Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Apologizing to me as if she’d had something to do with it, which I knew she hadn’t. Then she went on to tell me that he was working with her family studio, but that was it. It felt like a character reference or something as if she wanted to hear from me what I thought about him, but she never came right out and asked.
And when we parted, she promised that we would do it again. I’d found the whole thing weird but friendly and had put it out of my mind until now. It can’t hurt to have a friend like Heather Saunders, but I wasn’t expecting much to come of it. I’m good at what I do, but I’m nowhere near the caliber of celebrity that she and her husband rub elbows with. But what was the connection between that and him being here?
“Wait, there’s been a strange car following me around for the last few days. Does Janie have anything to do with that?” I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought about it before, but I wouldn’t put it past her. The way the tides had turned online and in the tabloids, I had no doubt that she was feeling restless.
She’d proven time and again that even though I never said a word to or against her, she saw me as a rival. And now, with everyone clamoring for Ryder and me to get back together and all the secrets this MengeLiNi person kept exposing, I can imagine how out of control she must be feeling; I know I would be very distressed if the whole world was favoring someone else to be with my husband. And if it was now known that I hadn’t won him by fair means.
“A strange car?” He sounded spooked, and that only raised my anxiety. What the hell does he have to be wary of? Those two are one and the same now since they exchanged vows. Whatever she does or has done, I lay at his door. Two peas in a pod.
“What did it look like?”
I explained the vehicle I had seen almost every time I left the house. The only reason I hadn’t become afraid was that they weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were indeed following me, and at the time, I didn’t think of her having anything to do with it. My answer seemed to put him at ease which made no sense, and I gave him a squinty-eyed look.
“Is that your doing?”
“You could say that, but that’s not why I’m here. I really do need to talk to you; it’s very important.”
“And I said I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Why the hell are you having me follow Ryder? What I do has nothing to do with you. You’re married, remember; she should be your only concern; leave me alone.”
“Stop saying that. You’re my concern, no one else. She is, she was…. It was a mistake, okay? I’m here to explain everything, but I’m not going to do it standing out here. Now back up and let me in, or I’ll move you.”
This son of a demented bitch. If I had something close at hand, I would’ve brained his stupid ass with it. I started to look around for something large and heavy, but of course, there was nothing but cloth and a table that was too heavy for me to lift.
“A mistake?” I almost choked on my words. And once again, like a kite in a storm, the words of fury just came spewing out of me, untethered and unscripted. “You call marrying her and leaving me standing at the altar while you did it a mistake? You call everything that you two put me through a mistake?”
“Calm down, Elena; you’ll make yourself sick.” He’s going to die here tonight by my hand.
I hopped from one leg to the next, so completely incensed I didn’t know what the hell to do with myself. I imagined I looked rabid and all but frothing at the mouth. That’s how mad I was. “Don’t you tell me to calm down you…you… fucking moron. Do you have any idea what you put me through?” Breathe, Elena, or you’ll pass out right here in front of him.
I thought about all of the things his wife had done over the past five years. The putdowns, the lies, the hateful barbs. I thought about the way she’d been copying me in everything I did to the point I thought she was a damn Skinwalker, planning to take over my life.
I thought about the pain, desperation, loneliness, and fear I felt when I was at my lowest. My heart ached with all the memories. I could see her smug smile in the days following their wedding. I could see how she’d thrown it in my face that she had won and how that had made me feel.