Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 64617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
No weapons.
No armor.
No protection against the deafening silence standing guard at the far side of the living room behind me.
“Will you do me the honor of being mine forever? Will you marry me, Beauty?”
“Of course, yes, yes, yes a million times over!”
I shut my eyes like a child watching a scary movie. Terrified of what surprise was going to jump out, of what would happen next.
I wanted to scream…
To run…
To hide…
But that wouldn’t change anything.
I was there … he was there … and for the first time we were finally going to meet.
I dug my nails into my skin, trying to take away the pain he was suffering. Anything to take away the hurt I felt, having to endure his worst nightmare.
My mind shouted, “Turn around, Camila. Just turn around and face him … ask him everything you want to know … ask him what you deserve to know! Call him out for being a shitty father. For not being there for his kids that still needed him. For the responsibility he shoved onto me…”
Abruptly finding the courage, I turned and opened my mouth at the same time the minister on the video declared, “Dearly beloved.”
I couldn’t form words.
I couldn’t think.
Not when he was watching the video in front of us as if he was there with her and not here with me.
Even with the dim lighting of the room, I could still see his glossy eyes, his trembling lips, the entranced expression on his handsome face. I was spellbound by him while he was enraptured in her.
“We are here to join this man and this woman into holy matrimony. Do you, Aiden, take Bailey to be your wife, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do you part?”
He looked so stunning and tortured all at once. Not blinking, not breathing, not moving an inch to the point his heart may have stopped beating.
“I do.”
It wasn’t until the minister repeated, “Now you, Bailey…” Did his eyes lock with mine.
I gasped ever so slightly, this over-whelming, powerful, all-consuming connection to this man was staring intently into my eyes. He felt it too, I could see it hidden beneath his torn walls. They were splitting down the tight seam, exposing a side of him that had my heart breaking all over again.
There was something familiar about him trying to break through, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. His eyes burned with a ferocity that had me in a trancelike state.
I couldn’t breathe.
He was confining the air right out of me, as I watched snap shots of his life like a movie reel playing within his eyes.
Every question I had, every uncertainty, all the anger, the resentment, the downright determination was gone in a flash.
I wanted to give him everything I had. Everything inside of me. I would have given him every last part of me to change the look in his stare.
It was killing me.
Fresh tears slid down the sides of my face, and I sucked in a breath, holding on for dear life. Without words, he was showing me the deepest part of him.
His oldest wounds.
His jagged scars.
His regrets.
His life...
And the damage it all left behind.
“For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do you part?”
“I do.”
Her response echoed in the room, vibrating off the walls. Although the spell between us didn’t break until we heard, “Then with the power vested in me in the State of North Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
His gazed faltered first. The fire that once burned in his eyes seconds ago, singed to ash and was replaced by an icy glare. The man transformed, and the beast came to life. He scowled coldly and crudely at me, like I was the witch who put the curse on him.
Seething…
“How fucking dare you?!”
Chapter 24
<>Camila<>
Now
__________
His fists white-knuckled at his sides.
Slowly and cautiously, I stood from the couch, surrendering my hands out in front of me like that would somehow make things better.
“I-I-I-I-I…”
He was in my face in one second flat, towering over my petite frame like a hungry wolf, biting, “You what?”
I instantly stepped back in panic, a natural reaction when a threat was looming near. My heel connected with the coffee table behind me, losing my footing. My arms flew up in the air to steady my balance, but it was useless. I was going down fast and hard until his warm hands caught my arms in an overly tight grasp. Holding me upright, inches away from his vicious stare.
Through a clenched jaw, he gritted, “Do you not know your place in this house?”
“I’m-I’m-I’m—”
“You are nothing but a glorified babysitter who does a shitty fuckin’ job cooking and cleaning my home.”