Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Silence.
"When you kneel for Giovanni Bavga..."
I don't look at her. Just stare out at the dark Pennsylvania woods.
"Are you livin' out your fantasy? Or are you just too afraid to admit it turned into a nightmare?"
6
I sit there on his couch, tears dripping off my chin like a malfunctioning faucet, and I'm furious at myself.
Not at him.
At me.
For crying. For breaking. For letting some Irish stranger with good bone structure and a savior complex crack me open like a fortune cookie and judge the message inside.
I'm better than this. I'm smarter than this.
I have a degree. Well—most of one. I read Foucault for fun before my life imploded. I can recite Maya Angelou and analyze power dynamics in Victorian literature and I absolutely, one hundred percent, do not need this man's philosophical TED Talk about my life choices.
Except.
Except the tears won't stop, and my throat's closing up, and I can feel myself spiraling into that thing I do when emotions get too big and words are the only life raft.
Fine.
Fine.
If he wants words, I'll give him words.
"You want to know what happened?" My voice comes out low. Barely above a whisper. I don't look at him. Just stare at the ugly upholstered fabric of the couch between my legs. "You want the full Lifetime Original Movie breakdown of how Emmaleen Rourke ended up naked and collared in a mob boss's dungeon?"
I can feel him watching me.
Good.
"My parents died when I was nineteen. Car accident. Black ice. Very tragic, very sudden, very inconvenient for my sophomore year at college." The words taste bitter. "Left me with some money. Not enough. Never enough. Dropped out to work full-time at a restaurant where I met Tyler—because of course I did, because every terrible rom-com needs the charming guy who isolates you from your friends and slowly convinces you that you're the problem."
I wipe at my face with the back of my hand.
"Two years of that. Two years of walking on eggshells and apologizing for existing and wearing turtlenecks in July to hide the bruises. Two years of telling myself he just had a bad day, a rough childhood, too much stress at work—pick your excuse from the Greatest Hits of Women Who Should Know Better."
My voice is getting faster now. Picking up speed like a train with no brakes.
"He threw me down a flight of stairs. Fourteen steps. I counted them on the way down—which, fun fact, the brain does weird things during trauma. Mine decided to inventory each individual stair like I was conducting a home inspection instead of, you know, dying."
I laugh.
It sounds deranged.
"Hospital. Police report I didn't file because I was terrified. Ran away to Riverview. Moved into New Beginnings Women's Shelter with literally nothing except the clothes I was wearing and my parents' death benefits gone because Tyler convinced me to put his name on my accounts for 'emergencies.'"
I'm not crying anymore.
I'm just... empty.
"Sister Margaret gave me three months. Tops. Before my bed went to some family who needed it more than a single girl with no dependents and a history of making spectacularly bad decisions. I worked at Sweet Dreams Bakery for a woman who hated me, lived in a room with Diane who snored like a dying lawnmower, and had exactly twenty-three days before I'd be homeless."
I finally look up at him.
"Then a two-thousand-dollar wedding cake got destroyed, I got the blame, and Giovanni Bavga appeared like—I don't know, like the devil in Italian menswear—and offered me a job."
Lorcan's expression hasn't changed.
I keep going.
"Fifty-two thousand dollars a year to be his personal assistant. Except the interview was a disaster because I was late—but not actually late because he locked all the doors and made me find the secret entrance like some demented escape room—and when I finally got upstairs he told me I failed and the job was gone."
I'm picking up speed again.
The Gilmore-Girl spiral fully engaged now.
"So naturally I had a complete meltdown and started rambling about Mercury retrograde affecting Starbucks seasonal menus and the etymology of 'the early bird gets the worm' because apparently when I'm nervous I become a walking Wikipedia page of useless information—which, sidebar, did you know that phrase is actually a cautionary tale about worms getting eaten, not a motivational poster about success?"
Lorcan's mouth twitches.
Almost a smile.
I don't care. I'm on a roll.
"He gave me the job anyway. Obviously. Because the whole thing was a test I didn't know I was taking. Then he made me work in these—" I stop. Actually laugh. "Oh my god. The shoes."
Now I'm genuinely smiling through my tears like a complete psychopath.
"He stole these red Louboutin stilettos from his ex-girlfriend Lucia. So Kates. Four-point-seven-two inches of fuck-you-and-your-podiatrist. Except they were like two sizes too big for me so I'm shuffling around his apartment in designer heels that cost more than my entire monthly salary, trying to alphabetize a thousand invoices while my feet are screaming and I'm wearing this ridiculous yellow cardigan that looked like Big Bird had a nervous breakdown."