Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“I have something to say.” My heart wants out of my chest. I can barely breathe as it tries to escape. My voice shakes, even my hands won’t stop trembling as I fist them. “I came here in search of peace. I came here to find something true about my existence. I came here to …” I blink and my emotions crumble. “I came here to die.”
Theo doesn’t even blink.
“I had terminal cancer, they gave me six months to live.”
He blinks. It’s something. His gaze moves from me to the floor between us. What is he thinking?
I can’t stop and wait. I have to say this. “I saw the doctor today, and he said it was stage one. It’s crazy. They think it had to be a misdiagnosis, but I had three different oncologists confirm my terminal cancer diagnosis. It’s going away. I left my life—I ended my life in London. I broke off my engagement. I said goodbye to my dad. I sold everything and left it to Daniel. In a few weeks, I’m going to be broke and homeless.”
“You need money.” His eyes meet mine.
I flinch. “What? No … I mean, yes, but that’s not my point.”
He shakes his head. “Then it doesn’t matter. Go home.”
I step closer. He stiffens. I stop.
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter.” I grit my teeth as more tears spill down my cheeks. “We—”
“There is no we. Go home. Go get married. Go live happily ever after.”
“Stop!” I swallow hard as months of anger erupt. “Don’t you understand, you stubborn arse, I don’t want to go—”
“Scarlet?” A man’s voice stops my words—my heart—like a fatal dagger.
“Daniel,” I whisper, turning slowing toward my ex-fiancé emerging from the small bathroom with all kinds of pain etched into his face that’s covered in several days of stubble, bags sagging heavily beneath his eyes like he hasn’t slept in months.
“You’re alive.”
I nod. Right now, with every cell in my body, I wish I weren’t. I’m beating the most impossible odds. I’ve been given a second chance, but I no longer want it. He heard everything I said to Theo. I’ve been in that bathroom enough to know there is nothing soundproof about it.
“I came for you. I came to tell you how sorry I am for letting you push me away. I came here in hope of finding you alive, holding you until you took your last breath, whispering I love you over and over until all you feel is my love—not the pain. But …” He clears his throat and blinks back the tears filling his red eyes as he clenches his jaw.
There is no explanation that I can give him that will ever make him understand. “I love you, Daniel.”
He shakes his head. “Finish.”
My eyes narrow a bit. “Finish what?”
“Finish what you were going to say to him.” He jabs his finger in Theo’s direction. “You don’t want to go … where? London? With me? With Oscar?”
My gaze shifts back to Theo, but his eyes hold as much contempt as Daniel’s. Apparently, I’m the worst human alive. Alive … I internally laugh.
“It’s—”
“Don’t you dare say it’s not what I think!” Daniel yells.
I jump. I wasn’t going to say that. My trembling lips fold between my teeth as more tears spring free with every blink.
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I was with my best friend when she died. Her parting words to me were: “The only thing worse than living with regret, is dying with regret.”
“It’s exactly what you think,” I say each word slow and evenly, but I say it looking at Theo. “I came here to die and fell in love with another man. I didn’t count on finding him anymore than I counted on living.”
Theo glares at me, like he has some superpower stare that can break me and everything we shared. I tip my chin up, owning my feelings for him. Owning them in front of Daniel, knowing that I’m completely shattering him for a second time. Love is indiscriminate in its path—healing some people while destroying others.
Theo pushes off the wall and closes the space between us. I love this man and I know he loves me, even if it pisses him off that he loves me.
I know how he feels.
It pisses him off that his heart let me in.
I know how he feels.
It pisses him off that he needs my touch.
I know how he feels.
“Go home. I don’t love you.” He brushes past me and slams the back door behind him.
I turn and chase him, led only by my heart. My brain registers the look of utter devastation on Daniel’s face, but my heart leads the way, and for the first time in my life, I let it.
“Theo!” I run to his truck and bang on his window as he backs out of the drive.