Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
A gun, though. There’s one of them.
Panic hits me, and for a moment, a sense of disappointment.
Having Roy taken care of would be easier than playing him at a game he’s perfected over the past twenty-plus years, but I don’t think I’ll ever see murder as the solution to any predicament.
With that in mind, I dump the gun onto the side table concealing my purse and phone before I grab my things and head for the door. My steps are firm and resolute.
The hallway is eerily quiet, the click of my heels against the polished floor the only sound.
I don’t look back when I spy the man I rode the elevator with earlier a couple of doors down. I can’t. He’ll see my flushed face and think I duped my pimp out of a hefty payday.
The elevator ride to the lobby feels like an eternity, but I keep my head high, refusing to let the heaviness of my somewhat betrayal weigh heavily on my chest.
Roy cheated first, and can you really call it cheating when the mashup occurred after being served divorce papers?
As I step into the lobby, a cool blast of air from an overhead air-conditioning unit hits my face, giving welcomed relief to my blemished cheeks.
I walk through the foyer, acting oblivious as to the cause of the hotel receptionist’s sympathetic smile.
I felt pathetic two hours ago, but those thoughts have now vanished, along with years of sexual frustration.
Outside, the city is alive and bustling, a similar resemblance to the feelings settling over me. I pause for a moment, taking it all in. This is the fresh start I’ve been seeking for the past fourteen years, and it is all thanks to him, Nero, the man across the street who’s eyeballing me like my hair isn’t a mess and my mascara isn’t giving me raccoon eyes.
Like earlier, something in his gaze sets my skin on fire. It is a mix of admiration and disappointment, like he’d rather I be carrying Roy’s testicles than the camcorder that will set me free, but that he also believes the injustice is only temporary.
The reminder of how greatly he built my courage with one exchange fuels my willpower. I lift my chin, determined to face whatever comes next with dignity and respect.
This is my life, and I’m taking it back.
My determination wilts like a picked flower on a windowsill only days later. I seize the damn bolts on the bed, but no amount of muscle will budge them.
This is the bed featured numerous times in the surveillance images circling Roy’s bloodied feet, the one sullied by Roy and his mistress. I couldn’t sleep on it even if I wanted to, but with the bolts refusing to budge, I may not have a choice.
The only other room in my home seconds as Roy’s home office, and the sofa, although sexy, with big shiny buttons and leather trim, is horribly uncomfortable.
My back has been screaming all weekend.
When a third attempt on the bolt holding together the bulky wooden frame of the bed we purchased within days of returning from our honeymoon is fruitless, I blow a wayward hair out of my eye and slump onto the floor.
The wooden floorboards are as cold as the ice cream I am denying myself of since I’ve forgotten Roy no longer has a say on what I do and do not eat.
I’ve had to hide anything above a zero-calorie rating for years, so it will take more than a couple of days to remember I no longer need to justify my food intake to a man who was meant to love me, warts and all.
“You’re such an idiot,” I chastise myself after recalling how perfectly slim Roy’s surveillance camera partner was.
Her bones didn’t hold an ounce of fat, and she was at least a decade younger than me.
I’d have to diet on lettuce only for a year to get close to her standard of the perfect figure.
I would have started days ago if my body weren’t still humming in the aftermath of multiple orgasms. I didn’t feel gross while standing across from Nero with my trench coat one dangerous flap from a nipple slip.
He made me feel my weight in gold, and I’ve yet to come down from the orgasmic high.
The reminder of my past few days of flightiness sees me dumping my pink wrench into the tool kit I purchased when the furnace needed servicing and clambering to the kitchen.
I rarely bake when I’m home. Roy’s unapproving glares always overcooked the goodies he was adamant I should never consume.
But with the locks changed an hour after I returned from the hotel, and Tempy old enough to face the injustice of an oven cranking out heat for hours while living in the middle of a desert, I pull condiments out of my pantry and refrigerator before dragging over my KitchenAid freestanding mixer.