Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
And Alex has trouble written all over him,
Tall, dark, and handsome with a smile like pure sin.
I’m going to focus on student teaching and get this job.
No distractions.
No more drama.
Definitely no more men.
My abusive ex is behind bars.
I can finally get on with my life.
Then Alex saunters in, his smile as wicked as his sculpted body.
Temptation is giving my bad luck a run for its money!
Texting turns to hours of talking.
Then a date, dinner at his family vineyard.
Taking it slow, we spend romantic evenings together.
We give in to passion, and I finally feel like maybe I can trust again.
But will the secret I’m carrying ruin everything,
Or lead me to a happily ever after I never dreamed I could have?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
CAMILLA
The side of the bathtub was cold on the backs of my thighs. That was the only way I could really tell I was awake and not dreaming. I was sitting there in the bathroom in a pair of shorts that were really just an old pair of sweatpants that had gotten so ragged I chopped the legs off. Paired with a tank top, they were my shameless lazy outfit for just sitting around my tiny apartment after a stressful day.
That was what I intended to do, anyway. After the hard morning, all I wanted was to close the door behind me, pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, and have some high-quality bonding time with my couch. But the questioning thought nagging in the back of my mind wouldn’t let me relax. It kept popping back up, reminding me the situation wasn’t really over.
You haven’t gotten your period, it reminded me.
You’ve been tired. You’ve been moody. You’ve felt sick.
Since noticing those symptoms, I’d been doing my best to ignore them. I didn’t want to think about them too much and give them any real credence. But that could only work for so long. There was going to be a point when I couldn’t pretend anymore, and I couldn’t just keep hoping they were going to go away. I was going to have to face them head-on and find out what was happening for sure.
I finally bit the bullet and went into my bathroom where I kept a box of pregnancy tests in the farthest back corner of the under-sink cabinet. All three of the tests that came in the pack were still there. I bought the box months before when my period was a couple of days late but never ended up having to take one of the tests.
I didn’t even know why I brought them with me when I moved into my own place. But whatever the reason, I was glad I did it. Now I was considerably more than a few days into the process of worrying and knew I couldn’t just keep putting it off. It was time to break out one of the tests and be an adult about this.
I probably waited a couple of minutes longer than the instructions told me to. The reality weighed heavily on me that the instant I saw those results, I couldn’t go back to not knowing. I was going to have to accept what they said and decide what was going to come next.
I grabbed the stick off the counter where it had been waiting and looked down at it.
It wasn’t until then that I dropped down to sit on the side of the tub, still staring at the test. If it wasn’t for the words written across the tiny screen rather than just little lines showing up or a plus or minus sign, I might have thought there was a chance I was just reading it wrong. But there wasn’t. That answer was clear as day, and all I wanted to do was cry.
Only, I couldn’t. I couldn’t make the tears show up. As much as I was overwhelmed by what I was seeing, I couldn’t bring any tears forward. I was all cried out.
It was all enough to make me feel seconds away from cracking. I could still feel his fingers around my throat. I could still see the way the jury looked at me while I stood there in court earlier that day and listened to me describe how he had abused me and why I wanted to make sure he couldn’t get to me again. It was too much stress.
And finally, I had my answer.
Negative.
Thank fuck.
The word across the screen were clear as day, and there was no longer a question.
When I finally got myself together enough to toss the test, I took out my phone and used shaking fingers to call Fiona.
“Can you come over?” I asked.
That was all my best friend needed to hear.
“Be right there.”
I washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face, letting some of it drip down my neck to try to break through the fog of nerves and overwhelming emotion still surrounding me. It didn’t take long for me to hear the knock on the front door. Fiona swept inside with a bottle of whiskey.
“Let me get us a couple of glasses,” I said, making my way into my kitchen.
Calling it a kitchen was actually a bit generous. It was more like a glorified kitchenette from an extended-stay hotel tucked into a corner of the tiny apartment and partially walled off from the living space. I was also stretching things by saying I’d find glasses.
Fiona knew full well there wasn’t going to be any glassware coming out of the pressed-wood cabinets taking up one wall. A couple of plastic tumblers in bright green and turquoise shades bought on a seasonal clearance rack were the best I could do.