Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“The economy is in a crisis, Mikhail. Your father won’t get close to his competitor if his voters find out you let go of hundreds of employees because you were jealous.” I hate myself for my last word, but when you’re clutching at straws, you throw more than morals into a burning building. You take people undeserving into the flames with you. “You could lose your father the presidency, all because you don’t trust me to let my hair down occasionally.”
Last night was about more than letting my hair down, but arguments fizzle too fast when you start with the big hitters, and then nothing but lies are told instead of the truth.
Mikhail’s lack of retort stings.
It burns like a thousand bee stings.
I know everything I need to know, but I can’t help but push. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I wave my hand around the empty kitchen, its flap deafening in the silence. “You don’t trust me.”
“It has nothing to do with that,” he lies, breaking my heart.
He didn’t deny that he doesn’t trust me.
He denied that it was the motive of his foolhardiness this time around.
Too angry to think rationally, I roll my eyes before exiting the kitchen with more speed than I entered it. My throbbing temples move toward a blinding migraine, but I keep moving, confident no amount of coin is worth this level of heartache.
Mikhail is on my heels two seconds later. “Don’t walk away from me, Emerson. You don’t get to do that again.”
Hair slaps my face when I whip around to face him, my footing unsteady but resolute. “Again? I didn’t do it the first time, so how could I do it again?”
“Oh, that’s right. You would have had to show up to walk away. I forget not showing up isn’t the same as walking away.” His snarky words are like knives to my chest, so it is only fair I hit him with the same level of aggression.
I storm up to him and bang my fists on his pecs while shouting, “You’re the one who failed to show up!” I huff in his face. “And for what? The makeup sex was good, but it wasn’t good enough to take it that far.”
“Good?” He laughs a tormented chuckle that exposes he didn’t sleep a wink last night. “The sex wasn’t good, Emerson. It was so fucking unbelievable that it ruined every other sexual experience I’ve had.”
Excitement blisters for half a second before it’s stripped for jealousy. “I’m so sorry to have ruined your ability to stuff your dick into any trollop you meet without having a conscious thought. How dare I crave fireworks so blistering that I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else, let alone being upset it could ruin future endeavors.”
“Oh no, because you’d much rather pretend it didn’t fucking happen at all. Wouldn’t you? That and running seem to be your go-to coping mechanisms these days.”
I go to slap him, but he catches my hand before I can, and then he uses the same hand to pull me into his body.
Every muscle in my body tenses when I smell my scent on his skin. Our combined smells expose why the minuscule hours I got last night were so restful, and it makes my insides feel like liquid instead of solid masses.
We slept in the same bed, and one whiff of his heated skin last night had me wanting to forget my anger as swiftly as it does now.
I’d like to blame alcohol for the actions that occurred shortly after I told him he smelled like home, but that isn’t true. By the time Mikhail joined me in bed, I was already halfway sober.
Mikhail’s heated words bound off my cheek when he snarls, “You got off on my leg but didn’t have the decency to look at me after it… again!” His angry eyes bounce between mine. “Spent over a million dollars in under an hour and didn’t buy me a single damn thing. But that is nothing compared to when you walked out of my life without so much as a goodbye after three fucking years, Emerson. Three. Years!” I’m not granted the chance to display my shock, much less articulate it. “What did I ever do to you to deserve that level of disrespect?”
I cringe at the morbid bitterness in his tone. He can’t be serious, can he? He broke my heart. That deserves far more than a snippet of disrespect. I trusted him and believed in him, and when he left, he shattered our dreams and broke all the promises he’d made. He drowned our memories with turmoil and made them warp in my mind like a cruel joke.
He hurt me badly, and the fury of that cracks my tone when I say, “I’m not the bad guy in this situation, and I refuse to let you make out I am.”