Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 82579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
From that fucking monster.
My grip on my glass tightens, and I have to force myself to relax.
These fucking emotions. This darkness, this hunger. I thought I’d conquered them already, and it’s killing me that they’re back.
But I’m not a kid anymore, and this time, the real cause of my broken soul is going to suffer for all the fucked-up shit he did to me.
And I’ll never let him hurt anyone else.
Chapter 8
Carmie
Ifelt sick after meeting Lev for the second time.
When I got home, I was in total shock. Even though the Mob Girlies kept blowing up my phone, I didn’t have the energy to answer them. I felt totally drained and broken, and the idea of trying to explain that I had a stupid one-night stand with the man who’s going to be my husband and we lied to each other about it just feels way too daunting.
Which means that secret has to stay with me.
But it’s making my body feel itchy, and the sickness doesn’t go away. I throw up that night, and while that makes me feel a little bit better, I’m back at it again the next morning.
I’m a total wreck.
All the next day, I keep seeing Lev’s face in that sitting room. The pure loathing in his expression. The disgust in his eyes. Like he was sickened by the mere thought of being with me. That night was precious to me—filthy and crazy, but precious, because it was all mine. Something I chose to do outside of my character purely for my own benefit and for nobody else.
Now it’s ruined, destroyed by that asshole, and I don’t know how I’m going to face this marriage now.
I throw up again in the afternoon. And again in the evening. By the time the next morning rolls around and I’m throwing up in the toilet, I’m starting to think this isn’t psychological.
My period’s late. It’s only a few days, and given the way things have been lately, I kind of wasn’t letting myself worry about it. I have enough going on as it is. But as I wash my face and stare at myself in the mirror, a deeply grim thought occurs to me.
What if?
It’s stupid. There’s no way. But thinking back, it’s not like we were particularly safe.
I just thought it was my first time. There’s no way I could get pregnant my first time.
And now…
I wait for my dad to sequester himself in his office before sneaking out of the house. Lucky for me, Luca and Daniel both got their own apartments years ago, and they won’t have any idea what’s going on. I hurry to the Rite Aid around the corner, buy a pregnancy test at the self-checkout kiosk, and wrap it up in two plastic bags on my way out.
I should’ve had Lev wrap it twice that night.
I’m shaking in the bathroom. I lock it, just to be sure, and unpack the test. The little stick looks like a knife, and it’s sure as hell sharp enough to cut my life to shreds.
The sick part of all this is I always knew I’d be a mother one day. Or at least I always wanted to be. When I lost my mom, I decided really young that I’d make up for it by becoming the best mother I could be, sort of in honor of the mom I never got to have. I always had that dream in the back of my head, and now that it’s staring at me in the face, I’m starting to wonder if maybe that was a stupid idea.
Because I’m not ready.
I’m not even close to ready.
And not with this man.
I breathe deep to keep myself from crying as I check the results.
And end up puking in the toilet again as the positive test watches me from the vanity.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. There’s no way I’m pregnant right now. There’s no way Lev knocked me up that night.
I take another. It’s positive.
This is absurd. I had sex one freaking time and I ended up pregnant. Either I have the worst luck in the world—entirely possible—or I’m way more fertile than I realized.
This is sick. This is fucked.
Lev is the father of my child.
Under normal circumstances, marrying the man that got me pregnant wouldn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
Except this isn’t normal. This is the asshole from that night, the handsome, charming bastard, the man that all but told me he has absolutely no interest in having an actual marriage with me.
The man who basically treated me like a piece of trash.
After fucking me all night like I was his princess.
I puke in the toilet again and knock my head on the lid when someone bangs on the door. “Carmie? You in there? Are you puking right now?”