Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I don’t know why that stings. Silas Cruz and I aren’t a thing. We never were, not really. But still, there it is, that pang, that sharp cutting edge of the imaginary knife he presses into my chest.
“Don’t ever show your face here again, you fucking bottom-feeding bastard!” Ethan says, tugging himself free of me as Silas takes two steps away.
“Ethan!” I call out, but it’s too late. I see how Silas stops, how his back tenses. It’s the absolute worst thing to say to him. A glimpse of Ethan’s face, the sneer on it, confirms that he knows it. What’s more, he revels in Silas’s reaction.
Silas turns. His face is utter and complete fury.
“What’s the matter? Thought you were all about the truth, Silas. You’re a bastard. Your mother was a whore. We all know what she did.”
“Jesus! Ethan, what the hell is wrong with you?” I’ve barely gotten the words out when Silas is on him, arm swinging at Ethan’s face, knocking him backward into the glass wall.
“Call the police!” Ethan yells.
“Silas, stop!” I scream, grabbing Silas’s arm as he prepares to swing again. I wrap my arms around his neck to stop him, to put myself between them. “Stop, Silas, stop!”
Ethan laughs when Silas pauses, looks down at me, one arm wrapped around me, holding on to me for a moment. His body is warm, his scent familiar. It awakens an ache inside me.
“Get out of the way, O. I don’t want you getting hurt,” he says, coming back to himself and trying to dislodge me.
I cling to him, though, as he advances on Ethan, who touches his thumb to his bloody lip.
“What’s the matter, hit a nerve? Bastard?” Ethan asks, taking his phone out, dialing 911 himself when I don’t do it.
“You goddamn—” Silas starts, managing to get me off him.
I stumble backward but charge at Silas again. “Silas, no! You’ll kill him!” I knock into him hard, not sure how else to get his attention. He catches me when I bounce backward off his chest, which is like a freaking wall, but that does it.
As Ethan starts to speak to the 911 operator, I make Silas look at me. I set my hands on his face and make him see me. “Don’t, Silas. Don’t. It’s not worth it. Just go home. You don’t belong here. Go home.”
His eyes search my face, and there it is, the pain I know he feels at the very recent loss of his mother, Ethan’s taunts so cruel. It’s when I feel a tear slide down my own cheek that he stops, though, his fury shifting into something else, attention coming fully to me, eyes focusing on that tear. Slowly, he brings his thumb to my face and wipes it away, and there is a moment of rare gentleness from Silas Cruz that I have had fleeting glimpses of, that I miss so much. It’s these moments that take my breath away.
But it’s just that, a moment, like a slip in time gone so fast, I almost wonder if I imagined it.
Silas roughly sets me aside and steps toward Ethan, who disconnects the call. “Cops are on their way,” Ethan says.
“Silas, go. Get out of here,” I say.
“Yeah, Silas, go. Get out of here.” Ethan tugs me to his side and wraps a possessive arm around me.
Silas’s gaze falls on that arm, hand possessive around my waist.
“You’re a worthless piece of shit following in your father’s footsteps. I thought maybe once a long fucking time ago you wouldn’t want it, considering. But I was wrong. And you,” Silas turns to me, a cruelty in his eyes I’ve never before seen, not even the last time I saw him. “You’re just like them, aren’t you, Barbie? You’re the one who’s not worth it. I should know better,” he spits before turning his back and stalking out of the house.
3
OPHELIA
“He wouldn’t have killed me. It would be nice if you had some faith in your fiancé, Phee,” Ethan says as he drives too fast into town. We’re late to meet his parents, and he’s got a bruise forming along his jaw he’ll have to explain.
“His mother just died, Ethan. Give him a break.”
“She died half a fucking year ago.”
“Are you serious?”
He glances at me, deep green eyes intent. His blond hair flops over his forehead, making him look younger than he is. Kinder than he is. “He just drives me fucking insane.”
I reach over to brush the hair away and touch a tissue to the cut to wipe away dried blood. “You do the same to him.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway, O?”
Ethan hates that Silas had a pet name for me growing up. I sigh and sit back against my seat. “It’s been a really long, really hard week, okay? Can we just take a break?”