Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 67432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Archie sat up, drawing attention to him. “No, don’t let Kendall do that. She’s not flipping this around. Not when the person who needs to be explaining themselves is sitting right there.” He looked to Jax, who was cutting his steak and taking a bite, shutting his eyes as he chewed. Blood mixed with the swirls of dark chocolate.
“Wow, that is good.” He looked around the table as if surprised none of us were eating. “What? What do you want me to do here, Archie? Break up with your sister?”
Archie shook his head and narrowed his eyes. He looked ready to drop another bomb. “Matt wasn’t the reason Mom asked for a divorce, is it?”
Kendall shot to her feet, pushing her chair back and tossing her napkin onto the table. “We aren’t doing this. It’s our first day here—I’m not sitting through this.”
“What is he talking about?” Jen asked. Macy and Luna were watching from the corner of the table in silence, grim expressions on both of their faces. Luna fiddled with a rainbow-colored bracelet, spinning the beads around her skinny wrist.
“Maybe this isn’t the best time,” Wendy said with a hand on her husband’s back, her brown eyes full of worry and warning. I tried to clock every look, every tiny move and facial expression. This dinner may have been taking a turn for the worst, but it was also presenting a chance to observe Colton’s family in a way that wouldn’t be possible if we were just talking about the weather. Tension and anger normally brought out hard truths that would otherwise have remained buried, whether intentionally or not. It also allowed me to see who had the hottest temper and who sitting at this very table could be capable of being behind Amelia’s death.
Kendall spoke before Jax could, pulling him up onto his feet. “This isn’t going down tonight. Come on, Jax. We can go somewhere else for dinner.”
“No,” Colton’s dad said. The single word cut through the room with the force of a bullet slamming through the wall. “We discuss this tonight. What is Archie talking about?”
“Dad.” Kendall had an almost pleading look in her eyes. “Please.”
I looked to Colton, who had been silent for a majority of this. He had his eyes glued to Jax, sitting directly across from him. I remembered him telling me his family dynamics were complicated back when we had first met, but I didn’t imagine it ever being this bad.
It’d been around Thanksgiving time, and I had asked him if he was going back home. We’d already been hooking up in secret for a month at that point. When he told me he was thinking of staying, I’d immediately extended him an invite to dinner with my family. No one questioned it when I brought my friend from the police academy to eat with us, although looking back on it, I wondered if my mom knew what was really going on between Colton and me. She had been extra vocal about how much she loved me that night.
“Amelia and I—yes, we got together around the time of her divorce. Her divorce attorney was a close friend of mine. I was visiting her office the same day Amelia came in to file. We bumped into each other in the elevator, and I just—”
“He’s lying,” Archie said, his face beginning to match the same shade of red as his father’s. They looked very much alike, beyond the anger that colored their cheeks. Same crooked nose, same thin eyebrows, same satellite-like ears. “I know you were seeing my mom weeks before she filed for divorce. You weren’t at that office as a coincidence. You were there to support her while you tore our family apart.”
“How do you even know any of this? Or are you back to making up lies about people to distract from whatever bullshit is going on in your life? Huh?” Kendall asked, venom dripping from her words. She was framed by the beautiful French countryside stretching out behind her, the sun having already set and the moon taking her place in the star-blotted sky.
Kendall did bring up a good point. How did Archie know all of this?
“You know what,” Kendall said, fire burning in her eyes. “It doesn’t even matter. Come on. Let’s go. And Archie, little brother, maybe you should worry about your failing business before you worry about us, okay?”
She grabbed Jax by the elbow and tugged him up onto his feet. He grabbed his glass of wine and made a wordless exit with his girlfriend, the sound of her heels stomping on the stone following them back into the villa. They shut the heavy glass door, which was when Kendall must have started to yell, her voice muffled and getting lower as they went back to their bedroom.