Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Fine, whatever,” she says with a relenting sigh.
“Relax.” I make my way to the side of her bed, adjust her blankets, and give her a reassuring smile before handing her the TV remote and her cell phone. “I’ve got this. Just rest, watch a funny movie, scroll TikTok, and try to refrain from puking your guts out again, okay?”
Sinking against her pillows, she nods. “I’ll try.”
“I’m going to grab you a ginger ale and some buttered saltines, and then I’m out.” My watch vibrates on my wrist, letting me know my Uber driver is almost here. My stomach somersaults. Even though this isn’t my blind date, it’s nerve racking all the same.
A first date is a first date is a first date.
I head to the kitchen and return with her drink and crackers and collect my phone, keys, and purse off her dresser where I’d left them earlier. She’d cornered me the second I got home from work—a mere fifty-two minutes ago—and begged me to go on her date tonight. Apparently she’s gunning for a promotion, and her boss keeps dropping hints about setting her up with her single nephew. Coming from personal experience, I know what it feels like to not have the job you want, the job you’ve worked your entire life to have. I’d hate that for her.
“Sloane?” Margaux calls out before I leave for the night.
“Yeah?” I turn back, leaning against the doorjamb.
“Don’t try too hard, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want him to like you . . . I mean me,” she says. “I don’t exactly have the best track record with relationships.”
It’s true. All Margaux’s romantic endeavors tend to go down in flames. The splits are rarely mutual and always accompanied by some dramatic fanfare. I love my sister, but I’d pity any man who attempts a relationship with her. There aren’t a lot of men who can handle her larger-than-life persona and her boss-girl energy. She’s not some diminutive wallflower with stay-at-home-wife ambitions. She has a personality, and she likes to call the shots. Most men tend to be more intimidated by her than anything. She’s yet to find her equal, even in a city of millions.
“If I dated this guy . . . and if for some reason it didn’t end well . . . Theodora could have me blacklisted from the industry.” Sitting up, she adds, “Be nice. Be pleasant. But maybe don’t flirt with him. Maybe . . . maybe just be boring.”
Of all the things my sister has asked of me in our twenty-seven years on this planet, this one takes the cake.
“Can you do that?” Her round baby blues are filled with hope. “Can you be boring?”
“According to you, I already am, so it shouldn’t be that hard,” I say with a little more sarcasm lacing my voice than I intended. It’s not easy being the introvert of our duo, to be made to feel like some kind of social pariah for not having twenty best friends on speed dial, for preferring a quiet Friday night in to an expensive blacked-out blur of a night out.
“Stop.” Margaux rolls her eyes, her expression softening. “You’re not boring. You’re just . . .” I hold my breath, waiting for her to replace the word boring with some adjacent term that’ll only serve as a backhanded compliment. Something like quiet, reserved, or introverted. “You know what I’m trying to say. Anyway, thank you for doing this. Truly. Thank you.”
My watch vibrates, letting me know my ride is here.
“What’s this guy’s name?” I adjust my purse strap over my shoulder before tugging at the itchy lace sticking out from my collar. “I don’t think you’ve told me yet.”
“Roman Bellisario,” she says. “Theodora showed me a picture of him once. Dark hair, dark eyes, razor-sharp jawline, tall . . .”
Margaux’s voice grows distant as she continues to describe him, and the world around me fades away by the second.
I don’t need to hear another word.
I know exactly who he is.
“My ride’s downstairs.” I swallow a hard lump that has suddenly formed in my throat. “Guess I’ll . . . see you in a few.”
Before I shut the door, my sister calls out a quick good luck—which is ironic because that’s exactly what I’m going to need to get through tonight.
CHAPTER TWO
ROMAN
I trace a fingertip against the side of a perspiring crystal tumbler, focusing on the indentation on my left ring finger where my platinum wedding band has resided for the past ten years—three years too long, if you ask my aunt Theodora.
If it weren’t for the mindless chatter of bar patrons around me, I could almost hear her voice gently scolding me for still wearing it, not mincing a single word as she reminds me I’ll never find another woman with that thing on my finger, all but referring to it as deadweight.