Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
It was becoming clear to me that Bolton didn’t appreciate anything.
Bolton took a few bites of his food. “Excellent, as always.”
“Thanks.” I pushed my food around more often than I actually ate it, thinking about my dinner with Theo one second and then thinking about this moment with Bolton the next. I lived two very different lives, and now the separation between them had become thinner than a sheet of paper.
Bolton lifted his chin and looked at me.
I concentrated on my food and waited for him to look away, but as the seconds passed and the heat of his stare felt like a laser on my face, I knew that look was here to stay. I scooped my fork into the risotto and took a bite before I met his stare.
The second he had my attention, he spoke. “The security system said no one came or went for two and a half days.” He spoke in a normal tone, but there was more to his statement, a veiled threat that was inaudible but ever-present.
My fork returned to the food, and I did my best to act normal even though I felt like a deer in the headlights. My heart raced like I should be running from a predator, except I shouldn’t feel threatened by the person who’d broken our marital vows first. I’d done nothing wrong, but I felt like a liar and a cheat.
He continued to stare like he’d asked a question.
I held my fork and focused on my food.
“Were you sick?” he asked.
I could just say yes and make this go away, but I didn’t like to lie. It came easily to others, but it was the most unnatural thing to me. “No. I went to work.”
“Then why did the system say the doors never opened?” He left his fork on his plate and leaned back against the chair, arms crossed over his chest, his head slightly cocked like he was a detective about to complete an interrogation.
I stared at my food again, feeling the race of my anxious heart but also the fury in my soul. I’d never wanted any of this. None of it. “Because I wasn’t here the last two and a half days—and you already know that.” My strength came from my rage, the rage that had been boiling consistently for a month now, bubbling and spilling over the edge onto the stove. “You’re the one who asked for this, so don’t put me on the stand for a crime you asked me to commit.”
The tendons in his neck tightened as the indignation made his face go taut. His eyes dropped momentarily, the flash of anger like lightning across the clouds in his gaze. His arms crossed and he gripped his elbows as he sank into the chair, his jaw clenched harder than it’d been a moment ago. “I don’t disappear for two and a half days—”
“You’re gone for three days at a time, Bolton. Sometimes more.”
“And ninety percent of the time is spent working—not with someone else. If you’re spending two and a half days with the same guy, that sounds more like a relationship than a quick fuck.”
I stared down at the dinner I’d made, the dinner that would grow cold. If Theo were here, he would have eaten his whole plate then gone for seconds. He would have complimented my cooking and not to be polite, because he wasn’t the type of guy to say things just to be polite. “You never stated the parameters of the arrangement. You just asked to fuck other people, and that was it.”
“So, you are fucking someone?” Now, his voice hardened like he was about to burst.
“What did you think was going to happen?” I snapped. “That you were going to fuck a line of beautiful women and I was just going to sit on my ass at home? Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m a hot piece of ass that men are happy to throw down on the bed like a fucking rag doll, but that’s your damn fault, not mine.” I pushed my chair out from the table and threw my napkin right on my plate. “I didn’t want this. I never looked at another man from the moment you were mine. So don’t turn this around on me like I’m the one who crossed the line, when you crossed every line there is to cross.”
He got to his feet. “Baby—”
“It’s done, Bolton. You failed to outline the terms of this arrangement when you signed on the dotted line of a contract you shoved in front of me. There’s no going back now. So, you do whatever the fuck you want, and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, and we’ll come home and act like nothing fucking happened.” I pointed at him across the table, and my finger was as sharp as a knifepoint. “Because that’s what you wanted.”