Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“You said you loved me,” I spit out. Anger tangled with the anguish inside my chest.
I hadn’t made him explain. I never asked questions. The betrayal had been so fierce and overwhelming that I ignored him. Sylvia was a little harder to ignore. She had never allowed anyone to overlook her. If Sylvia wasn’t the center of attention, she did whatever must be done to change that. Granny had said it was because she was jealous of me. But right now, I would do anything to trade places with her.
Once, I had hoped Sylvia and I would be as close as real sisters. Losing my mother to uterine cancer when I was six years old had been hard, and the years following, it felt as if I had lost my dad too. He withdrew from life, drinking too much, forgetting things like picking me up from school and my birthday. Then, he met Cleo, my stepmother. She had a daughter a couple of years older than me. He slowly became my dad again. Smiling, laughing, being there for the everyday life. I believed we would become a real family. To think, I’d once believed there was a chance at that. Those days were gone now. Never to return.
“Go inside, Oakley,” he repeated.
His refusal to even give me a reason, an explanation, even an apology ignited the burn building in me. I needed to scream and cry. To demand to know why.
Was I that easy to toss aside? To forget?
My hands dropped to my sides and fisted as I glared at him. No. He was getting what he wanted, and so was Sylvia. They were getting their happily ever after. While they stepped over my broken pieces without a thought. He was going to say something. Give me a reason. I deserved that much.
When I began stalking toward him, his eyes swung back to me, and his brows drew together in a scowl. I didn’t care! He could be pissed. I was far beyond that emotion.
Stopping a few feet from him, I tilted my head back and glared up at him. His angular face, wide mouth, thick lashes, and those deep chocolate eyes that appeared black at times, but at other times, when he was happy, it was as if there were golden highlights trying to break free. It all made my heart race and my knees weak. I hated that. I wished I could rip him from my heart, my head, forget how I felt for him. Go back and stay with Wells, his cousin. Why had I thought Wilder was better? Wells was good to me. He had told me he loved me. He wouldn’t have done this to me.
“Not until you tell me why! Give me a reason, Wilder! I deserve to understand how it happened. How—” I swallowed hard and refused to break down. Not in front of him. “How you could stop loving me so easily and fall in love with her.”
He winced and closed his eyes briefly before leveling me with them. “I can’t do this with you. Not when I have to get through this fucking day.”
I shoved him in the chest, surprising myself. He didn’t budge, but the veins on his neck stood out. He was clenching his teeth. Needing to push him more, make him feel a little of the fury inside me, I took both hands and shoved him again. Still, he stood there, doing nothing.
Why wasn’t it making me feel any better? Why didn’t anything give me relief?
“PLEASE!” I shouted as my eyes stung. “Just tell me how! Or when … when did you stop loving me?” Those words sliced through my soul.
The day he’d told me he loved me, I had thought it would always be the happiest day of my life. Thinking of it now was pure torture.
I balled my hands into fists and began pounding his chest. He should know how this felt! This complete wreckage he’d made of my heart. It wasn’t fair. If he was going to love her, why … why had he ever let me think I had a chance? That he would be mine one day?
A sob tore through me just as his hands covered mine forcefully. I tried to jerk free of his hold. I didn’t want him to touch me. Not like this. Not when the last time he had touched me, it had been perfect.
“Sylvia is pregnant.”
Those three words spoken from his mouth in a hoarse whisper caused whatever fight I’d had in me to evaporate. I blinked at the tears that broke free and ran down my cheeks, my eyes locked on his chest, unable to meet his gaze.
Her mom didn’t know. She couldn’t. Not with all the praising she had been doing over Sylvia. How pure and good girls got the reward. There was no way my dad knew. No one knew. They had to be keeping it a secret until after the wedding. My perfect stepsister—who helped her mom in the church, sang in the choir, volunteered at the food bank—had not only taken the man I loved from me, but she’d also had sex before marriage. It felt as if he had taken my throat in both his large palms and was squeezing it so hard that I couldn’t inhale.