Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
I claw at his hand. “Dominic. Stop.”
But he doesn’t stop. He holds on tight, and I can’t breathe. Darkness seeps around the edges of my vision. I struggle to say his name, while he watches me with a wicked glint in his eyes. Then, when I think he won’t relent, he lets go and I sag to the floor, sucking in breath after breath.
“Get your shit together, Jo,” he grumbles, and he may as well have spit in my face. He doesn’t look back as he walks away. Doesn’t care that I immediately drop my face into my hands and sob.
He flips the switch for the kitchen light and leaves me behind in total darkness.
TWENTY-EIGHT
DOMINIC
Jolene is curled up on the couch when Dominic leaves. He can’t stay in this house with her. She wants to be a reckless fat-ass, so be it, but he won’t tolerate it.
He collects his keys from the foyer and leaves. He and Jolene have an apartment they rent out from time-to-time in the city. The whole month is blocked off for renting due to the campaign. Sometimes he’ll invite a lady friend over to help reduce his stress. Jolene just doesn’t do it for him anymore, and it’s not that she’s unattractive or anything. No, his wife is stunning. But she’s a true pain in the ass. He’ll stay there for the night, but it’ll be best to spend it alone and with no distractions.
He feels he should apologize, but what for? She knows how important the campaign is and how much appearances matter. She can’t go around eating every single thing she sets her eyes on. How will that make him look? What will people say when they see her big behind in a dress? No, the woman he’s with has to look the part—she has to be worth all the sacrifices.
As much as Jolene will cry and be sad, she’ll get over it within a few days like she always does. Because that’s Jolene Hart-Baker. Quick to forgive, always wanting everyone to be happy with her, to praise her, to treat her like some abandoned puppy. She doesn’t realize how great she’s had it growing up. She had a rich father who invested money in her future. All he had was a mentally ill mother who was kidnapped when he was ten, then returned on a random day when he was thirteen. That was the first time he’d lived with his uncle in Greensboro. The second time would be when he turned seventeen.
She popped up, Dominic’s uncle Ben called the police, and she told them everything. A man had abducted her after a shift she had at the gas station and a cult sunk their claws into her. On top of that, they fed her all kinds of bad, processed foods to fatten her up. He almost didn’t recognize her when she came back. She had to have been fifty pounds heavier and she looked absolutely disgusting. When she miraculously returned, the story was all over the news. The police never could find this cult she spoke of and sometimes Dominic wondered if they were even real, or if his mother had made it all up in her head. He wanted to believe her story, but sometimes he thinks she purposely abandoned him and only came back because she had nothing left.
Regardless, Dominic felt like his life would change for the better—that his mother would get book and movie deals, that they’d get a snazzy car, move into a mansion, and make a shit ton of money. But the reality is none of that happened. His mother was too chaotic to bother with the press because she was too stuck in her own head. She refused medication and wasn’t admitted to a psychiatric detention until she ran a woman off the road because she assumed the woman was being attacked by a red demon.
No, Jolene has had it so easy. She should be glad that he found her. Bettered her. Gave her a reason to live. He was there that day on campus when she was crying in the library. He heard her on the phone as she spoke quietly, moaning about her weight. He saw her the next day when a luxurious Range Rover pulled into one of the parking lots and she climbed in the backseat. It was then that Dominic took it upon himself to look into this girl. He found out her name, then he found out whose daughter she was. Jolene Hart was a walking money bag. He didn’t jump on the opportunity quickly, of course. He played it cool, kept a distance, and when the time felt right, he wanted it to feel like happenstance for her—that they’d stumbled into love and that she was all he could see. Plus, she really did have a nice ass, even before she’d lost a bit of weight.