Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
And then he broke the silence.
Pierced it.
Pierced the fragile moment we’d carved out for ourselves.
“Will your new company give you the orgasms you need?”
My features crumpled, fire burning up the back of my throat into my eyes, but I squeezed them shut. I would not let him see me cry.
I wrapped my arms around his, absorbing every sensation of him holding me, committing it to memory—because I knew this was it.
Drawing in a steady breath, I braced myself and brought the axe down, severing the connection between us. “No,” I said quietly. “But it also won’t make it so hard to breathe that it hurts.”
I pried myself from his arms and straightened my clothes as quickly as I could.
“Aspen, I never followed through with the scene,” he confessed as I headed for the door, his tone low—desperate to be heard and tinged with hope that it might still matter.
But it didn’t.
“It’s too late. And it’s not enough,” I said, forcing steel into my voice I didn’t feel and refusing to look back. I couldn’t. If I did, I knew it wouldn’t matter if I thought it was enough or not—I wouldn’t make it out.
His footsteps followed—then stopped, cut short by the sharp ring of his phone.
“Shit,” he muttered just as I reached the door. “Grace…”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. Our arrangement was over. Lucian wasn’t my problem anymore, and whatever hope I’d been clinging to was gone.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, all I felt was the clawing urge to turn around and go back.
I didn’t.
CHAPTER 21
LUCIAN
“Ibrought you a coffee.”
I jerked in the uncomfortable hospital chair, Grace’s voice jarring me from the edge of sleep that the quiet beeps and hums of the equipment hooked up to Felix had lulled me into.
“Thank you.”
“Well, we can’t all look as amazing as you all the time,” I said, laughing softly.
She preened before sighing softly, really looking me over.
I fidgeted in the chair as if searching for a position that left me less exposed, knowing she saw too much.
“Why don’t we go outside and talk?”
“We can talk here. He’s sleeping,” I argued. Grace had been watching me too closely these past few days in the hospital. I sensed this as the moment she stopped waiting and pushed for a deeper conversation I wasn’t ready to have.
“Just in case. I don’t want to disturb him.”
“Yeah,” I agreed reluctantly.
Before walking out, she moved to Felix’s bedside and brushed his hair back, leaning in to press a long kiss to his cheek.
Witnessing her love for him, knowing the profound loss looming ahead, lodged a lump in my throat, and I slipped out before my composure could crack.
I sank into the chair and raked a hand down my face. Exhaustion sat heavy beneath my eyes. I’d barely slept since Grace’s call a few days ago, telling me Felix had taken a turn and was being admitted to the hospital—since she’d interrupted my attempt to chase after Aspen.
Watching Aspen walk out the door while Grace spoke in my ear had split me clean in two. One half of me was already making plans to get to my family as fast as possible. The other needed to follow the woman who’d crumpled me into aching knots with a single sentence.
In the end, going after Aspen would have been both fruitless and cruel. I’d seen her icy façade and poked at it anyway, prodding and piercing like a boy tugging the pigtails of his first crush—desperate for any scrap of attention. I’d gone at her like a hammer, relentless, until I shattered her defenses, unprepared for what lay beneath.
For the raw, damaged pieces she’d been trying so hard to hide.
“It won’t make it so hard to breathe that it hurts.”
My face screwed tight all over again, replaying the defeat in her words. I hated the way my body shuddered under the weight of her pain. Hated that I’d caused it. Hated that something inside me—calling from the corners of my mind—begged me to fix it. And I hated that something else kept me frozen in place.
Sitting at my godfather’s bedside gave me nothing but time to think. Yet every time I turned inward, searching for a clear path forward, I was bombarded by more than I could handle.
Memories of us bled together. Making the rules of our agreement tangled with her tearful confession that she loved me. Our laughter as she danced around the kitchen blurred into Daria taking everything from me. The flash of Aspen’s golden eyes as I moved inside her, the soft give of her mouth against mine, twisted with the weight of her hard voice telling me we were done.
I searched for a thread to lead me in the right direction. I listened for the alarms that warned me so clearly before. But it was only chaos, and I feared I’d never find my way out.