Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
I swallow.
What words would do justice to this kind of pain? There are none.
This is the visceral suffering of those who have experienced grief. And even though his mother is still alive by a hair, she’s more a ghost than a person. Death has already claimed her just like it claimed my father—whether it’s yesterday, today, or tomorrow, a future for them in our lives no longer exists.
No wonder Caleb broke the second I told him about my father.
This is what he’s been hiding. This is the secret that’s torn him apart at the seam.
And even though I once believed I hated him, the idea that I ever could seems so cruel right now.
All of his anger, all of the revulsions, the fights … all of it was because of this.
His mother, lying motionless in a bed, more dead than living, the last remnant he has of the woman who once called him her baby.
How could my heart not ache for him?
“What … what happened to her?”
His eyes trail off to her face. “A few years ago, she had a stroke.” He swallows. “She never recovered. Even though a part of her may still be in there … her mind has long since left this world. All that remains is her body.” He pushes away the hair off her face so gently it cracks what little resistance I had left. “But I can’t say goodbye. Not yet.”
He touches the ring on her finger.
“My father swore he wouldn’t abandon her,” he says, his voice darkening. “He swore.”
“They’re still … married?” I mutter.
He nods, the silence that follows deafening.
He gets up, slowly walking toward me with a hazy look on his face, stopping mere inches in front of me. “My father hid her in this building to conceal what happened to her from the outside world. Couldn’t face his own damn CFO and tell him the truth. He’s been pretending she’s sick and unable to show her face, but we both know better,” he says, swallowing. “But even he couldn’t pull the plug. Not while there was still some hope.” His brows draw together as his eyes slowly leer up and bore into mine. “Until my father saw your mother and decided he would forget. Forget my mother ever existed.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “He wouldn’t forget her.”
“He’s still fucking married, and he doesn’t even care,” he spits. “He’s soiled her memory. My mother. She’s in there.” He points at the body being ventilated. “She’s waiting on him, and he abandoned her.”
“You’re angry,” I say, trying to reason with him.
“Of course, I fucking am!” He grabs the vase filled with fresh flowers standing on a pedestal near the door and chucks it at the wall, shattering it into a million pieces. “There is nothing left for me to fight for! Nothing!”
“Nothing?” My brows furrow together.
Even if he can’t think of anything, there must be something …
“All I have … all I want, so desperately,” he says, suddenly gripping my face with both hands. “Doesn’t want me back.”
My lips part in shock.
He … wants me?
As more than just a plaything?
He releases me and saunters away, staring out the window wistfully.
“You actually … want me?”
He makes a tsk sound. “Didn’t you hear Ares?”
“I thought you were just playing games, that it was just my body, but … it isn’t, is it?”
He tilts his head, the forlorn look in his eyes so striking it makes me want to run over to him and kiss him.
But something about the violence in his eyes stops me.
“I thought I had to hate you,” he says, snorting before shaking his head. “That it would make it easier to shut you out.”
“But you said it was because Ares—”
“Ares has always been there for me. Always,” he interjects. “And then he set his eyes on you. How was I supposed to feel?”
It feels like stone upon stone is thrown. “Wait, you … were jealous of him?”
“Of you.” He pauses.
That’s why he was so aggressive with me even though I hadn’t done anything to him?
“And then eventually him …”
Both of us?
Caleb’s Adam’s apple rises and falls. “But Ares always gets what he wants. That is a fact.”
I shake my head. “He hasn’t gotten me.”
“Hasn’t he?”
I swallow, trying to keep my mind from spinning.
“When he plays with you, doesn’t it make your heart throb and your head dizzy?” he says, biting his bottom lip, drawing in his piercing. “When you hate so deeply, doesn’t it make you loathe the very thought of loving someone?”
“Yes, but—” I choke on my own words.
Because I understand what he’s trying to tell me now …
That my own feelings for Ares mirror Caleb’s for me.
Oh God.
I can’t breathe.
“Your mother got in the way. So I did what I did best. Destroy,” he says, his voice gritty, unhinged. “Destroy every happy thought, every good emotion, every inch of your goddamn angelic soul just so I could tell myself I didn’t desire it more than anything. Because how could I possibly desire someone who’s supposed to become my step—”