Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
But she was already gone.
A couple days later, I had dinner at my mother’s house, then headed back to the hotel. I walked past the double doors and the valet outside, moving around the glass walls that surrounded the outdoor bar, and then headed to the indoor bar, where a pianist played in the corner. The lights were low, the bar was busy, and I found a table against the wall.
I texted Antonio. I’m at the bar if you want to meet up.
Cool. Be there in fifteen minutes.
I set down my phone, and the waiter came over to take my order. Then the strangest feeling came over me—the sense I was being watched. It was the same stare I’d felt days before, through a glass window, warm and purposeful. I didn’t let myself get hopeful, knowing the chances of it being her were slim to none.
But I looked up—and it was her.
In a little black dress with seashells on the straps, her curtain of dark hair over one shoulder, her eyes smoky with the way she did her makeup.
I was fucking hypnotized.
Jesus Christ, those eyes . . . do shit to me.
And again, they looked sad. Intense, but sad. A little empty too.
It was the first time in my life when I felt paralyzed. Even face-to-face with the Skull King, I didn’t hesitate. I stood my ground, thought quick on my feet, reacted with lightning speed. But with her . . . I couldn’t fucking think.
The waiter dropped off my drink, but I didn’t look away. She broke eye contact and shifted her gaze somewhere else.
I followed her stare, seeing a woman get up from her group of friends and then head toward me.
My eyes went back to her, and I saw it all in a flash. The disappointment, the urgency, the fight-or-flight . . . and then the defeat. She turned back to her drink, got the attention of the waiter, and signaled for the check.
The woman helped herself to the free chair beside me. “Hi, I’m McKayla.”
My eyes were on the woman at the other table. The most beautiful woman in this bar, in the whole fucking village, honestly, and she pivoted her body away from me like she didn’t want to watch me pick up someone else.
She didn’t fight, like she wasn’t a worthy opponent.
“Did you hear me?” McKayla asked.
I just told her the truth. “Sorry, already got my eye on someone else.” I grabbed my drink, crossed the room, and then sat in the chair across from her.
She hesitated before she looked at me—like she didn’t expect this.
Up close, I could really see her eyes now, see that they were even more beautiful than I realized. And I saw the cacophony of emotions in them, like she wanted me there . . . but didn’t believe she belonged there.
I could read people well—my intuition was off the charts—and despite how insanely sexy she was, I could tell this woman didn’t have an ounce of confidence.
And all I wanted to know was why. “Constantine.”
Her eyes continued to study me from behind guarded walls, but the longer I sat there, the less timid she became. “Aurelia . . .”
Chapter 12
Constantine
Over the course of a couple days, Aurelia unpacked her stuff and incorporated it with my belongings. Because she had no furniture, her entire life was in a dozen boxes. Clothes, shoes, accessories, mementos.
I’d never lived with a woman before, but I was happy to share my space with her. Happy to know she was safe when I wasn’t around, that when I came home from a long night, she’d already be waiting for me in bed, that Medusa had her favorite woman to keep her company. And I liked how easy it was.
I asked her to move in, and she said yes—just like that.
She’d had cold feet the entire beginning of the relationship, had a million reasons why it wouldn’t work, but then she’d turned a corner when she lost me. And it’d been great ever since. She was one hundred percent in this with me, and we finally felt like a team.
When I got out of the shower, I stood at the vanity for a while and stared blankly at my reflection. Didn’t really see my face or my eyes. I pictured my brother’s face instead, the last time he’d looked at me as he lay on the floor—before Darius broke his knee.
I heard his screams and I closed my eyes, but that didn’t make it stop. My brother had been dead for seven years, and there were times when I thought the grief had passed . . . and then it lunged at me like a pissed-off viper. Sank its fangs into my flesh and poisoned me.
A soft hand landed on my bare back. “You okay?”
My eyes snapped open, and the screams were silenced. My hands left the edge of the vanity, and my spine straightened. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and looked at my pale face again before I reached for my razor.