Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
“You’re such a little liar.”
“You’re a liar too,” she retorted furiously and his eyes hooded.
“What do you mean by that?” His voice was guarded, his entire body had tensed—easy to tell when he was practically nude—and every muscle had bunched and tightened in response to her reckless and unthinking accusation.
His reaction further strengthened her belief that he was keeping something from her.
“I know that there’s something you’re not telling me,” she accused and his eyes narrowed.
“This again? There are a lot of things I’m not telling you, Lilah. You don’t need to know my every passing thought.”
“Something specific to us. To this marriage. Something important.”
“Even if that were true, it could hardly be classified as a lie.”
“Oh, come on, Ben. Why not come clean? Why play this stupid game?”
“Whatever you think I’m keeping from you, Lilah… you’re mistaken. I have nothing to tell you. So leave it the fuck alone.”
He tossed the towel aside impatiently and strode into the room toward where she was kneeling by her suitcase.
She shrank away from him when he loomed above her and his eyes flared at her reaction. He took a small and deliberate step back, no longer crowding her, giving her the room to uncurl from her embarrassingly defensive huddle and straighten to her full height.
“I’ll leave your secrets alone, when you leave mine alone,” she told him hoarsely, tilting her head up to meet his intense, furious stare head on.
“Your secrets?” He scoffed. “Like the thinly disguised one where you’re infatuated—oh, sorry…in love—with me but pretending not to be?”
ELEVEN
Mr. and Mrs. Fake As Fuck
“I don’t love you,” she maintained stubbornly, forcing back her searing pain at his blatant mockery, and trying hard to keep the hurt tremor out of her voice.
His snort of laughter was even more insulting than the sneer in his voice had been.
“You believe that romantic love is this deep, meaningful, sacred thing,” he said, ignoring her denial. “Surely something so powerful and mystical can’t just be switched on and off like a faucet. So if you loved me yesterday, it stands to reason that you probably still love me now.”
She searched for the right response, hating how damned smug he always was in the absolute certainty of his convictions.
“Love is like an exotic plant.” His eyes sparked with something that looked like laughter at her words and Lilah would give anything for the ground to swallow her up where she stood right now. Even to her own ears, her words sounded ridiculous. Still, she doubled down. “It needs to be nurtured, fed, watered. Without the proper care and attention it’ll wither and die.”
“I can keep a plant alive and thriving without feeling any kind of affection for it, cupcake. It’s not exactly brain surgery.”
“All I’m saying is that, like a plant”—Ugh, she really should let the damned plant thing go—“love can’t flourish in an arid wasteland.”
“Guess you’ve never heard of succulents,” he rejoined calmly and she glowered at him and shook her head, disgusted with herself for even trying.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “I don’t know why I’m arguing with you about this. Love has nothing to do with our union. It’s an arctic tundra. Not even a fucking succulent can grow there.”
He opened his mouth as if to correct her once again, but she held up an index finger to silence him. Surprisingly, he clamped his lips together and shut the hell up, maybe sensing that he’d pushed her to her limits.
Overwhelmed, exhausted, and horribly distraught by the devastating turn her life had taken, Lilah was unable to tamp down the hot surge of grief she felt at the loss of what she’d hoped would be a blissfully happy marriage.
She was running out of ways to berate herself for her extreme foolishness and naiveté. How had she not understood what she was getting herself into? She’d gone over it and over it during the long flight. Hindsight highlighting the many instances where she should have recognized how little Ben felt for her.
Most of his caresses and kisses had been a performance, played to an audience of one—well two, if Lilah counted herself—designed to fool Gramps into believing that Ben truly loved and wanted her. But when they’d been alone, on one of their many “dates”, Ben had been glued to his phone, cursory in his comments. He’d barely looked at her, much less touched her. And Lilah, hopelessly clinging to the fairytale, had made excuses for him. He was busy, the transition at work was taking up all of his free time. She had to be patient and understanding. It wouldn’t last forever.
What an idiot she’d been.
She stepped away from him, miserably aware of her welling tears. She turned her back on him mere moments before they overflowed, hot at first, and then chilling against her flesh when the night air hit the moisture. She wiped the tears away with the heels of her hands, but they were quickly replaced with fresh ones.