Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 26246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 131(@200wpm)___ 105(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
He tried giving Lara back her phone, but she pushed it back to him.
“Please just look—”
Lara was once again relieved when her boss seemed to finally see reason as he took her phone back—
Oh, finally!
—just so he could throw her phone in the trash.
“Seriously?”
“Get a new one on the company card. Get your husband one as well. Just don’t fucking—”
“Please.”
Lyrius stopped.
The trash can was the one beside the reception desk, two strides away, and Lara’s phone had landed face up among the discarded coffee cups, and from that distance the speaker was tiny and faint but the voice—
The voice was Kyara’s.
“Please, I’m begging you, anything you want, just don’t—”
Lyrius didn’t even know what he was doing. The next thing he was aware of was the phone in his hand again. He didn’t remember crossing the two strides, didn’t remember bending down, didn’t remember whose elbow he’d clipped on the way past—
All he knew, as he finally allowed himself to see what Lara had been begging him to watch—
No. No. No.
Lara’s screen showed Kyara on her knees, in front of Wallace, her face a picture of unbearable terror and desperation.
“Please...”
Lyrius felt sick to his stomach as he watched Kyara beg for Wallace’s mercy...because she believed he needed protecting.
I’m so, so sorry but I can’t choose you.
She had turned him down not because she didn’t love him.
She had chosen her ex over Lyrius because she loved him.
Why, Kyara? Why? Why didn’t you come to me?
Lyrius could feel his chest tightening to the point that he was finding it hard to breathe. But still he forced himself to continue watching. Even rewinding and replaying the security footage to know the exact extent of what she had suffered...because of him.
Cyrus shoving her off...
The back of Kyara’s head hitting the wall...
Cyrus grabbing her by the hair...
Lyrius nearly fell to his knees. He had done that to her. All of this...was his fault. Because he had gotten everything so damn wrong.
Chapter 14
IT WAS ANOTHER DAY at work, another day of struggling to remember to be thankful that she had a job...even if it meant working with her ex—
“Buy me coffee from Joe’s, will you?”
—whose only seeming goal in life at present was to torture her.
“Of course, Mr. Wallace.”
She stood at the side of his desk a moment too long, because she’d only been on this floor for a day and a half and she still didn’t know which Joe’s he meant, the one in the lobby or the one across the street, and she’d already learned that asking the wrong question was worse than getting the wrong coffee.
“What?”
“Where would I...” She saw Cyrus raise a brow at her question, and she forced a smile. “What I mean is—I’ll be right back.”
“Good girl.”
He slapped her butt as she turned around, and the worst thing about it was how everyone had seen what he’d done...and they’d all just laughed.
I can’t do this anymore.
She did her best to blink back tears as they started making jokes about her, and Kyara kept walking because she was afraid if she stopped, her knees would not start again.
I don’t know what to do.
She walked out of the office. Took the stairs to avoid people seeing her because—
I need...help.
She couldn’t...she really couldn’t take this anymore. She was trying so, so hard to protect Lyrius, but she just couldn’t take it anymore—
She got to the landing between forty-six and forty-seven and her legs gave out.
She sat down hard against the cinderblock wall, the metal handrail cold against the back of her arm, and she pressed both hands over her mouth because she’d taught herself a long time ago how to sob without sound but she hadn’t trusted herself to remember how today, and the sob came out half-laugh, half-something-else, because—
The truth shall set you free.
She started to laugh, and then she realized she was also crying.
Of course she had to remember that verse of all things. The one verse she had to insist that she and Shayla have to agree to disagree on because every time she heard this verse, she would remember her mother insisting that what she was doing was okay because she was just being true to her feelings.
It had her thinking her whole life that truth was a selfish luxury, and that was why she would lie and lie and lie—
But no more.
I’m so, so sorry, God.
I’m done lying.
Done trying to solve things on my own.
So please.
Please help me.
Please.
And even before she finished praying, she’d already heard the doors swing open, the footsteps coming closer, and when she opened her eyes—
A choked sob escaped her lips as hands that had only ever touched her once before, but whose touch she would never ever forget—
Lyrius.
She could only stare at him, unable to believe her eyes. After what happened last night, she had thought he would have completely given up on her, but instead—