Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
At least we’ve broken the ice. At least there’s a conversation to pick up on.
When I finally get her alone again.
I let Ava lead us on, but I drag my feet, keeping one step behind her, watching the back of her head as her mother marches ahead, quietly condemning me for pulling the bride away from the guests. And isn’t that my fucking point? She’s my bride. Not theirs, not hers, not his. Mine.
“This way,” Elizabeth says, short and sharp, as if I don’t know my way around my own manor. “The starters have already been served.”
When we reach the entrance to the summer room, I slow, tugging Ava to a stop. She stills and takes a moment—and probably a breath—before she faces me. She’s smiling. It’s a fucking insult. “What?” she says, looking back into the summer room, trying to move me onward.
“What?” I parrot. I can’t believe how ridiculous she’s being.
“Come on, people are waiting.”
“Let them wait.”
“Jesse,” she grates, having the nerve to sound impatient. I’m about to yell my frustration when Tessa swoops in and manhandles us to the top table.
“Sit,” she demands, pushing me down into the chair. Ava looks at the cuffs. She can forget it.
She must soon come to terms with the fact she’s going nowhere because she picks up her fork with her free hand and starts poking at her food. I watch her, knowing she knows my eyes are on her, but she doesn’t look at me. Can’t face me. You could cut the atmosphere with a blunt knife. I sigh quietly, trying to talk myself round before what’s supposed to be the best day of my life goes completely down the shitter. “Av—”
Her aunty Angela approaches, killing my fix-it speech, kissing Ava’s cheek and rubbing her shoulders from behind, laughing when Ava says something, lifting her handcuffed wrist. Then Drew comes over. Then Sam. Then . . . someone else; I don’t know who. Just one more person taking time that belongs to me.
I gaze around the room and resent every single person here, and once again wonder what the fuck I was thinking getting caught up in this ostentatious affair, when there’s only one thing that really matters.
Us.
And we’re at odds. On our wedding day, we’re at odds. I reach for Ava’s empty wine glass and move it farther into the table, farther away from her. She doesn’t glare at me or scorn me. I smell the beautiful dinner that’s put in front of me. No appetite. I take in the guests enjoying themselves, see their mouths moving, their gestures in slow motion.
Inhaling, I turn my attention to Ava. My wife. She’s facing away from me.
But I don’t see the rich, dark, glossy hair I love tumbling down her back.
I blink and frown, running my eyes down the long length of blond, straight hair. Slim shoulders. The puffy sleeves of her dress. What?
Confused, I get up from my chair, noticing my wrist is free. I look around the room. Not the summer room of my manor, but the village hall where I grew up. Stepping away from the table, I take the few short steps to the mirror hanging on a nearby wall. I get closer and closer, until I can see myself clearly.
It's me.
Twenty years ago.
Barely a man. I turn my arms over in front of me. Peek down my trousers to my shoes. The suit is too big. Borrowed from her father.
* * *
“Jesse?”
I inhale sharply and swing around, stepping back and slamming into the wall, knocking the mirror. I jump when it crashes to the floor and shatters into a million pieces.
“Oh no,” she says lightly, walking across the glass, the shards crunching under the soles of her low heels. “Seven years of bad luck.”
A particularly large, jagged piece of glass lies at my feet. I see my face in it as I look down. And suddenly, another face appears.
Lauren’s.
“No,” I whisper, moving away. But I get nowhere. She’s still within touching distance. Within damaging distance. “No, no, no.”
“Husband,” she says, her hand lying on her belly, smiling in satisfaction.
“You trapped me,” I breathe, my head spinning, my legs moving but taking me nowhere.
“It isn’t considered trapped if you want to be here.”
“You don’t get to decide where I want to be.”
“Yes, I do.” She smiles, and it makes me want to slap it off her face. “Because I’m your wife, and this is your child.”
I look past her, seeing the world whizzing by, as if I’m stuck in a tunnel and everything is moving except me. Carmichael and John are standing on the sidelines. Reaching for me.
But unable to reach me.
“Help,” I whisper. “Help me.”
* * *
A loud smash knocks me back into the present, and I look to see a guest—I don’t know who—picking up their broken wine glass as a server rushes in to help. I blink, looking down my body. I’m sitting down. My suit is expensive and pale gray. My wrist is decorated with a Rolex and a handcuff. I dart my gaze to the woman next to me, coughing over a relieved whimper when I find dark hair. Lace. Her wrist secured to mine.