Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“I d-d-don’t understand,” she whispered. “I d-d-d-d—”
It was useless, her tongue was stalling on every second word. She couldn’t speak.
Gideon had once again stolen away her words and had quite rendered her effectively mute. Only this time the theft had been deliberate and calculated.
“Congratulations, Lizzy-bit, you win,” he sneered nastily. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? That ridiculous game of one-upmanship that we’ve been playing since we met. A false flag of truce…well played. It’s my own damned fault for thinking I could trust you with my secrets and with my h—” He stopped abruptly, and stared at her with loathing in his eyes. “Why the hell are you crying? You won. You got whatever twisted, sick thrill you wanted from this outing.”
Beth’s breathing was shallow. Short, sharp bursts through her nostrils, and as he turned away, she managed to force a few badly mangled words out.
“You’re m-m-making a muh-muh… error. And w-w-when you fuh-fuh-figure that out. I w-won’t be w-waiting for you.”
“There’s nothing left between us, Lizzy-bit. Not even an enmity. I never fucking want to see you again. And our friends are going to have to figure out how to live with that.”
He slammed out of the room without a backward glance, leaving Beth to stare at the door in heartbroken disbelief.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, staring at that closed door, silent tears seeping down her cheeks, but the light had changed by the time she finally stirred. She was dimly away of doors slamming in the distance, voices, and laughter, but they could have been coming from another planet for all she knew.
Because God knew, she was achingly and horrifically alone on planet Beth right now.
She needed to leave. Before Gideon returned. She refused to be here when he came back. Like some sad, desperate stray who couldn’t make her own way home without him.
Beth sprang into action. She ordered an Uber before casting her eye around the room. She didn’t have much to pack. Most of her clothing was still in her bags. Only the dress she’d intended to wear to the party tonight—now neatly pressed—was hanging in the closet. She hastily grabbed her things and shoved them carelessly into her bags.
She didn’t have space in her bags for the dress and she decided to cut her losses and leave it there. It was new, but she didn’t know where she would wear the lovely cocktail dress in future. Gideon could have it delivered to her place if he wanted. Or burn it. She didn’t care.
She checked her phone; her driver was two minutes away. She grabbed her tote to chuck her phone into a side pocket when the neatly folded note tucked into that same pocket caught her eye.
Her breath hitched painfully in her chest and she dragged it out and unfolded it to stare at the handwritten note again.
A muffled, painful sound of protest clawed its way out of her throat as she stared at those two words at the bottom of the note…
Forever Yours?
Not in this lifetime.
She rooted around in her bag for a pen but—as was typical—could not for the life of her find one. Instead she found a long-forgotten lipliner in a lurid shade of pink that she’d received in a gift bag many moons ago.
She was running out of time, so it would have to do.
She drew an arrow of bright pink between the R and the E of Forever and slotted an N between the two letters.
Much better.
It was only after she’d left the room that she belatedly grasped that she had created a little heart in the loop of her arrow and shook her head in self-disgust at the mixed messages she was sending even to herself.
Chapter Twenty
“Gideon,” his father greeted when Gideon joined the party downstairs later that night. “Where’s the feisty Elizabeth Finch this evening?”
Gideon’s jaw clenched as he recalled the achingly empty room he had found when he’d finally ventured back about an hour after his argument with Beth.
He ignored the sinking sensation in his stomach as his brain screamed at him that it could hardly be called an argument when she’d been unable to form a single coherent sentence in her defense.
He’d found her dress still in the closet and the note and sketch he had left for her that morning, on the dresser next to the rose he’d picked for her. Her pointed alteration of Forever into Fornever had felt like a gut punch.
He should have been relieved to find her gone. Instead he felt hollow.
The room still smelled like her. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep in there tonight. He especially couldn’t stomach being alone in that bed, where they had made love so many times.
He would find an empty living room and sleep on one of the uncomfortable Regencé couches if he had to.