Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Her eyes flashed in disappointment.
“I doubt I’ll ever be in the market for one.”
“We could go to dinner and—”
“No.” I wanted her to leave. I wanted these requests to stop. I wanted her to take the money and leave me the fuck alone.
“Is it because I’m a whore?”
“No.” I didn’t care how a woman earned her living. Whether she stole from the rich or fucked the rich. “It’s because I feel nothing for you.”
It took weeks for my anger toward Astrid to wane.
I sat in the bar alone, drinking at a table and ignoring the stares I received from both men and women. I usually stayed at home when I was off the clock, but the silence had become suffocating. I’d asked Axel to join me, but he said they had plans with one of Scarlett’s friends who also had a couple kids. A playdate, basically.
I had the loyalty and respect of my men, but I considered none of them friends. A man like me couldn’t have friends and do my job well. There needed to be distant authority. A line that no one could cross. It made me a good leader, but it was lonely as fuck.
I replayed my conversation with Astrid over and over. The way she’d interrupted my life to tell me I was next in the queue. Like I should be fucking grateful that it was my turn. She expected me to click my heels together and jump around like a goddamn clown.
But once the storm of anger passed, I was left with nothing but shame and regret.
She’d cried in front of me, and I basically told her to fuck off. She darted into the bathroom to clean up, and I just left. Left because I was afraid of what I might say to her next.
I felt bad about it now.
I wondered how she was. If she’d moved out and found her own place. If she’d decided to stay with Bolton anyway.
Wherever she was, I hoped she was happy.
Because I certainly wasn’t.
15
ASTRID
“We’re going to dinner tonight.”
I was staring out the window as I sat at the dining table, drinking a glass of wine and reading a book. Books were all I had now. The only escape from this miserable existence. I only had one other option to leave this circumstance, but I hadn’t mustered up the courage to do it.
But I was getting close.
“Did you hear me?” Bolton asked in an irritated voice.
I lifted my head from my book to look at him. “What?”
“We’re going to dinner tonight. Be ready at seven.”
It was the only time I got to leave the house. Whenever he met someone for work and wanted to show me off like it was some kind of flex. A miserable woman with bruises on her face was no flex at all.
I covered them with makeup, but you could still see them.
I didn’t care that much about hiding them anyway. Maybe if Bolton looked at them long enough, he would start to feel some ounce of pity…but probably not. Most of the time, I did whatever he asked and stayed out of his way. But when he wanted me at night, I fought like hell because just the touch of his hand on my arm was enough to make me sick.
I used to believe that once you loved someone, you always loved them.
But now, I knew that was a load of bullshit.
All the love I’d had for this man had evaporated like a flash in the pan. What I felt was deeper than hate, but no such word existed in any language to describe it exactly. I also felt indifference, because he could drop dead, and I wouldn’t feel anything more than relief.
I had been married to this man for years, and now I wanted him dead.
It was wrong to feel this way, and I felt guilty just for having the thought…but I resented Theo for not taking my call on that stormy night. The course of my life would have been drastically different. Even if Theo couldn’t commit and he left me at some point, I would have preferred that kind of heartache to this.
I would have preferred to mourn him than wish I were dead every day.
We sat together in the back seat, the center console down in the middle seat.
My hand rested there, the diamond in my wedding band sparkling with a rainbow of color. I used to love my ring, but now it’d been tarnished by Bolton’s deceit, lies, and abuse. If I could ever escape, I wouldn’t throw it in the river. I would sell it to a jeweler in the hope someone else would buy it someday and it would get a new story. A happy one. Sit on the same finger for forty years…and then be buried.
Bolton reached for my hand and grabbed it with tenderness.