Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 137119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
I knew Keltan owned a security company. Knew it was kind of famous. I kind of guessed there would be hot guys at this party, because if Keltan was anything to go by, then yeah.
Not my type.
Maybe because they were too conventional alpha male for me.
Or maybe because they reminded me of someone.
When I saw him, I thought I was hallucinating. Thought I’d let my mind stray to him and for that reason, he’d appeared. But if I was hallucinating, then I’d see him exactly how he was imprinted into my memory. Not with almost everything about him different apart from his eyes and the way they stared into me.
“Holy shit,” I murmured under my breath as Lucy handed me the bottle.
She frowned, not yet catching on to who I was staring at. “What? Is it not gluten-free? Is it made by corporate America so you can’t possibly contribute to the capitalist pigs by drinking it?” she asked dryly.
I barely heard her, though it was the truth.
Something worse than the capitalist ethos taking over the minds of our society was happening right now.
He was coming over.
Oh shit, he was coming over.
At a loss of what to do, I lifted the beer to my face and chugged. Yes, faced with the man I’d been fantasizing about for years, instead of looking my best and giving him an intense look like he was giving me, I chugged my beer like a frat boy on rush week.
“Alright, so your latest boyfriend owns a brewery,” Lucy teased, still thankfully oblivious.
Then he was there.
In front of us.
And everything came crashing into me. The power of the memories I’d carried and nurtured and pretended that it was something but not the thing.
Because there was more than something, something exciting, something passionate, something a little like love. There was all of that, and then there was the thing.
That connection.
The stifling and uncomfortable vibration in the air the second our eyes locked. The tightness in my lungs as invisible hands squeezed at them. The needles pressing farther into my heart with every rapid beat. The pulsating throb in between my legs.
“Ah, Heath, of course you’d lumber over here with less than chivalrous thoughts about the newest beautiful woman to enter the room,” Lucy said with a smirk. “I’m afraid this beautiful woman is taken by a man I presume owns a brewery and sleeps in his mom’s basement.” She gave me a wink.
I was trying to remember how to breathe.
“Also,” Lucy continued. “There’s the fact that she’s my baby sister and I’d just have to castrate you with a dull butter knife if you even got any ideas,” she said sweetly.
I recovered quicker than I thought possible, reaching out to the hand Heath had extended after Lucy had finished her threats that worked as her version of an introduction.
“Nice to meet you,” I said with a voice that was little more than a squeak.
Lucy introduced us because obviously we were strangers. To her, there was no way this man who worked for Keltan, and me had ever crossed paths before. No way would I—or could I—educate her on the truth.
The handshake was a bad idea.
No, scratch that. The handshake was a terrible idea.
The second his hand engulfed mine, my entire body went flush. I was catapulted roughly and painfully into that beautiful and ugly past.
Everything was stark and blurry at the same time.
I tried to yank my hand back, for continued survival more than anything else. And because there was only so long I could hold it together with Lucy looking on.
But his grip tightened.
Almost to the point of pain.
He frowned at me.
No, he glared.
He hadn’t spoken yet.
I prayed that he played along with my farce. The lie that felt uncomfortable and itchy the second I decided to roll with it. I didn’t lie. Didn’t act. But here I was, doing both. Because I had no other choice.
“Polly,” he drawled, the word tearing at all those wounds that I’d thought were healed. My inner thighs clenched with the memory of him saying my name.
When he’d taken my virginity.
“Nice to meet you,” he murmured, letting go of my hand, but not of my soul.
I exhaled roughly. But the expelling of breath didn’t give me relief. My lungs were still starved and flooded with oxygen at the same time.
Lucy saved the day.
As she tended to do with me.
“Wine,” she near screamed, thrusting it at me, snatching my empty beer bottle.
I took it like a life raft, more for something to hold onto than anything else. Something to anchor me to the present so I didn’t do anything dangerous like try to get lost in the past.
I didn’t do that.
I never did that.
I never worried about yesterday and I never fretted for tomorrow.
My family thought that the reason for this was the reason for everything else I did...because I was just Polly.