Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Tyler’s eyes welled with tears, and the sight of him so emotional nearly made me hit my knees. I sucked in a breath, looking up to the ceiling, to the ocean, to the bed where we’d made love just hours before, and then finally, to him again.
“Last night was amazing. I will never forget it.” My chest squeezed. “But that’s all it can be. One night. And we need to put it all to bed.”
Tyler watched me for the longest time, and I saw every single emotion pass over his face in waves — pain, anger, hurt, sorrow, longing, regret. I wasn’t sure which one settled in deepest as his face leveled out, and his jaw ticked, his eyes hard on mine.
“So, that’s it, then?” he asked. “That’s all you want to say to me right now?”
I love you.
I need you.
Please, be with me. Choose me. Fuck everyone else.
I don’t care who we hurt.
I don’t care as long as it’s us in the end.
I shrugged, wiping away the fresh tears on my cheeks with a whisper. “I don’t know what else there is to say.”
Tyler tongued his cheek, looking out the window with nostrils wide and brows bent together so fiercely that the line between them was visible even across the room. He nodded, just barely, and then his eyes found me again.
He took a step — toward me, into me — but then he stopped.
The air zipped white hot with electricity and poison, with a warning that one false step would demolish everything.
Tyler’s eyes searched mine, like he was waiting for more, but there was nothing more to be said or be done or be undone.
It was what it was.
And we both knew it.
Maybe there was a part of me that hoped he’d say I was wrong. Maybe I held onto that hope like the string of a balloon, thinking he’d take me in his arms, call me crazy for ever thinking he would give me up after last night, and then he’d kiss me and we’d walk downstairs hand in hand and tell everyone what we’d done — consequences be damned.
Maybe I was waiting for him to be the knight in shining armor.
But this wasn’t a fairy tale.
And Tyler wasn’t my prince.
One stiff inhale broke the silence between us, and Tyler swallowed hard, glancing out the window and then at me one final time before he turned and flew through my door, not bothering to be quiet when he pulled it shut behind him.
And I fell to my knees, letting out a guttural cry at the devastating pain of losing him again.
As if I’d ever really had him, at all.
The rest of the day was an out-of-body experience.
I wasn’t sure how I managed it — getting off the floor, getting dressed, putting on makeup, curling my hair. It seemed like someone else had jumped in my body and taken over, that it was someone else entirely spending the day with Morgan and Azra, putting reception party favors together, getting manicures and pedicures, going over last-minute to-do items before the welcome party.
The person running the show was managing to smile, and asked Azra about her life, and laughed with Morgan, and dutifully avoided Tyler — which wasn’t hard, since he and his father were running errands around town all day.
But inside, I was still just the girl on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, tears staining her face, heart shattered into a million pieces.
I knew the decision I’d made for me and Tyler both was the right thing to do. I knew it, deep in my gut. Azra was practically already a part of the family, and before I’d shown up in Bridgechester, she’d been Tyler’s whole world.
How could I ruin that?
How could I even ask him to make that choice, one that I knew would kill me, if I were in his shoes?
I wondered, idly, if this was how Tyler felt all those years ago. If when he’d told me he hadn’t meant to sleep with me, that it couldn’t happen again, that it was a mistake… was he burning on the inside? Was there someone else driving his body while he curled up on the floor of his soul, too?
It didn’t matter.
Nothing did.
I just had to hold on, to keep myself together and get through the wedding.
Then, I could go home to California and figure out what came next.
But, before that, before anything, I had to call Jacob.
It was late when I finally went upstairs for the night, even though everyone else was still downstairs laughing and drinking and enjoying each other’s company. I blamed a headache when I excused myself, and with Azra being there, no one even really batted an eye at me leaving.
Not even Tyler, who simply sipped from his glass of whiskey, keeping his eyes on the table when I stood and said I was going to head upstairs.