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)
File under: a sentence I never thought I’d tell someone I hired to steam my broccolini.
“Nether region?”
“My cock, Hettie. By God, does anyone under thirty have a vocabulary not borrowed directly from TikTok?”
She’d seen my scars.
I was certain of it.
So had my fiancée. Both had the good sense not to probe, though.
Still, I didn’t like that people knew. I didn’t like that they could guess. I didn’t like the reminder that once upon a time, I was weak, too.
My first stop was the shower, where I scrubbed off any remains of sugar and cream and punched the tiles until at least two of my knuckles bled.
Afterwards, I wore my best suit, slipped three gums into my mouth, and grabbed my phone, informing the world I was, much to its disappointment, still alive.
I’d never gone MIA for over four consecutive hours to sleep. Work thought I’d accidentally driven myself off a cliff.
No doubt Costa Industries’ employees were saddened to discover I was still among the living.
My bedside manner didn’t win me many fans and admirers.
While Jared drove me to work, he also informed me that my cunning fiancée was lodged in The Grand Millennium Regent. One of von Bismarck’s high-end elite hotels.
In a fifteen-thousand-dollars-a-night suite, of course.
It took me less than five minutes to cancel all of her credit cards, relocate her Henry Plotkin books from her room to a locked safe in mine, and wipe the kitchen and pantry of anything savory.
Needless to say, whipped cream was permanently banned from the premises.
I also cut Netflix and the Xfinity package, then the Internet, for good measure. My tantalizing bride didn’t need entertainment. She needed to think about what she’d done.
Next time I saw her, she was going to promise me her forever.
And I was going to take it.
Just to fucking spite her.
“We can still make a run for it. I retrieved Madison’s ring. The one Romeo threw into the crowd.” Frankie paced the makeshift bridal room in von Bismarck’s mansion, face wrinkled in concentration, pinching said ring between her fingers. Her saffron cassette silk dress whooshed along the marble floors. “That must be worth something, right?”
My wedding day had arrived.
I hadn’t seen the groom for close to three weeks. During those weeks, Momma and Frankie had visited me twice, yet I’d never felt more alone in my life.
“Let it go.” I glared at the mirror while two makeup artists and a hairstylist fussed over me. “It’s a done deal.”
My sister would never know how tempted I was to take her advice and run. I’d almost done so the first week after the trick I’d pulled on Romeo.
But my friends and extended family began sending RSVPs, reminding me how far down the toilet Romeo had flushed my reputation.
“Is it true that you’re pregnant?” Savannah had cried to me on the phone one evening. “People say that your daddy forced him to marry you after he found a pregnancy test in the trash.”
Emilie managed to be a little more refined. “Your parents sent me an invitation. Thank you for that. Would you mind very much if I skipped the wedding? I’m not saying that I will. I just need to make sure with my parents that it won’t ruin my…er…reputation. Please, don’t be mad at me, Dal. At least you’re getting married. And to Romeo Costa, no less. I still haven’t received one offer, and I don’t want to get a bad rep by being associated with the wrong people.”
In the end, the universe provided. Emilie showed up, escorted by her eagle-eyed parents. Sav was here, too, and even brought a date.
In fact, I heard that outside, in Oliver von Bismarck’s nineteenth-century-era garden, over eight hundred guests mingled, the Licht family among them.
My parents had invited them, offering the courtesy of saving face and proving there was no bad blood. No scandal between the two families.
Madison was here.
The thought made me want to crawl under the vanity and hide.
I felt so sorry and guilty for what I’d done. What had caused this chain reaction that spiraled everyone’s lives out of control.
“Dal! Oh, Dal, the cake!” Momma burst into the bridal suite, also known as Oliver’s twelfth guest room, fanning herself. She sagged against the door, her fingers trembling over her collarbone. “It’s an eight-tier cake. All white. The shape of your dress, with edible lifelike roses and custom calligraphy.”
Momma was thrilled.
Frankie and I had shielded her from the bitter truth about my marriage. I’d spent the past week waxing on about Romeo.
What else could I do?
Frankie said she’d stopped eating and talking to my father altogether in a bid to bring me back home.
No matter how much I loathed Daddy, I still couldn’t bear seeing Momma devastated.
“Oh, my.” I forced a grin. “Shame I’m probably going to inhale it before anyone takes a picture.”