Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
My stomach doesn’t just spin. It drops all the way to the soles of my feet.
That’s not the pizza guy.
That’s definitely Adam behind the wheel. As in, Luca’s Adam.
There’s no one in the passenger seat, but I can just make out a shadowy figure in the back. Great. Adam brought that scary undertaker-looking lawyer to dig my grave and bury me in legalese and paperwork. This is exactly the kind of reaping I deserve. Why can’t the universe ever work itself out to punish the true bad guys?
You are a bad guy. The worst. Do you know how many laws you broke?
My throat goes dry, my heart batters against my ribs, and my palms start to sweat. Despite that, I tilt my chin up, determined to face this. If I need to pay for what I did, then that’s what I’ll do. I hope. Because if we’re talking jail time here, that’s terrifying.
I could throw up right now kind of terrifying.
At least I’m not connected to the bakery on paper. If Luca sues me for all I’m worth, I could declare bankruptcy.
Adam is probably going to get out and chew me a new one. He’ll be sure to make it extra raw and horrible. I promised I wouldn’t hurt Luca. I didn’t want to, but I did. It’s just another way that I lied. Cheated. Failed. Caused harm.
He parks the car and just sits there, clearly studying me through the windshield.
I swallow. Loudly. It’s not just my palms that are sweating. My whole body is soaked, and my clothes are starting to stick.
But it’s not Adam’s door that opens. It’s the one behind him. When I see who gets out, I nearly collapse and tumble right off the edge of the porch. It’s not the grim-faced, intimidating lawyer.
Even with a black hoodie on with the hood drawn up and tightened all the way and a pair of large sunglasses, I can definitely tell it’s Luca. It’s his stature and the way he fills out his clothes and stands strong with his feet planted further apart than most people do. Even though he talks like he’s afraid to go outside, he stands with certainty.
He shuts the door, steps to the side, and lifts his hand to Adam. He’d never shut off the car. It edges back out, painfully slowly, over the horrendous road.
Unless Luca owns an early 2000s domestic family sedan, the car isn’t his.
It backs out all the way and turns back onto the main road. It’s gravel, and not any better than this one. The potholes and washboards on the turns are horrific. I watch the car until it’s out of sight. Keeping my eyes fixed on the distance somehow seems safer than meeting Luca’s.
He stands a few feet away, and I’m afraid to move closer. Neither of us says anything. It goes on for so long that the sounds of the leaves rustling in the breeze, the occasional bird call or chirp, and a squirrel going off at us from a distance start to feel comical.
I finally get brave enough to drag my eyes from the ground up to Luca’s face.
Sometime in the past few minutes, he shoved his hood back without me noticing. He’s just as magnetic and arresting as he is every single time I’ve seen him, with striking green eyes, thick lashes, a strong nose, and that slightly ironic tilt the scars give his mouth. His hair is mussed from the hood, and I have to pretend like I’m not dying to rush over to him and rake my fingers through it to straighten it out. Or that I don’t notice how his faded jeans are an incredible pairing with that hoodie, and how they do wonders for his strong legs.
Which don’t need wonders.
Because they’re already wonders.
I couldn’t summon up an appetite for anything but recrimination and self-pity while I’ve been not sleeping, not eating, and not fixing anything out here, but suddenly I’m filled with a voracious hunger.
Luca’s chewing gum. Aggressively. And every chomp and flex of his jaw tells a story of nerves.
Why the hell does my brain go straight from he’s so beautiful, and I’m so glad he’s here because maybe that means there’s hope for the hopeless, AKA me, straight to that loud gum chewing would probably annoy people, but he could do it next to my ear all day long or spit it straight into my mouth, and my life would be complete?
I’d make a I haven’t had enough to drink today since that’s straight-up thirsty comment, but that’s beyond thirst. That’s parched. Like wandering in the desert with no water for days, absolutely dehydrated, and needing to be hooked to an IV immediately level of depraved.
He clears his throat and stops mashing the gum, but my ovaries are still practically smoking.