Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Which would end with our wedding.
“Take some of your medication,” she called after me.
I hated the medication. It made me groggy, and I only used it when I absolutely needed it.
I tried to rest, but I couldn’t relax. There was so much happening in my head. Thoughts. Images. Voices. Things I wasn’t sure were real, and others that were all too genuine to ignore.
I paced my room, back and forth, clawing my fingers through my hair, pushing them into my temples in a desperate attempt to stop some of the thoughts and images that kept appearing, only to fade away before I could fully grasp what they were. It had been happening more frequently now. Small bursts of thoughts, snippets of conversations. Flitting glimpses of things I didn’t understand.
Dull pain centered behind my eyes as Adam’s words—his pleas—echoed in my head.
Why did he say all those things? How did he know them?
If they were true, why couldn’t I remember?
Then he called me his Nightingale.
Was it true? Was I his? And why did that name sound—feel—so familiar and right?
I traced my lips, still feeling the power of Adam’s kiss from earlier—before I ran from him.
How had being in his arms felt so right? Why had his mouth on mine been so natural, as if it had claimed me long ago and was finally reasserting its ownership?
I didn’t understand this tie I had to Adam. From the moment I saw him in the ballroom, I had been drawn to him. He was speaking with Emma, and I had to go over and be close to him. When his hand had wrapped around mine, the strangest feeling flooded my body—a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in months. When we ran into him at the park and he told me we were friends, then took me for coffee, I silently rejoiced at the comforting feelings he evoked in me. There was a gentleness about him I so longed for in my life—something no one offered me but him. Every time I saw him, my body relaxed with his closeness. When he’d leave, I ached with a pain I didn’t understand—an ache that dissolved as soon as I’d see him again.
I thought of him constantly, even though I tried not to. His eyes were a deep, rich golden brown, and when he moved in close to say something only for me to hear, I could see starbursts of lighter gold and green around the pupils. My fingers itched to bury themselves in his long, thick hair. I loved how the light picked up the strands of silver interwoven into the chocolate brown and the touches of silver that ran along his temple. A few times, he hadn’t shaved, and the dusting of stubble along his strong jawline glinted with the same color. He often wore his hair pulled back, but some days, it fell well below his ears, a mass of crazy waves and curls. He towered over me, making me feel small and delicate. He never said a word about my limp, but his large hand was right there, steadying me when I stepped off a curb or engulfing my palm with gentle pressure when we spoke and he reached out in comfort. I felt safe and protected with him. As if I was meant to be beside him. It was the strangest sensation.
Normally an honest person, I didn’t hesitate when he requested I not tell anyone we were meeting almost daily. I lived for those moments spent in his company.
Today when he kissed me, my entire body had eased, and for the first time since I woke up in the hospital, my soul was at peace. I had gasped when I pulled away and saw the fierceness in his expression, felt the possession in his grip. I knew we had crossed a line we could never step back from, and the most frightening part was that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.
Then the light had caught the ring on my left hand, and reality had set in, panic flooding my body.
I was wearing another man’s ring—I was promised to someone else.
Terrified at my insolent behavior, I had turned and run, ignoring Adam’s tortured voice calling my name.
Ignoring the fact that when Bradley kissed me, I never felt a fraction of what Adam stirred within me.
Adam.
The words he’d said to me—that I belonged to him, that we belonged to each other—replayed in my head. The things he knew about me.
How did he know so much?
He was right; the band around my ankle matched the one around his thick wrist, and my tattoo had his initials swirled in the design, the AMK curved around the camera more than once.
Why would I do that unless what he said was true?
Why did he stir something inside me no one else could? Why did his mere presence soothe me so much?