Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
My blood turned cold, but I didn’t let my face change. “What’s casual?”
“You know . . .” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “We just hook up whenever, no strings attached.”
I would be more upset about this if she hadn’t already shown her hand. Now, she was trying to redraw the deck, but I wouldn’t let that fly. “And what does that solve?”
Her eyes finally lifted to mine.
“No.”
“No?”
“You aren’t the kind of woman you wear a condom with.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I don’t want to fuck other people, and you don’t want me to either.”
“But it could—”
“How about we just give this relationship a chance instead of finding ways to end it?” I asked. “You already said you’re falling for me, so you’re stuck. Don’t pretend you want to take a step back when you don’t. Don’t pretend you’re fine with me fucking other people when you aren’t.”
Her fingers rested under her chin, and her eyes searched the faces of other people in the restaurant. When she opened her heart to me, it was fucking beautiful. And then when she withdrew, all I felt was darkness. “When I said that, you were supposed to freak out.”
The smirk that moved on to my lips was uncontrollable. “You thought that would scare me off?”
“I didn’t say it to scare you off. But afterward, I thought it might.”
“You can’t scare me off, sweetheart.” But any little thing I did spooked her. “Look, this is already a serious relationship, whether you like it or not. You know why? Because all we do is talk about how it’s going to work. If this were just two people fucking for a couple of weeks, there would be no talking. I understand you’re scared of everything my life entails, but you’ve forgotten just how tough you are.”
I knew I struck a chord when her eyes flicked away for just a nanosecond, like my words cut her deep, reminded her of the mess she’d been in Taormina. She’d been afraid to jump off that rock, but once she felt the high, she wanted to chase it forever.
My hand tightened into a fist and moved over my chest, just the way it had on top of that rock. “Tougher than my fist. Tougher than my mother. Tougher than the Roman Empire.”
She shifted her eyes away again as her fingers remained under her chin, looking like a Roman queen without even trying, her hair dark like winter soil, her eyes bright like the emeralds that should hang from her neck. “Doesn’t it bother you that I just got out of a relationship?”
“No.”
“Even though it’s been three weeks?”
“Could have ended yesterday, wouldn’t make a difference.”
“When you got out of your relationship, could you picture being serious with someone this quickly?”
She asked me the tough questions. Put me on the spot. Made me consider a situation that had never crossed my mind. She was smart, really thought things through, and while that held her back sometimes, considering the gravity of her decisions was a good way to be. It made me respect her. And it made me realize what I meant to her, because she had every reason to leave, but she continued to stay.
“Now I think you understand.”
I’d planned on marrying Isabella. Was about to buy a ring, about to tell my mom about it, but then it all came burning down. To jump into another relationship within a few weeks of that, even if she was in the wrong, was impossible to imagine. She’d really broken my heart. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying.” It took me a while to sleep with someone new. At least a couple months. I broke things off between us with no intention of ever going back, but a part of me still felt like I was in that relationship. Until one day, I wasn’t. “But there’s a difference between us. You said your relationship had fallen apart a long time ago and you were still holding on. Mine was great until the moment it wasn’t—and then it was just done. I needed time to recover from that, while you’d been preparing for the end for months. You jumped into bed with me right away because you were ready.”
“Jumped into bed . . . thanks.”
“Trust me, I don’t say that judgmentally. He stuffed your heart in a garbage bag when it should have been in a safe. When you were free, you were ready to be free. You were ready for me. So, no, it doesn’t bother me at all. This feels right.” It’d been nine long years since someone had made me look twice. Since someone made me feel anything at all. After a while, I wondered if Isabella had destroyed my ability to ever love again.
And then I met Aurelia.