Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I couldn’t look away from the sight.
I was frozen with an irresistible desire to have her. Her white swimsuit glimmered in the dark as she walked toward the cabana. Then suddenly, and without warning, I felt a rush of sensation in my gut, the old instinct that had always served me well.
Something bad was about to happen.
Even as the thought became a shape in my head, her foot slipped on the wet tiles and she lost her balance. It happened so fast. One moment I was lusting for her, the next moment, her arms were flailing as she landed on her back. I saw her hand flutter towards her head and realized she must have hit it. Grabbing the edge of the pool with her other hand, she twisted her body and tried to get up, but her body suddenly became limp, as if had lost consciousness.
And she slipped into the water noiselessly.
Fuck! I turned from the window and ran from my room through the unfamiliar house. Most of the lights were off and navigating through the dark was a nightmare. It felt like a lifetime passed before I finally burst through the back door.
The water’s surface showed no ripples. It was eerily still, but a dark shadow was slowly sinking. I dived into the cool water, grabbed her descending body, and pulled her towards the surface. The moment I emerged out of the water I began to yell out to her father.
“Mr. Leone!”
“Mr. Leone!”
I laid her on the tiles and looked down at her pale, motionless face. Up until that moment in my life, I’d been attacked with every sort of weapon imaginable, but I couldn’t recall ever feeling as afraid as I did then.
“Don’t die, bella Zola. Please don’t die,” I urged urgently.
Then I opened her blue lips and, taking a deep breath, put my mouth over hers.
Ten Years Later
Chapter 1
Zola
“Well, what happened next?” Nina asked.
I reached for my wine glass. A small smile played on my lips as I sipped the exquisite Garblèt Suè Barolo. The fruity notes of raspberry and the smoky aroma of the dark wooden barrels that the wine had lain in for years flowed down my throat.
I had to admit my colleagues were right. This wine was the perfect splurge for celebrating my promotion to a fully-fledged agent at the Gray Swan Literary Agency … but two glasses on an empty stomach had loosened my tongue and led me down the unfamiliar path of sharing my old stories with them.
“She’s enjoying this,” Stella, one of the editors, accused.
“Actually, there’s nothing more to say,” I replied with a smile. “The story ends there.”
“What do you mean, it ends there? You lost consciousness and fell into the pool in the middle of the night. You obviously didn’t drown so who saved you? Was it the beautiful man-boy? It was, wasn’t it?” Steven, a flamboyantly gay intern demanded dramatically.
I set my glass down. “Yes, it was him. He … resuscitated me. My father called for an ambulance and I was rushed to hospital. I was concussed and a bit ill for a little while, but I was fine in the end.”
“I knew it. What happened then?” Steven asked in a hushed, excited voice.
I shrugged. “I never saw him again.”
A murmur of dissatisfaction swept around the table. I glanced at their faces. They were expecting some sort of grand resolution, but to hear that the end of my first crush had been so abrupt seemed to disappoint them all.
“Wait, you guys never spoke or kept in touch?” Steven asked in disbelief.
I shook my head.
“So … you’ve always been useless around men then,” Steven concluded, shaking his head. “I’d have got his number the moment I set eyes on him.”
The table erupted into tipsy laughter.
“Wow, that’s a shame,” Nina commented softly.
I agreed silently.
“Still, better first crush story than all the nonsense I’ve had to sift through today in my emails,” Linda, one of the three literary assistants muttered with a shudder.
“What kind of nonsense?” Janice, her immediate boss asked.
“Like the way, the query letters and samples are just getting worse and worse. I had a woman today, who sent me three photos of herself in different poses and the assurance that she had a whole lot more if those were not suitable for the book jacket cover. I mean, come on. Your story has not even been selected and you’re obsessing over the cover photo.”
“That sounds like something I would do. Was her book any good though?” Steven enquired.
“No. It was some sort of a weird mermaid tale. Mermaid sex in the second chapter.” She shuddered. “I was a bit creeped out, to be honest. Too fishy for me.”
Steven shrieked with laughter. “I’m sure I could have been tempted by a slippery male mermaid. Imagine, no lube needed.”
Janice groaned. “Oh please, Steven! We all know you’ll fuck anything that moves. Now behave yourself. This is a work-related event.” She turned to me. “You used to read too, didn’t you, Zola? How long were you an assistant for?”