Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.
“And I get to have his baby and I get to stay here. Dario and Tommy are making it so that I don’t have to go back and now I have you, you’ll be like a sister of the heart, someone who knows my secrets. Secrets I haven’t been able to tell my best friends, Tess and Luc, because of what it’d make them think of their father.” She was crying harder. “Fucking pregnancy hormones,” she said while wiping her eyes with her napkin.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“I’ve been holding it all in. Tom and I never talked after the wedding about Kruna.” She whispered the word Kruna like it was a dirty word. It was.
“He told me on our wedding night that it ceased to exist for me. And that was an order. He wanted to pretend it didn’t exist so that I could be healthy, move on, you know? I got to bury it and pretend the cover story was the actual truth. But now meeting you and knowing Dare and Tommy know…” She sniffled. I passed her another napkin from the napkin holder on the counter.
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s so hard. Part of me wants to keep it buried and another part is so glad that I have people in my life who know the truth, who know who I really am. My name isn’t Monalisa. My name is Shayla. I’ve said that name twice in five years, you know? Only twice. But that’s who I am. I should be Shayla Ferrano, not Lisa Ferrano. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead. But I have this family here and half of them don’t know who I really am.”
I nodded.
“What’s your real name?”
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“You’re not ready.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. They said if I ever uttered that name again…”
I let that hang, unable to finish that sentence.
“I know,” she said and was quiet for a minute. “When I told Dare my name the day he confronted me to tell me he knew the truth I felt my whole body shiver. Like they could hear me say it and would swoop in any second and take me back.”
I shuddered.
“Want to tell me your story?” she asked.
“No.”
“It’s okay. Do you want to know mine?”
“No.”
She could’ve gotten upset at that but she didn’t. She nodded and patted my shoulder. “Ever want to, you’ve got me. You ever want to ask me questions, do it. You ever want to sit and pick over the bones of the bad guys? I’m all for talking smack.”
I was quiet for a beat and then, “I could maybe do that,” came out in a whisper.
She laughed.
I laughed.
“You wanna start?” she invited.
I shrugged and winced. “I don’t know if I can even…”
“C’mon, it’ll be therapeutic for us both.” She dabbed at her eyes.
I chewed my lip for a second and then I mouthed, “Cleopatra.”
“Cleo? Fucking demon bitch,” Lisa said.
“Oh my god!” I breathed and covered my mouth, my whole body tense.
She sat up straighter and with her palms she pulled her cheeks back so that her skin was super tight and she pursed her lips, “You? You up two pounds, you fat pig. Oh my god, two pounds! You fucking cow, you. You drink too much cum, you dumb bitch, you?”
She did Cleo to a tee. I laughed so hard it hurt. I hadn’t laughed like that in two years.
“That’s her to a tee. Oh man. Rafe,” I whispered.
“Small dick, huge stupid diamond earrings. Sweats profusely while you do him.”
I cackled. “So much sweat.”
She shivered and took a gulp of her water.
“Orianna,” I said softly, feeling so naughty and a little bit scared that somehow Orianna would know about this conversation.
“Oh fuck.” She threw her hand over her forehead, “That Domme could make me come just looking at me. Holy fuck. Is it wrong that my nipples just got hard thinking about her?”
I snorted. “She could make anyone come. And if you didn’t come on demand, you were sorry.”
“Lola,” she said and she smiled with what looked like fondness, which I found odd.
I shook my head. “She finally retired. She works in laundry.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded.
“She was such a whore,” Lisa said.
I snorted. “She really liked attention, didn’t she?”
“I hated being paired with her for threesomes. She had to yell the loudest, had to suck harder, had to come longer, you know?”
“Oh, I know.” This was fun.
“Donavan,” she said and opened her mouth about to say something bad about him.
I threw my hands over my ears and shut my eyes tight, “No!” I shrieked.
I felt her hands on my wrists gently. “Hey? Sorry…”
“Oh god.” I was on my knees on the kitchen floor. “Oh god. Oh god.”
“Oh fuck! I’m so sorry!” she said.