Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Call for help…
I freeze a few feet from the front, dread icing my veins as I remember that my phone is still in my dress.
The dress I was so happy had pockets so I didn’t have to carry a purse.
The dress that’s currently underwater in the corner where I tossed it over twenty minutes ago.
Bleating out an obscenity from the core of my being, I spin and slosh back toward it, knowing better than to think my shitty cell case protected the phone, but feeling compelled to grab it just in case, when…the lights go out.
I freeze again, blood pressure skyrocketing in the sudden darkness.
The emergency lights kick in a second later, casting everything in horror-movie red, but the damage is done.
I just got the wake-up call I needed: I can’t afford to waste another minute fucking around or I might be about to find out.
Heart in my throat, I whirl around again, wading back to the front and climbing on top of the counter. I’m about to slide back into the water on the other side when I spot a car floating by outside. It’s a tiny car, one of those itty-bitty things from Italy that look like a cartoon come to life, but it’s still a hell of a lot bigger than I am. If it’s being swept away, the chances of me making it through the current to the stairs and the terrace beyond are slim to none.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter, fighting tears as my thoughts race.
I can’t afford to waste time having a breakdown. I have to figure out another way to higher ground before it’s too late.
Pulse racing, I scan the ground floor, but the stairwell—my only real escape route, considering the elevator isn’t going to be working in an emergency back-up power situation—is on the other side of the lobby, near Allan’s place.
But that side is five steps lower than my side, and my counter is already nearly underwater. I can’t see the coffee shop clearly from here, but it, and the door leading to the stairs beside it, has to be completely under by now. I could try to swim down to it, but I don’t know what else is floating around in the flood, and the water pressure would probably be too strong for me to wrench open the door, anyway, even if I could find it.
Fuck.
“Fuck!” I croak.
There might be no way out.
No way out…
I bite my bottom lip hard enough to send pain flashing through my jaw.
No. This can’t be happening! I’m only thirty-three years old. I make killer hollandaise. I just kissed a ridiculously sexy man in the rain after dancing all night at my best friend’s wedding. I’m so close to moving off my storage shelf and into a real home. I have friends and family who love me and will be devastated when my body washes up somewhere.
I can’t die like this. I just can’t.
“Help!” I scream, even though I know no one will hear me. No one is here at night. That’s how I’ve gotten away with illegally shacking up in my restaurant for so long. “Somebody help!”
But there’s no one coming.
I have to at least try to get out. Now.
I slide off the front of the counter, back into the cold, murky water, but the current rushing through the broken side of the glass doors immediately pushes me backward.
I grab the counter to brace myself, recovering my balance with an ease that’s comforting. But shit! How am I going to fight my way to the door without something to hold onto?
Maybe if I were taller than five foot nothing, and the water weren’t already up to my ribs, I’d have a chance, but…
“I’ve never hated being short more than I do right now,” I whisper, my voice thin and childish in the red glare of the emergency lights.
The water is everywhere, rapidly turning the lobby into an aquarium where I’m the only fish. It smells like muddy Mississippi and rain, with a top note of sewage.
Thinking about the likelihood that I’m standing in poop water nearly makes me gag.
I probably would have, but my teeth won’t stop chattering.
And it’s not just the cold.
It’s shock from realizing…this is probably how I die.
Not in some blaze of culinary glory, gored by a razorback while cooking in the bush. Not old and successful with my own Food Network show and a line of cookware sold at a big box store. But here, alone, in my underwear, because I was so stubbornly determined to recover from the mess my ex-husband made of my life as quickly as possible.
Christian, my ex, who will probably show up at my funeral and pretend to be sad, like he wasn’t at least partially responsible for the fact that I was sleeping on a storage shelf in a flood zone in the first place.