Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
I was drinking a seltzer, needing something to do with my hands. I lifted it to my lips, barely even tasting it.
“I convinced myself that the absolute worst life possible was a quiet, peaceful life in a small town.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And look where I am.” I spread my hand out at the ocean, not referencing my exact location but rather the point I was in life. “Living in my brother’s house in a small town in Maine, with a fisherman boyfriend, somehow happier than I ever was in my penthouse in New York and the life I deemed so important.”
Elliot stilled when I said that. He had respected the distance I put between us, as he often respected many of the choices I made. Until he didn’t want to, that was. Until he somehow sensed that I didn’t want him to either. He was that attuned to me. The way he watched me… Always with an intensity making him able to spot the smallest of tells of my discomfort. My need for his comfort.
He took the drink from my hands and set it on the side table. His hands immediately went to the sides of my face, caressing my jaw. “Say it again,” he whispered.
I blinked, shocked at the intensity in his expression, at the way he was holding me.
“Say what?” I asked, genuinely confused. I’d said a whole lot just then, and I couldn’t understand what might’ve elicited his reaction. I didn’t let it slip that I was falling in love with him, did I? I hadn’t properly admitted it to myself. Admitting it to him would be a deadly mistake, considering I was still planning on ending things. I just kept amending the date. Because I was selfish and greedy. But I was also committed to not letting him ruin his life.
Letting me ruin his life.
He stroked the side of my jaw with his thumb. “That you’re happy,” he whispered, eyes roving over my face.
It confused me that such a statement had caused such a visceral reaction in Elliot. Though it had been a difficult thing to come to terms with, to even recognize since I truly hadn’t felt long-lasting happiness during my decade in New York. I’d felt drive, satisfaction, power. But never happiness.
“I’m happy,” I whispered to him, though it felt like a mistake, much like the four-letter word I would never say to him.
Fuck it, if I was going down…
“You make me happy.” I spoke even more quietly that time. Short of telling him how I truly felt, this was giving away my power. And not in the sexual sense of obeying him. It was acknowledging that he had the power to make me happy, therefore, he had the power to make me miserable.
Not that he would ever wield it that way.
Elliot didn’t say anything for a long while. He just stood there, staring. “I make you happy.”
I nodded, refusing to speak because I didn’t trust that romantic gibberish wouldn’t start leaking out of my mouth.
“I’ve lived a happy life.” His thumb moved from stroking my jaw to my bottom lip. “With some obvious blips…”
I sensed a story there. Some rock left unturned, something I was ignorant to.
I knew about the blips regarding his mother dying and his niece battling a cruel illness—huge fucking blips if you asked me.
“Is there something else that I don’t know about?” I probed as gently as I was able. Which was about as gentle as a prosecutor asking the question to a defendant on the stand.
“I was engaged,” Elliot answered without pause, without considering keeping it hidden.
My fingers tightened around my seltzer, sufficiently shocked.
“It didn’t work out.”
“Obviously,” I chuffed dryly. I kept my simmering jealousy underneath the surface, along with a healthy hatred for a woman whom I didn’t know yet needed to throat punch.
“She was my high school sweetheart,” he continued, glancing out the window.
“I’m not surprised,” I muttered. Elliot seemed like the kind of guy who married his high school sweetheart then popped out a bunch of kids.
“Yeah, I’m kind of predictable.” He smiled good-naturedly. “I have no desire to leave Jupiter, to be anything more than I am now. I’m happy working on my family’s boat, in our family’s restaurant.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.” I defended him as if there was shame in his tone. There wasn’t.
“I know that,” Elliot stated confidently. “But Janine, my ex…”
I fucking hated Janine, I decided.
“She wanted more.” He shook his head. “Nothing wrong with that, though I wish she would’ve realized that before we paid for the wedding, sent out the invitations.”
“No fucking way,” I hissed. “She Runaway Brided you?”
He grinned, showing that he didn’t seem to hold any unhealthy resentments toward the woman I’d make a voodoo doll of in the near future. “Not entirely. She realized she wanted bigger. And…” He scrubbed a hand down his face.