Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
As I look over the scattered items, though, I can’t help but smile when I realize what it’s all for.
She started working on her wedding binder.
I guess I can handle being a little tired today because she was too excited to sleep last night thinking about marrying me.
I’ll have to fill her in on some of the details. Or, more realistically, I’ll probably let her think she’s deciding on them herself, but I already have the venue booked. It’s a place I know she likes. I needed to book it to make sure we got it, but also because I needed a firm date so I could work on my wedding surprise for her.
I don’t expect it will be a problem. I always manage to get Cassie where I need her.
My gaze lingers on the notebook I recognize that is decidedly not part of the wedding binder. Her journal. She must have updated that, too.
I admit, I’m tempted to take a peek and see what she wrote about it, but I restrain myself. Cassie knows I track every move she makes without me, but I respect the privacy of her journal.
Well, this one.
I had to read the old journal, of course. I wanted to read about all the ways she dreamed up to kill me, and my Cassie is a wonderful writer, so it was a real page-turner. My favorite pages weren’t her murder fantasies, though. While those filled most of the book, there was a small section of just a few pages where she described what I did to her that night from her own perspective and in vivid detail.
My blood heats as I remember some of those passages. I don’t want to wake Cassie, so I probably shouldn’t think about that right now.
Leaving her mess on the counter, I go to change into my workout clothes, then I go for a run to get my day started—and to work out some tension without bothering Cassie.
Tim and I used to run together just about every morning. It started as part of our training routine for football, but we kept it going in the summers, even after graduation. I don’t run as much without him. Too tempting to stay in bed with the girl we both wanted to fuck now that I get to whenever I want.
Besides, I can always work out with the guys later, after I’ve made my future wife come all over my cock to get both of our days started right.
I smile as I hit the last mile. Life’s pretty fucking good here, but it would be just as good anywhere else—as long as I have Cassie with me.
Tim doesn’t cross my mind very often anymore, but I guess it’s only natural that he would today. I’m officially engaged, and I never imagined I’d get married and he wouldn’t be standing up there behind me when I took my vows. Before I realized my sweet little wife had the capacity to put a bullet in his chest, I figured I’d rib him about being the one to get to spend the rest of my life with her.
Not that he would have wanted to. Tim always viewed Cassie as something disposable, and that reminder makes it easier not to concern myself with the fact that he’ll never get to do any of this with me.
Really, it’s Tim’s own fault that he’s dead. He mishandled Cassie. She has a forgiving nature, but she also has self-respect. If he had simply given her what she needed—what she deserved—I have little doubt she would have forgiven him. All he had to do was tell one more lie, but Tim has always struggled with apologizing.
He took the blame for me, but he didn’t see it through. He thought about the legal ramifications and the possibility of consequences to his reputation, of course, because that’s what he was raised to consider. But he didn’t learn from Cassie the way I did. He couldn’t bring himself to take real accountability for the person who was hurt in all this.
I would have committed. I would have apologized and made her believe I was sorry. I would still be alive—and I would still be fucking her every night and marrying her little ass, too. My ego isn’t as fragile as his was. I would have done what needed to be done.
But I accept my brother’s choices. With less competition, getting everything I ever wanted has proven much easier, so I guess he did me a bigger favor than he set out to.
Thanks, Tim. As you said so glibly about Cassie one night after the final verdict, your sacrifice was not in vain.
When I get back home, Cassie’s awake despite my interference with her alarm, standing at the counter with bags full of lemons and cartons of strawberries spread around her chopping board.