Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“I’ll tell them everything,” I say and then immediately want to vomit because the words are repulsive. “I have leverage now. You gave it to me that night. So if you don’t give up on your plan, I’ll tell them what’s happening on the ranch.”
I press a hand to my belly and wait for him to turn around. Give me some reaction, anything to work with. But he resumes walking. He continues down the stairs, his back straight and made of steel, his brand standing pale and stark on his bronzed skin.
When he’s almost at the bottom, I panic. I do it so hard that I say the only thing I have left in my arsenal. That it sounds exactly like his name is the irony I’m trying to ignore as I call out, “She was a mole.”
That stops him. Dear Lord, that halts him in his tracks, and it also gets him to turn around. His eyes clash with mine and I grip the railing with trembling hands. I clench my eyes shut for a few seconds because I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m telling him this, but I have no choice.
I open my eyes and my tears make his sight blurry as I say, “I-I broke into Marsden’s office today. And his safe. The one that’s in the wall behind your parents’ portrait. I-I saw it the day Peyton and I went into the office where we got the map to the cabin. I blackmailed Axton to open the safe for me and I…” I clench my eyes shut again and this time, feel the tears fall down my cheeks as I continue, “There was a file. I-I think it was Marsden’s. It had all this information about Annie. Her birth date, the city she was born in, those kinds of thing. And a PI report about how she came to Black Rock because she was working for the Turners. Hank Turner. There were bank receipts from him depositing money in her account every month. It said that it was most likely she was spying for them. She was…” A sob catches in my throat, but I keep going because now that I have started it, I need to finish it. “Arsen, I think… I think she was using you. I think the Turners were using her to get to you and your land. She wasn’t… I know you loved her but she probably didn’t…”
“She did,” he says, his voice rough and low.
“But I saw—”
“Yeah, you don’t know what you saw. You’ve got no clue about anything.”
“Arsen—”
“In an hour when I come back, if you’re still here, I’m draggin’ you out, naked or not. Because you’re not a Turner or a Grayson. You’re just some girl I made the mistake of puttin’ through hell and then fuckin’. So get gone before I make you gone.”
With that he leaves, and I fall down to my knees, sobbing as I crawl to our bed.
I don’t know how long I stay there, crumpled in a ball, sobbing for my broken heart, for breaking his heart by telling him the truth. But at some point, shame becomes too much for me and I don’t care about being brave. I put his discarded T-shirt on and wrap myself in his sheets.
The only way I know that an hour has passed—although it feels longer, much longer than that—is when I hear the creak of the stairs followed by a pair of arms wrapping around me. I’m about to hold on to them because he’s back and he isn’t dragging me out like he said when I realize it’s not him at all.
It’s a man in a mask, and before I scream, he’s putting his hand on my mouth and I’m sliding into oblivion.
THERE ARE THINGS about her she didn’t know until I told her.
Secrets of her body. Like a mole on the small of her back that she didn’t know existed until I traced it with my tongue one night and showed her in the mirror when she asked me what I was doing. Or that the back of her left knee is more ticklish than the right. She didn’t know her belly button could be so sensitive that me playing with it would make her come until I did it twice in one night. She didn’t know she frowns when she’s rereading for the tenth time the little notes I leave for her. Or that every time she laughs, her nose crinkles a little. If she’s trying to sass me but is turned on, the base of her neck will flush with heat as she glares at me.
There are a million other things I could list, and I do as I make the call and hear it ring. They come and go through me like flashes as I wait for him to pick up. Like how your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. Given that she is my life, it makes sense.