Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
And Ari is studying for his bar exam and won’t turn his phone on until it’s time for a cocktail at four.
I debate visiting my dad at the restaurant, but he’ll take the news as a personal insult, and I’m not in the mood to manage his reaction. Who would dare fire my daughter? She has more talent in her pinky finger than they have brains in their thick skulls.
Instead, I decide to walk through Greenwich Village and let the vibrant hum of the neighborhood lift my spirit.
It’s a perfect New York day. Warm. Sunny. Just enough breeze to kiss your skin and blow away the old energy and bring in the new.
I absorb it all. The sun on my skin. The pulse of the city beneath my feet.
In Washington Square, I take a seat on one of the many park benches and close my eyes. Sucking in a deep breath, I let the sounds and smells of the city calm my nerves.
But that’s the thing.
My nerves aren’t as rattled as I would expect after losing my job. Because I know I’ll find another one. I already fired off several résumés this morning, and Harry said he’d give me a glowing reference.
It’s only a matter of time before I’m back in London loving life again.
Yet a strange forebodingness scratches at the nape of my neck. Like a ghostly finger tickling my sixth sense, telling me something even bigger than losing my job is about to happen.
I’ve always been able to trust my instincts.
But I haven’t always followed them.
And when I don’t, the consequences have been like an ash cloud following a volcanic eruption. Unavoidable and unpleasant.
Like Simon.
I met him at an art exhibition three weeks after arriving in London. Blue eyes. Dimpled chin. Nice looking. We bonded over impressionism art, specifically Monet and Renoir. We had completely different views about it—I loved the spontaneity of it, while he called it chaotic and amateurish.
We debated. We bantered.
We fell into bed. A lot.
Something inside told me to steer clear. A warning that existed on the outer edges of my peripherals, clear to see but easy to ignore, especially when I was getting a generous amount of sex.
Granted, it wasn’t toe-curling sex. But it was sex, nonetheless, and it gave my vibrator a break.
For a few weeks, it was good. He was attentive and generous. He’d lavish me with dinners at good restaurants and talk to me for hours about art.
But it didn’t take long for the cracks to show.
A mean comment here. A backhanded compliment there.
You’re a beautiful girl, Bella. If only you could drop ten pounds, you’d be perfect.
That’s a cute outfit, Bella, but isn’t it a little tight?
You’re sexy, Bella, for a girl with lots of curves.
I always thought I’d see a toxic relationship coming a mile away. But I was in the middle of one before I realized it.
The final straw came when he told me I needed to change if I wanted to be with him.
What he didn’t count on was me knowing I didn’t need a man to tell me my self-worth. Or that I didn’t need a man to tell me who I should be, either.
Two things a very red-faced Simon learned in a crowded coffee shop in Piccadilly one wet winter’s day.
Leaving his jerk ass was easy. It was fixing the machine-gunned holes in my confidence after nine months with him that was hard.
All of a sudden, I was questioning the little things. My clothes. My thighs. My hair.
Maybe you would look prettier as a brunette, Bella.
Then without warning, I started to question the bigger things. My purpose. My tastes. My beliefs.
My art.
It’s funny how someone not worth your time can silently destroy your confidence when they’re not even in your life anymore.
It was my job that got me through it. Because for all the self-doubt in every other area of my life, at least I knew I was good at what I did.
But now my job is gone, and I’m not going to lie, it fucking sucks.
Clouds move over the sun, and out of nowhere, my thoughts drift to Nico De Kysa. The only boy who ever really loved me. Needless to say, he never showed up on my eighteenth birthday to whisk me away like he promised all those months earlier when we were ripped from one another’s arms.
Looking for answers, I had googled him, and there he was, splashed all over social media—Nico De Kysa, the handsome playboy son of the mighty Gio De Kysa. In every photo, another beauty at his side.
Heartbroken, I’d slammed my laptop shut and built an impenetrable wall around my heart, believing that moving on was my best revenge. Nico didn’t deserve any more of my tears. He didn’t deserve anything from me, so I decided to forget him just as he forgot about me.