Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“El,” Raelyn sighs. “You don’t trust anyone. You keep everyone at arm’s length.”
“That’s not true,” I scoff, resenting her blanket statement. “I trust you and Sienna.”
“You trust us to a certain extent, but not even Sienna knows everything...” I shudder at the thought of my older sister, who raised me like her own, knowing everything. The sadness, the disappointment, the guilt...Nope, not happening.
“And yeah, I know what happened,” Raelyn adds, “but only because we’ve been roommates for years and I never stopped pushing you to open up and let me in. Except if we’re being honest...” She sits back, her gorgeous brown eyes meeting my emerald ones. “I probably don’t know the full extent of what you’re dealing with.”
“I don’t want my sister to worry.” Raelyn opens her mouth to argue, but I shake my head. “She will, Rae, and I don’t want her to. And as for you, you know enough.” Enough to understand why I am the way I am without the sort of gory details no one else should have to live with.
“You know I think you’re wrong,” she says, not for the first time. Whenever I try to take things to the next level with a guy and have flashbacks, freak out, and send him packing, we have this same conversation. “I think you should tell her. It’s affecting your relationship, and you’re hurting her worse by shutting her out.”
“I know,” I mutter, hating that the person I love the most in the world is the person I can’t stand to be around. Not because of anything she did. No, Sienna Alexander is perfect. She’s the perfect sister, the perfect mom, the perfect wife.
It’s me.
I’m the broken one.
And if she knew why, she’d blame herself. Then she’d try to fix me, and I’m not sure I can be fixed, which would only cause her more pain.
“I just need to figure my shit out. It all unraveled so fast.” I went from having a close-knit relationship with my sister to escaping to California to get away from her, only going home to New York when absolutely necessary.
“Well, you have five months until we graduate, and unless you’ve changed your mind, you’ll be right back where you started,” she reminds me. “Regardless, I wasn’t talking about Sienna and me when I said you keep everyone at arm’s length. I was talking about men.” She side-eyes me. “You claim you need to trust a guy in order to be with him, but you don’t let anyone get close enough to build up that trust.”
“That’s not true,” I balk.
“Really? Who do you trust?”
CHAPTER TWO
ELLIE
The Past
“Ugh, I hate writing essays.” I slump on the couch, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s not like I’m going to need to write essays when I’m dancing.”
“Sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do so we can do the things we want to do,” Marina says as she stitches a pair of booty shorts one of the dancers ripped. It’s Friday night and I’m at Wanderlust, the gentleman’s club where my sister works. There’s no shame in her job, because it not only pays enough for her schooling, as well as my dance lessons, but also the bills our piece of shit mom is responsible for. Marina is the club’s house mom, and in the short time I’ve known her, she’s always treated me like her own.
“I just don’t know how to start it,” I whine. “Once I get going, it’s—”
A loud knock cuts my words off, followed by Marina yelling for whoever it is to come in.
“Everyone decent?” the club owner, Lincoln, asks as he walks in and straight over to Marina.
Everyone is not decent. I glance around and find two women topless, one completely naked. Each perking up at the sight of him, hoping he’ll take notice.
I don’t blame them. He’s good-looking with his hazel eyes, prominent nose, and scruffy angular jaw. Add in his height, probably a little over six foot, the way he wears those designer suits—he clearly works out—plus the fact he’s stupid rich, and he might as well be Prince Charming.
“I’m placing an order,” he tells Marina, not giving a single woman even the slightest bit of attention. From what I’ve heard, Lincoln rarely spends much time here, but his manager is on his honeymoon, so he’s filling in for him.
I tune him and Marina out and focus on my essay, but when I read over the prompt again, I get frustrated and groan. “Writing sucks.”
“Whatcha writing?” I glance up and find Lincoln standing in front of me, looking at my paper.
“That’s the problem. I’m not writing. This stupid essay is due Monday, and I haven’t even started it.”
He picks up the prompts and as he’s reading over them, Candy walks by, still topless, and rubs up against him. His gaze lands on her for a beat before he looks back at me. “You’re Sienna’s little sister, right?”