Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“I don’t know. That’s why I am so scared and confused and feel different.”
“Good or bad different?”
“Both.”
We stay silent for a moment.
“Seeing you in the rink today… that is what I have with you.”
“What?” I question. A talent? I’m perplexed.
“The way you feel free on that ice is how you make me feel. I feel free when I’m with you. Even when you’re pissing me off. I’ve never felt more like myself than I do now, and my world is flipped upside-down as we speak.”
That may have been the kindest, most romantic thing I have ever heard.“Did I flip your world?”
“Yes, but in a good way. But my business is being fucked with. I am spiraling out of control, because I am distracted by you. You are the only thing that has ever consumed me so fucking much that I’m literally putting my entire outfit in danger. Don’t you see the power you wield?”
I don’t know how to take that.
“My parents told me to find love one day, and I laughed in their faces. Now, I’m in love, and I’m eating my own fucking words, Emelia.”
I turn and place my back on his chest. Every time he speaks, I lose my words. It’s as if there’s nothing I can say that makes sense.
“My parents never loved each other. I know they didn’t love me, so I never knew what love looked like.” My hands graze over the top of the lavender suds. He hums a light response, and I continue.“He cheated. He hit her. He hit us kids. Then he taught my brothers how to be the same way. I don’t think I even heard the words ‘I love you’ growing up.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“I thought what I had with Damian—”
He cuts me off then.“Do not bring him up, Emelia. I already gave him enough passes. If you dare tell me you loved him like you do—”
“I don’t love him, and now that I feel what I feel for you, I know nothing ever came close, and that scares me.” I don’t chance a glance over my shoulder. Instead, I keep my eyes ahead and stare at the tiled wall.
“Did your brothers hit you?” he asks, and I choke back a sob. I don’t want to cry anymore, and I especially don’t want to give those tears to my family.
“Yes. They started hitting me after my father began hitting them.”
Nico grips my shoulders and growls, “Tell me one reason worth keeping those sick fucks alive, Emelia, because my will to let you choose is hanging by a thread.”
I bring my knees up as I sit up and wrap my arms around my thighs.
“Because I want to believe there is love there. I want to believe my family can love me.” I do sob then, so hard. Wasted tears or not, my pain is real, and it eats at me, carving away pieces of my heart every single day.
“Emelia.” He leans forward and kisses the top of my spine. “They don’t deserve you. And you deserve real love. You deserve to be treated like a human and not a caged animal.”
“But I was their daughter.” I cry harder, and I feel him tensing as he pulls me in.
“I know, baby. I know.” I’ve been vulnerable in many ways before, but this is a new one. There is intimacy involved now, and there is the fact that my heart is on a platter for him to take and use against me.
“I won’t do it.” He breaks through my sobs.
“What?” I turn to look at him. His face is like stone, and his jaw tics, but he isn’t mad at me. No, he is laying down his armor.
“I won’t kill anyone in your family. I will let them be free. I will fly us to New York, and I will shake hands with him and call a true peace treaty. For you.”
“Nico.” I straddle him, the water around us sloshing and some falling out onto the floor. “No, please, don’t go to them. Just let them leave our lives. You don’t have to say sorry or be anything to them. I don’t just respect you. I also respect the people who made this man.” I place my hand over his heart. “The one that can be soft, loving, and gentle with me. Who can show vulnerability in the silence. In places where he and I exist alone.” I kiss his heart over and over.
“Emelia, my father would want me to do this right.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He would want you to trust and do as your wife begs of you. And I ask that you just let them go and let it be. Just focus on us and on your outfit.” There is something he isn’t telling me, and I see it in his eyes—the only place on him that always tells me the truth.