Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Bonnie handed Thelma a contract. Dario's legal team had drafted it. (He apparently had one working around the clock, as a "precaution." Kendra was starting to understand that her husband's definition of "precaution" and the rest of the world's weren’t even in the same language.)
Thelma's hands shook as she signed.
In minutes, it was over. Thelma had agreed never to come within three miles of Kendra, consented to enter a private rehab program for counseling, and in return, no charges would be pressed.
Kendra watched Bonnie escort her twin to the elevator on the lobby feed. Thelma walked quickly, head down, arms wrapped around herself, and for one terrible moment Kendra felt sorry for her—and then felt stupid for feeling sorry, and then felt guilty for calling herself stupid when Dario had just called her kind, and the whole emotional tangle was so classically Kendra that she almost laughed.
Almost.
"I asked her why," Bonnie revealed when she returned, almost reluctantly, handing the signed contract to Dario. "What her reason was for doing this."
"And did she...did she answer you?"
Bonnie glanced at Dario. Dario gave a small nod.
"She said she just hated you for being you."
And there it was.
Her whole life, she had wondered what she'd done, what was wrong with her, what she could change or fix or be to make Thelma stop. And the answer was nothing. There was nothing. There had never been anything. It wasn't about what Kendra did. It was about what Kendra was. And that was a thing Thelma couldn't take, couldn't copy, couldn't try on in front of a mirror and adjust the straps.
It was, somehow, the most freeing thing anyone had ever told her.
Her husband's expression had turned grim, and she touched his arm quickly. "It's fine. I'm really okay."
And it was true.
Because maybe...
Maybe this meant it was over.
Kendra started thinking out loud.
Maybe therapy would help?
Kendra missed seeing Bonnie and Dario wince upon hearing this.
Leopards didn't change their spots overnight, yes. Kendra knew that. But the keyword was overnight. Anything was possible given enough time. People changed. People grew. Even Thelma could—
When she turned to her companions, looking at them expectantly, Bonnie suddenly recalled having something urgent to attend to downstairs, and excused herself with a speed that was impressive even for a woman trained in six forms of hand-to-hand combat.
And then Dario...
Oh!
He kissed her, sudden and deep, and swept her up in his arms, and as he made love to her that night...
It was then she knew.
Her heart had finally healed.
And it belonged to Dario La Rocca.
Chapter Six
TODAY WAS THE DAY.
Kendra had been preparing for an entire week, and she was ready. A plan was in place. Candles were bought. Three different recipes pulled up on her phone, all of which involved eggs, because eggs were the only thing Kendra La Rocca knew how to cook.
It was her greatest failure as a wife, sadly. Her one true domestic shame. Kendra could organize a charity gala for three hundred people, recommend the perfect book to a stranger based on nothing more than the way they held their shoulders, and even make arancini now, thanks to Mona, although Mona would argue that what Kendra made was not arancini but "a crime against Sicily."
But cooking? Real cooking? The kind that involved spices and timing and not setting off the smoke detector?
Well, um, anyway...
Tonight, she would surprise her husband with a candlelit dinner. Very romantic. Very traditional. Or so he would think—until he saw what she intended to serve, which was scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, and fried eggs.
On the good china.
With candles.
She had spent an embarrassing amount of time planning the presentation. The scrambled eggs would go in the little ramekins she'd found in the back of the kitchen cabinet. The fried eggs would be on the warmed plates, because Mona had taught her that warmed plates made everything look more intentional. And the boiled eggs would be in the crystal egg cups that she was ninety percent sure were not actually for eggs but were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, and she was using them anyway.
Everything was perfect save for one last thing, and it was why she was in her favorite bookstore in the city and very seriously browsing the men's devotionals.
Kendra was comparing the table of contents of two different editions, angling one closer to read the tiny print when—
"I finally found you."
Her head jerked up.
"P-Porter?"
He was standing at the end of the aisle, and he was almost unrecognizable.
It was like someone had taken the man she'd married—the one with the confident smile and the pressed shirts and the easy charm that made everyone in a room feel like he was their friend—and left him in the rain for a few months. His clothes were wrinkled. He hadn't shaved in days. And his eyes had the hollow, jittery look of a man who had been losing sleep and replacing it with something worse.