of a joke.” His hand went into my hair, and he fisted it like a leash. “Ever.”
I was paralyzed by those blue eyes for a moment, how hard and sincere they were. But then I snapped back to my anger. “You said you’re an honest man, but then you sit there and laugh at me. You tell me it’s nothing when I know it’s not nothing, and you try to make me feel stupid—”
“I made him tell you.”
I stilled when the revelation hit me right in the face. My eyes flicked back and forth between his as the embarrassment made my knees weak.
“I shouldn’t have laughed—but I wasn’t laughing at you. I just can’t believe a man can be so dishonorable and cowardly. He told a lie so ridiculous I didn’t know what else to do but laugh.”
Still in shock at what he had said, all I could do was stare, my hair still in his closed fist, his arm around the small of my back like the bars of a cage.
“I will never lie to you.” His grip loosened on my hair when he realized I wasn’t going to run. “I’m sorry I made you feel otherwise.” He cupped my face, his thumb on my cheek, caressing me like the first flower of spring.
“How—how long have you known?” I felt embarrassed that the man I was fucking knew more about my husband’s infidelities than I did.
He continued to look me in the eye. “Awhile.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because it should come from him. Because he should look you in the eye—like a fucking man—and tell you what he did. Because it’s a punishment for the crime that he committed, to feel like an asshole when he tells you what a piece of shit he is.”
“How did you convince him to do it?”
“Convince isn’t the word I would use.” His eyes hardened as he looked at me, a hint of what he’d done to my ex-husband. “You deserved to know the truth. You deserved to know that you were never the problem. You deserved closure.” He moved his hand back into my hair and gently pulled it from my face so he could see all of me. His arm tightened around me, and he pulled me closer into him, letting my cheek rest against his chest as he held me on the sidewalk, like he knew I needed a moment without his piercing stare.
He stood there for a long time, holding me in the light of the lamppost, the street quiet because we were the only ones there. His body produced enough heat to keep me warm even though it was a cold night, a perfect evening for a fire in a hearth. “Come home with me.” He didn’t state it like a question, but it still felt like one.
I pulled my face from his chest to meet his look. I felt like I’d been ripped to pieces by a pack of dogs, my heart on one side of the street and the rest of my entrails on the other. Someone I’d promised to love forever had done this to me, had hurt me, had humiliated me, and then he’d had the nerve to look me in the eye—and lie all over again.
But whenever I looked at those perfect blue eyes, I felt a calm river, an everlasting peace, a passion that muted all my other emotions. I felt more trust in a stranger than I did my own husband. I felt safe with someone I barely knew. I got swept up in his current and let it take me far out to sea. “Okay.”
Chapter 12
Bastien
It was the first time she slept over and we didn’t fuck.
She got into bed without taking off her makeup and snuggled into me, her leg hiked over my hip, her arm around my neck, using me as a body pillow. Sadness still throbbed in her eyes, and that was probably why she was able to drift off to sleep so easily.
My sleep schedule was all over the place and I wasn’t tired, so I watched her for a while, the lights from the Eiffel Tower appearing in the crack between the curtains. At some point in her sleep, she turned the other way, facing her nightstand where her phone sat.
I left the bed and stepped into the sitting room, shutting the door behind me until it was just open a crack. I went to my desk and opened my laptop, going through emails and the mail that Gerard had left on the desk.