Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
At that point, I was still fighting.
And in denial about my role in a woman’s murder.
“Sweetheart, I know you’re a grown woman, but this fridge looks like it belongs in a frat house.” Her head peeked around the door. Dark brown hair, cut a little longer than a bob, smooth and styled. Ice-blue eyes that my brother had inherited, a delicate face, wrinkled from a life of laughter and the stress endured as a mother of three. “All you have in here are condiments and booze.”
“A frat house would bankrupt themselves in a day if they spent on booze and condiments what I did.” I swallowed my smile, sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping the coffee the woman in question had turned up at the door with.
“It’s a good thing I had the foresight to bring lunch.” She gestured down to the quiche she was arranging on plates. “Otherwise, we would’ve starved.” Her pointed and experienced gaze settled on me. “And you do not need to miss a meal.”
My mother spent a lot of time in Jupiter now that she had grandchildren here. Luckily, most of her time was spent with them, not one-on-one with me.
I didn’t like how aware of myself I was forced to be when it was just me and my mother. I felt uncomfortable around her, with her kind eyes, easy, loving smile. The distance I’d put between me and my whole family had guarded me in a way. I was home for holidays and birthdays, but I was buffered by the celebration of it all so no one looked at me too closely, seeing how little of my soul remained.
But my mother had arrived with coffee and pastries, and I couldn’t exactly close the door in her face like part of me longed to. It would hurt her. And despite how much I’d hardened to people’s pain, I couldn’t stomach my mother’s.
My father visited often too. Yet he did not come for one-on-one dates. How I longed to return to being the daddy’s girl I was before puberty hit and our personalities started to clash. Both of us were as stubborn as the other, refusing to cross the distance between us, to mend the wounds obtained during my teen and young adult years. Actually, that was a lie. My father had tried. He’d come to New York with my mother, complained about the small portions at the Michelin star restaurants I took them to, fixed things that weren’t broken in my apartment, and murmured about the crime.
Yes, he’d tried. In his own way. And I had shut him down. Because I didn’t want to see the look in his eye when he realized none of his little girl remained.
My mother, though, was impossible to shut out.
We spent our time together drinking coffee, discussing safe topics, surface issues. Nora’s upcoming due date, Kip and Fiona … general gossip around Jupiter or how my other nieces and nephews were doing in school.
But I felt an undertone, all of her burning questions. She, like the rest of my family, nursed a hefty sense of concern and curiosity about my presence there and wondered what caused me to leave New York. I couldn’t fucking win. All they wanted was me closer to home, starting a family of my own—they were all unaware I physically couldn’t—yet when I came back, they were overflowing with unasked questions and trepidation. It was because they knew me well enough to be nervous about my presence there.
“Are you ashamed of me?” I asked my mother bluntly, if only to relieve the pressure of the tension in the air.
Usually, I was able to swallow those questions like a handful of jagged pills—if I let myself acknowledge them at all. I didn’t typically let myself think such self-indulgent thoughts.
But my night with Elliot had me unnerved, without my shields I lived behind. And then the ensuing weekend in Vegas had left me feeling dirty in a way that I never had before. Sure, I’d relished in the metaphorical sheen of filth that I couldn’t escape when I stepped into the underworld, but I was usually able to wash it off, shut my mind from it, justify my involvement. Partly because I had a powerful mind, and partly because I liked it. Enjoyed the rush, the danger, the power.
And I couldn’t stop thinking of that body in the grave staring up at me, which wouldn’t have been there without my decisions. But then Clara wouldn’t be recovering from a potentially life-saving treatment either. Though I’d never be able to think of Clara without thinking about her mother’s shallow grave, one she’d never know existed. Just how Jasper designed it.
My mother blinked in surprise, probably at the question, which was uncharacteristic of me. But she recovered quickly, as mothers often did.