Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Dad gets the first photo loaded up and hands me his phone. “Sure, crab might be a nice change. Got any room in your schedule for lunch or dinner this week?”
I take his phone, and immediately, I’m staring at the most beautiful broken-down ruins of an ancient, towering monolith. Another century? This thing belongs to another world. Another time. The books of old, both real and fiction.
My mother is going to love it.
It’s also going to take more than six months of work. As I estimated before I even saw it, this one will probably take years, even with more than one crew working on it in various spots. That’s not what it would take to make it fully modern and livable. It’s probably just what it would take to restore the structural integrity of the place and make it safe for basic inhabitation.
“I always have time for lunch or dinner with my parents.”
“Any chance you can bring your mystery woman?” Dad asks.
“Not one single chance,” I say with a snort.
Dad laughs and shrugs. “I just thought I would try.”
I want to do this with my parents. It’s important to them. It’s their dream. But years of going back and forth to Europe? Being gone for weeks at a time, at minimum, because that’s what it would take to get anything accomplished and make a significant impact while I was there?
I still have no idea how I’m going to explain that to Evilla, but I’m going to have to find a way.
Chapter eighteen
Evilla
Wild animals were never meant to be caged, and right now, my heart is going full-on wounded beast in my chest. Mont is giving me that look.
Here it is, THE END in screaming capitals, right when I was still basking in the warm, sunny glow of our beginning.
“You want to break up,” I mutter.
“No!”
Either I’m reading this all wrong, or him saying he wants to go to Scotland on and off for months isn’t code for sorry, I’m not into this anymore, so I’m going to bail on you with Europe as well.
Europe. It seems to be collecting a lot of men who were special to me at one time, men who still are. The land of freaking gone fiancés, dashed boyfriends, and crushed hopes and dreams.
Maybe I should clarify. Would he just bring me to this park bench, in public, if he wasn’t worried about causing a scene? He wouldn’t have picked me up and driven me here just because it’s nice, and he wanted to have a long heart-to-heart about how to make this work. That can’t be what’s going on here. Clarification. Yes, that’s exactly what I need.
I have no idea what is going on with my face right now. It probably has a hot mess car wreck spelled out all over it, whereas Mont’s is dead calm and serious. I don’t see any ulterior motives or guilt looming under the surface, and there’s no apparent relief that he can dump me and move on with his life, either. I can’t read anything in his inscrutable features. It’s highly terrifying. Is he doing the honorable thing and sitting me down to have this conversation?
“Is this you flaking off? If you’re not into it anymore, then there’s no use in pretending. If you want to go off and do your bucket list, then it’s all good. It’s important. I urged you to do that. You wanted to do that. You changed your mind because we…we became a thing. And I don’t want that to interfere with your life.”
“That’s not what I want.” No sigh. No long, dragged-out exasperated mutter. Just warm amber flecks in deep brown eyes and endless patience.
“What you’re really saying is that you want to take a break.”
“No!” He reaches for my hand.
I watch his huge palm engulf mine like it’s happening to someone else. How is it possible that I barely even feel his warmth? I’m sitting right here beside him on this bench at the edge of this busy park on a Saturday morning. There is endless foot traffic, joggers, and people on bikes, rollerblades, and skateboards. The world is still moving, and I seem to be locked into one position.
“As someone who has already been left behind yet survived it, I know I’ll be fine. I’ll heal. You don’t have to worry that this will wreck me.”
He nearly falls off the bench. Like, literally. He slips to the edge and has to catch himself and jerk himself back. It looks like someone losing balance at the edge of a cliff, swaying mid-air for a second, then throwing themselves back into safety.
“What does that mean, Evilla?”
I stare at our joined hands, and I can finally feel the warmth. It spreads up to my face, which heats up hot enough to cook a turkey. “I was engaged before. We dated for a year, and the engagement was fast. It was very public—one of those proposals you can’t say no to because there’s so much pressure. But I did want it. I think. Or the me that I was at the time wanted it. Eight months later, he met someone selling flowers at a farmer’s market. They went to Europe the next day and never came back. He texted me after he landed, breaking things off. I…I have no idea what he’s doing, if he’s still there, or if they even worked out. I don’t want to know. I’ve spent a good long time healing and moving past that.” There’s a feral gleam in Mont’s eyes at my words. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I just didn’t know how without bringing up the conversation about exes, and no one wants to have that. Shit. You do know the night at the restaurant was fake? Yes. Yes, of course, you know.”