Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
I’m not going to think about him again.
I don’t think about him when the elevator doors open, or when Kevin takes us inside the apartment. I don’t think about him while I slip into the lingerie I put on Kevin’s card earlier this morning. I don’t think about him when Kevin takes me to bed and we have fast, perfunctory sex that unfortunately doesn’t do the trick.
I don’t think about him when I’m lying on the pillows afterward, Kevin already breathing deeply beside me.
I really don’t think about him. Not his blue eyes, not the way his suit fit on his body, and not the way he brushed his arm against my elbow like he just had to touch me, even if it was through his clothes.
I don’t think about him at all when I lift up my hand in the dark and watch the diamond catch the tiniest glimmers of light.
I don’t think about him when I find the texts on Kevin’s phone a week later.
I don’t think about him when the woman comes to confront me a few days after that.
I don’t think about him when my world falls apart and I’m left feeling foolish and naive and alone again.
All I think about is how well and truly fucked I am and how my happily ever after turned into a nightmare.
Graham
Sometimes, when I’m on my way back from a business meeting, I stop across the street from the luxury apartments I own and take it all in.
It’s a modern building. Clean. A wrought-iron fence surrounds a narrow lawn out front with a bricked-in path leading to the doors adding old city charm. All of it is tended by a team of landscapers who maintain the property daily. I’m not the person who built it from the ground up, but I bought it and made it mine.
On afternoons like this one, the building represents the epitome of my success. It would have been a dream come true for my parents to see how far I’ve come. They didn’t grow up with money and when I first saw this place it reminded me of a make-believe house my mother used to say we would have one day. My father worked too hard for too little and died too young to enjoy it. My mom couldn’t bear to live without him. Once I was alone in the world, I swore I wouldn’t have that kind of life.
I wouldn’t settle for just getting by.
The apartments should be proof that I’ve more than reached those goals. Everything about them is meant to remind people that they’re home, and that home is somewhere important. That’s why the front facade is pristine and white. That’s why the windows shine in the sun. That’s why plants rise above the rooftop.
It means everything to me.
Or at least it should.
But sometimes, when I’m coming back from a business meeting, I look at the building and think I have a hell of a long way to go before I’ll feel like I’ve made it.
Today’s one of those days.
A lunch meeting about a property I’m hoping to acquire ran long. I don’t have a good feeling about how things are going, which only makes me more determined to see it through. It’s twice as large as the luxury apartment building that’s been my personal pet project for the last five years, and it will mean leveling up.
Though some part of me wonders what’s next after that. Some part of me is already looking ahead to even bigger things. There’s never enough. There’s never a stopping point.
Right now, I’m separated from the building—technically, my home—by two lanes of traffic. The cars move past in a steady stream. For a moment, I could be anyone at all. A stranger in New York City. I could be the man I was ten years ago, staring at buildings like this and swearing I’d get there someday. I’d own a penthouse here.
Now I own more than one building, but something’s still missing.
There’s an emptiness no amount of money can fill, and it’s more and more apparent every passing day.
With my gaze moving to the yellow light, I wait for the traffic to stop before I cross. The sidewalk in front of my building is busy. A couple passes by me, focused on each other, and I look away.
My mind wanders back to the woman in the elevator.
I haven’t stepped into an elevator in six months without thinking of her.
The woman. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A look in her eyes that I haven’t forgotten. A red dress that clung to every curve on her body like it was made just for her. For all I know, it was.
She was standing in the elevator with another man, which should have been enough to make me forget her instantly. Immediately. I don’t fuck with women who are already involved with someone else, certainly none who have a ring on their finger.