Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Rom!” She tossed the book aside. It ricocheted on the floor.
It gave me great satisfaction that she mishandled her book for me. Her books were her entire world.
She rushed to me, collecting me in her arms. Crouching down, she lifted my head, cradling it.
I gathered I looked about as ghastly as I felt because her fingers shook so much, she dropped me on her lap with an unceremonious thump.
“What’s going on?” Her pupils danced hysterically in their sockets. “Why do you look so pale?”
“Poison.” I didn’t even have the energy to tack on the “-ed” on the end.
She sucked in a breath and pulled her phone out, calling 9-1-1. I somehow lifted a hand, knocking it back. I couldn’t feel her touch. Her warmth.
It felt like I was cocooned in a temperature-less cotton.
“Ambulance on the way.”
“I’m going to kill him.” She buried her nose in my shoulder. I couldn’t smell her rose-scented hair. “Madison. He did this to you.”
My eyelids fluttered shut. I harvested every ounce of my remaining strength. I would only get one chance to say this. It needed to be firm. Clear.
Our eyes locked.
“I have something to say.”
Oddly enough, I was busier telling her what I came here to say than being furious at Madison.
Turned out, Dallas had been right, after all.
Love trumped hate. Good conquered evil. When you drew your last breath, you didn’t think about the people you loathed. You thought about those you loved.
“This is very important, Shortbread. Are you listening?”
Though I couldn’t feel her body, I could feel her pain. She looked like heartbreak. The way she had on the night I’d met her at the debutante ball.
Oh, fuck. Even back then, I was powerless against her, wasn’t I?
From the moment I saw her in that ballroom, in her own little universe, surrounded by sweets and a head full of faraway fictional lands, I wanted her.
“Yes.” She trembled, clutching my cheeks harder. Our faces fused together. “I’m listening, Rom.”
“I’m in love with you, Dallas Costa. I love every piece of you. Every cell. Every breath. Every laugh. You’ve bewitched me, and I don’t want to leave this world thinking you don’t know how much you’ve changed me.”
“No, Rom. No.”
Dallas rested my head on the floor. The realization that I’d lost complete control over my body boomeranged into me.
She unbuttoned my shirt in a desperate attempt to save me. Her eyes roamed my skin, searching for a telltale sign. A bite mark. Anything she could work with.
For the first time since I met her—and knowing her, maybe this decade—a single tear beaded in the corner of her eye.
It crawled down her cheek, trudging past her chin. Just one tear, yet that tear brought me the most joy I’d ever felt in my life.
Turned out, my defiant, stouthearted wife could cry.
And it only took me dying to happen.
Suddenly, tears washed her cheeks, splashing from her chin to mine. Her brows furrowed at the sight of liquid trickling down my jaw.
She catalogued my eyes before realizing it hadn’t come from me. With an unsteady hand, she brought a fingertip to her cheek, collecting a tear.
Dallas studied it, almost bewildered. “I’m crying.”
I love you, too, Shortbread.
Ambulance sirens filled the room with their hysterical shrieks. I shut my eyes, wondering why I couldn’t even die in fucking peace in the arms of the woman I was reluctantly in love with.
“They’re coming to save you. Please, wait.” Dallas kissed my cheek. My forehead. The tip of my nose. My eyelids.
When had I closed my eyes?
I couldn’t remember, but it happened, because I couldn’t see her anymore.
I needed to see her.
Just one more time.
“Please, Rom, stay awake. Please. For me?”
“I’ll do anything for you,” I heard myself say, before the world turned black and the ambulances ceased to whine. “You’re my favorite plot twist.”
So, this was what it felt like to cry.
As if death strangled me in his cruel hands, and I struggled in his grip despite yearning to join him.
Heavy tears tumbled down my cheeks. Guilt consumed me like a bloodthirsty monster, feasting on my organs.
You did this to him. It’s your fault.
As Romeo lay motionless in my arms, I couldn’t help but wonder where the thing that poisoned him was and how I could get my hands on it to join him in eternal slumber.
The wish I’d made refused to stop ringing in my ears.
My one and only wish is for you to die in my arms, Romeo Costa. I want to see you when you draw your last breath. To feel your skin turn cold and lifeless beneath my fingers. My wish is to witness your nostrils struggle to move as you consume oxygen for the last time. I want to watch you suffer for all the suffering you did to me. And there is nothing and no one I want more in this life.