Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Hartland, Wyoming is supposed to be my fresh start.
But it turns into my shameless undoing when Ronan Slater seduces me into breaking all of my rules.
Just one touch, and the walls around my heart start to crumble.
I push him away, but instead he promises to give me everything I need---including a future for the child I carry...
He makes me want to believe in love again.
But what happens when I discover he's been deceiving me from the very beginning?
This is a standalone romance. No cliffhangers. Also included is the medical romance novella One Little Lie.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
ARE ALL BUS STATIONS like this?
The movies I've seen make them all look noisy, outdated, and criminally unhygienic. Or maybe I've simply been watching the wrong movies?
I press my fingers against my temples, trying to ease the forming headache. The truth is, I was looking forward to getting lost in a crowd. After what happened with Claude, anonymity sounds like paradise.
But instead, I end up with a bus station lobby—-all to myself.
The plush carpet absorbs the sound of my footsteps, and the rest of the bus station is just as surprisingly...fancy. Fluted wood paneling for walls. Mid-century sofas that are the very definition of tasteful luxury. And crystal chandeliers that cast down warm lighting that's almost hypnotic.
It's enough to have me fighting back a yawn...at nine in the morning. I'm only twenty-three, but here I am, acting like I'm three hundred and twenty.
Completing the portrait is a white-and-gold jukebox that hums softly in the corner, its lilting classical music streaming through the air like a lullaby. If not for the ticket machines and departure boards sleekly nestled into the walls, I'd be seriously worried I've accidentally trespassed into someone's chic country cottage.
Something about this place feels staged somehow.
Everything about it is either too quiet or too perfect, and the entire place actually smells like lavender, which even I know is unheard of for bus stations of any size. I know the company behind this is new and all, but there's just something about this place...
I can't quite put my finger on it, and I'm tempted to turn around and leave—
You gotta be smart about this, Cay.
—until I remember Claude's last words.
My stomach twists at the memory, bile rising in my throat. Two years of believing I was special, that what we had was real. Two years of giving him everything, only to discover all that we had was a lie.
'Are you really that dumb? I was faking it, Cay! Just fucking faking until I could fucking succeed where everyone else failed...'
The memory steels my resolve, and I march determinedly to the ticket machine. It's not like I have a choice, anyway. My old life is over. And it's time to focus on the new, I remind myself forcefully.
My heart thuds as I click on English and One-Way Trip on the choices provided by the ticket machine. It's my first time booking anything on my own, but it should be easy.
Right?
Not.
I stare in mute frustration at the screen. Shouldn't buying a bus ticket be something as simple as clicking on your departure and arrival stations from a drop-down menu? So why isn't Hartland, Wyoming one of my choices?
Story told me this was the best way to get there if I don't want to fly. And it's not that I don't want to, but—
Sheep, sheep, sheep.
Hearing an automated voice chime out "Welcome" as the lobby doors swoosh open tells me I'm no longer alone, and it only takes moments before I sense the newcomer lining up behind me.
Keep it together, Cay!
My fingers hover on the screen, but panic has zapped my brain into malfunctioning. I can't think, at all! Should I just choose any station in Wyoming in order to get out of the other person's way? I'm not used to inconveniencing other people like this—
"Anything I can help you with?"
The voice is deep but disarmingly gentle, with a faint Texan accent that immediately calls to mind cowboys of the Wild, Wild West. I'm sure he's nice and all, and that he probably means well, but—
"I'm fine, thank you."
My voice comes out frostier than Wyoming's winter. Once burned, twice shy, and I'd rather die on the lofty hills of my pride, thank you very—
"So...Hartland, isn't it?"
I barely manage to bite back my gasp. Seriously? He could've only known that by peeking at my phone over my shoulder, and I'm torn between giving him a piece of my mind and taking the higher road...like I've been taught to do my whole life.
I'm not used to any sort of confrontation, but since that's also the reason I found myself in my current mess, maybe it's time for me to change?
Reprimand or withstand?
I'm about to embark on a new chapter in my life, and doing everything like I usually do might not be the best way to survive. Maybe it's time I learn to—
Unbelievable!
I can no longer hold back my gasp as Mr. Improper comes right up to stand next to me, and—oh my gosh!
He's obviously lost all patience waiting for me to make up my mind, but that's absolutely not a valid reason to overtake me in line. I can practically feel myself burning up in righteous anger, but it's as if I'm invisible, with Mr. Improper busily pressing buttons on the screen.
There are only two of us in this station, for sheep's sake!