Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Every time he sent me a text, or photo, I typed out a message, sometimes telling him to stop, other times begging him for more. I never sent them.
I kept thinking that maybe one day I would? Maybe one day my finger would slip and instead of hitting Delete, I’d hit Send.
It hadn’t happened yet.
Talking to Amelia last week, she mentioned he had come for dinner, and they had actually had a great time. Luc was even excited about getting his little brother back, but then, just like that, the next morning, he was gone. Back to Rome.
At least that explained why he was in such a similar time zone as me. I tried to forget him. I tried so hard to ignore his endless text messages and calls, and I just couldn’t. He was relentless, and I was so dependent on it. I even held my thumb over the button to block his number so many times, but I just couldn’t bring myself to push it.
I needed to end this chapter with him. This wasn’t healthy. Not just because he was a priest, that was enough. But I needed his messages too much. I actually got upset when I went more than a few hours without one.
It felt like I was in some kind of weird, one-sided relationship with my phone, but I wasn’t the one sending messages. I was the one refusing to respond.
London was supposed to help me move on without Father Manwarring. It was supposed to help me figure out who I was without his or anyone else’s influence. Still, so much of my life revolved around his unanswered text messages.
I slid my phone open and looked at his latest message.
You look beautiful.
I couldn’t help the smile that painted my lips. Even knowing that he wasn’t here, that he did not know what I looked like at this moment or even where I was. Still, the idea of him finding me beautiful made my heart skip a beat.
I put down my canvas and focused on my phone, cradling it in my lap as I typed out the response that I knew I would not send.
How do you know?
My thumb, like it always did, just hovered over the button, aching to press it and then moving to the Delete button. I hovered over that one too. Not ready to touch it.
This was ridiculous. If I didn’t respond, eventually he’d stop sending messages. But if I responded, didn’t that just encourage him? Didn’t I want to encourage him?
“Go ahead,” a deep voice said behind me. I sat up straighter, knowing that voice, my breath catching in my throat as I closed my eyes and prayed that I didn’t imagine it. “Press Send, angel.”
CHAPTER 39
THOMAS
She really looked so beautiful sitting there on her little blanket. Surrounded by a bottle of wine and small picnic with her canvas on her lap, her fair skin and dark hair contrasting with the muted colors of the cemetery in winter, she really looked like she should be the subject of a painting, not the actual artist.
She shifted to get up, and I stood in front of her, close enough to stop her from moving, so she stayed on her knees in front of me. Fuck, I loved her in that position, looking up at me with her big, innocent-looking green eyes.
I put my hand under her chin, tilting her head up so she met my eyes, and pressed my thumb to her lips. She immediately parted her lips for me, so my thumb was pressing between her teeth.
“You have been a very bad girl, angel. Running off like that.” I clicked my tongue as if I were disappointed. “What am I going to do with you?”
I took my thumb out of her mouth and ran it over her bottom lip, giving her permission to speak. Her eyes widened for a moment, then softened. She liked it when I took control. I just had to make her admit it.
“I had to—I had to get away from New York, from the expectations everyone—and you—had for me. I had to leave for my sanity.” The words rushed from her, and I knew she meant every single word.
“And why did you have to get away from me, little angel?”
“Because there’s no future with you,” she said with a sad shrug of her shoulders, her eyes casting down to the ground.
My little angel, all alone in the ruins of a church sitting surrounded by the gravestones of people so far gone no one remembered them, and she looked so woeful because she missed me. A warmth spread through my chest. She missed me.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked.
The way her eyes looked up at me, I would swear a brief flash of hope danced across them until it was dashed by whatever thought she had.