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)
He leaped to his feet and dashed to the en-suite but found it empty. There were signs that she’d been in here though, she’d left the toothpaste uncapped again—he hated when she did that—the basin was wet and a hand towel lay discarded on the vanity beside it. She wasn’t great at putting things back in place, something Ben was learning to live with.
He was learning to live with a lot of things.
Having her around every day—for one—her cozy clutter encroaching on his sterile space. The fresh scent of her favorite perfume lingering in the office, on the furniture, in their bedroom. Hearing her in the other room as she left excitable voice notes to her friends. Holding her close at night when she cried, her irresistible soft warmth a source of solace to him as well.
Where the fuck was she?
He’d gone through the entire apartment twice, top to bottom, roof and terrace included, before accepting that she wasn’t here.
He dashed back to the en-suite, the bag she’d stuffed full of random shit last night was still laying in the middle of the floor, but she was nowhere to be found.
She really was gone.
His stomach sank as he tried to process that information. He wandered into the living room, his mind racing. All her things were still here… at least there was that. She’d be back. She had to.
He fumbled for his phone, still in his pocket, remembering that it had buzzed earlier. Maybe it was a message from Lilah. But when he checked it wasn’t—it was an early alert for a meeting tomorrow morning.
He checked his messages, none from Lilah. He stared at her name at the top of the screen for a moment. Their last text exchange had been about her friends coming over yesterday to work on the roof garden. Lilah had asked him if it was okay, as if she didn’t have every right to have her friends over in her own home.
He tapped a quick message to her:
The message was immediately verified as read. But there was no indication that she was typing a reply. He stared at the screen for a few minutes, waiting for some sign that she would reply but nothing.
He waited a while longer, then tried calling.
Straight to voice mail.
He clenched his teeth and tried again.
Same result.
This time he left a message: “Lilah, what the fuck is going on? Answer the damned phone!”
By now he was pacing restlessly from the bedroom, into the living room, and round the kitchen counter. It was on his second pass through the kitchen that he spotted her rings gleaming in the fruit bowl next to his wallet.
He stopped dead, forgetting about the second irate message he’d been about to leave and disconnecting the call instead. His arm dropped limply to his side as he stared at the rings for a long, blank, confused instant.
No.
That was the only word bouncing through his brain in that moment.
No…
She’d been threatening this very course of action since their wedding day but he’d always been confident in his ability to change her mind and make her see his point of view. He’d honestly never expected her to simply walk out.
He sank down onto one of the bar stools and stared blankly at the fridge door for a few long beats.
He gradually came to realize that he was practicing the same deep breathing exercises he usually employed to keep Lilah calm when she was on the verge of an asthma attack. He only now recognized that the technique could be quite effective in warding off panic attacks as well.
Not that he was panicking. Not at all. This was a manageable problem. Lilah was a manageable problem.
He ignored the niggling voice at the back of his mind warning him that this was the type of thinking that had led to this dilemma in the first place. She was hurt right now, feeling betrayed by both Ben and Cyrus and—he sighed deeply—he didn’t fucking blame her one bit.
It had been a betrayal. Cyrus should have told her. Ben had urged the old man to do so, but Lilah came by her stubbornness honestly. Because once Cyrus had made up his mind to do something it had been damned near impossible to change it.
And if he was being entirely honest with himself, Ben knew that the moment he’d discovered that Cyrus hadn’t told Lilah, he should have done so.
She’d said she hated him. That she would never forgive him.
The pit in his stomach expanded and he swallowed down a surge of nausea at the memory.
What if she meant it? What would her hate feel like? What shape would it take? She’d never hated him. Resented him for a short time, back when she was twelve, but after that…
Ben was honest enough with himself to admit that—while he eschewed the very notion of romantic love—he’d started to enjoy the idea of Lilah possibly feeling something like that for him. Had told himself he’d be kind about it, and graciously accepting of it. And that he’d make her happy.