Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
The alarm went off in his pocket.
“Shit.” He retrieved the phone and silenced the alarm.
Five minutes. Was that all it had been? How had he unraveled me so completely in only five freaking minutes? What could have happened in another five? Why was I so damned weak when it came to him?
“Allie.” He tried to catch my gaze, but I wouldn’t give it to him.
My hands fell to his chest, and I pushed. “Time’s up.”
His frustrated sigh filled the room, but he stepped aside, offering me a hand down from the sink. I ignored it and slid off on my own, then walked straight out of the room on trembling legs.
That can’t happen again. I repeated the words over and over in my head as Hudson drove me home in what was arguably the most tense, silent car ride of my life. Why had I done that?
Hudson pulled up in front of my house, and I grabbed my beach bag and reached for the door handle.
“Are we going to be okay?” he asked as I shoved the door open.
“There’s no real us, remember?” I climbed down from the truck. “But if you’re asking if I’m going to punish Jupiter for my asinine decisions, then of course not.” Using my elbow, I shut the truck’s door, then started up the porch steps.
You only have to hold it together until you’re inside.
The screen door creaked as I opened it, and to my surprise, Sadie didn’t come running from whatever she’d inevitably chewed to death. I dropped my beach bag on the entry floor, and deflated, my composure completely deserting me, leaving me as raw as an exposed wire.
Five minutes was all it had taken him to strip away the walls I’d built over the years, the illusion that anger and apathy were the only emotions I could have when it came to Hudson.
I opened my eyes at the clicking sound of Sadie’s nails on the hardwood, and turned right toward the living room.
Kenna stood in the doorway, wearing a chocolate-colored sleeveless blouse a shade lighter than her crossed arms and a fuck-with-me-I-dare-you expression, a single black eyebrow arched, while Sadie wagged her tail by her side. “Told you I’d send a search party.”
She was here. My closest friend had ignored the declined calls, the unreturned text messages, and she’d brought herself all the way from New York when she had an entire ballet company whose orthopedic care she oversaw. She was here, polished and put together, and I was a fucking wreck.
I crumpled, covering my face with my hands.
Kenna sighed. “Well. Shit.”
Chapter Sixteen
Allie
NYMargot505: I’m starting to think Alessandra Rousseau might actually be dead or something. Anyone know if they’re filling her spot, yet?
“That’s . . . a lot,” Kenna remarked as we stood with our backs to the cliff an hour later, throwing tennis balls into the yard for Sadie to fetch.
“I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?” I tugged the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my palms.
“You think there’s any chance of me dignifying that question with a response?” She shot me a heap of side-eye as Sadie raced back to us.
“I feel horrible.” I took the not-yet-slimy ball from Sadie and chucked it again, careful not to throw toward the pool. Turned out goldens really liked water, and they took forever to blow-dry.
“Because you kissed a man who’s had you tied up in knots for almost half your life? Because you’re sneaking around that girl’s mom without her knowledge in order to manipulate her? Or because you ran off from your support system while rehabilitating a serious injury, refused to pick up the damned phone, and forced me to rent a car and drive it—which I have not done since moving back to Manhattan—from the world’s smallest airport because there’s no Uber out here in the beach town of Nicholas Sparksville?” She brushed her long black twists over her shoulder as the wind picked up.
A sour taste flooded my mouth at the picture she’d painted. Nothing like getting called out.
“Yes,” I finally said. “All of it.” Sadie found the bright-yellow ball and bounded back across the grass and around the pool. “What am I supposed to do? About any of it?”
“Why would I have any idea?” She bent down and took the ball from Sadie.
“Because you’re the smartest woman I know. You graduated college at twenty and medical school at twenty-three, for crying out loud.” I’d never even gone to college. The Company had consumed my life at seventeen, the same year I’d earned my high school diploma online.
“And I’m a sports medicine doctor, not a shrink.” She threw, and the ball landed somewhere near the vicinity of the shrubs. “And what the hell were you thinking, getting a dog? You know Vasily isn’t going to let her hang out at the studio. That man hates anything related to joy. And you’re in the building for almost twelve hours a day. You are a freaking mess, Allie.”