Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
I stomp down the corridor as John leaves my office. He laughs. He fucking laughs. I’m in no mood. I pretty much kick the door open, put Ava down, and get up in her face, furious. Walk away. It’s what she does, no words, no explanation, she just walks away. I’m so fucking done with her answer to everything. I also realize I’m the biggest hypocrite to walk the planet, because lying and using sex as the answer to everything makes me better, obviously. “Don’t you ever walk away from me,” I bellow, so loud she cowers, and that just pisses me off more, because what did she expect? For me to fall to my knees and beg her not to go? I turn away from her, now frustrated with myself. I’ve begged her before not to leave me. It didn’t work. So, force it is. My physical power over hers. Shameful, yes, but the only way when she’s like this. I go to the drinks cabinet and glance across the bottles, my mouth watering. Kill the pain with vodka. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I look over my shoulder, set on attempting a calmer approach. My intentions go to shit when I see her running again. Not literally, she’s walking, but she’s halfway out the door. I fly across my office like I’ve been launched from a slingshot and get her back inside, slamming the door shut with my foot and looking for something to block it. There’s only one thing nearby, a cabinet. It’ll do. She’s not leaving until we’ve sorted this shit out, so I heave it into place.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” I ask, trying to stop myself from physically shaking her but being unable to. “What’s going on?”
On a look that could turn me to ashes on the spot, she wrenches herself away and turns her back to me. It’s all she can do with her means of escape gone, but it has the desired effect. That look was a look that should only ever be directed at a person you hate.
“I can’t believe you trample all over any man who so much as looks at me,” she seethes, her arms animated, swinging around, “yet you think it’s perfectly okay for you to have another woman in your bedroom while you’re naked and lying on the bed.” She takes a breath, her anger exhausting her, and I step back, momentarily confused. “I thought John freed you,” she screeches.
It falls into place. All this because Sarah freed me from the handcuffs? Is she forgetting the small matter that it was her who left me there? She doesn’t get to do that and then be pissy with me when I take my only fucking option.
“Well, he didn’t. He was at The Manor, Sam was unobtainable, and Sarah was nearby. What did you want me to do?” Lie there all day, my arms dead, my hand throbbing, until she decided she was done playing her stupid fucking game?
“Well”—she laughs in disbelief, and it’s a fucking insult—“I wouldn’t want you calling another woman.”
Typical. She wants to have an omelet without cracking an egg. Women! “Well,” I hiss back. “You shouldn’t have left me handcuffed to our fucking bed.”
Nostrils flaring, jaw ticking, she leans in, and I know her next words are going to tip me. “It’s your bed.”
I hate how well I know her sometimes. “Ours,” I yell.
“Yours!”
“Fuck!” I roar to the ceiling, losing my mind.
“And, while we’re at it,” she goes on, unaffected by the psycho before her ready to tear up his office. While we’re at it? “I’ve just had the pleasure of listening to three women compare notes on your sexual abilities.” Her eyes harbor an array of emotions—anger, pain, and disbelief. And there we have the true crux of the problem. My past. “That, I really enjoyed.” She laughs. It’s a demented laugh. She’s on the edge with me. “Oh, and Zoe kindly informed me of your busy bed habits,” she adds, gasping for more air. “And who the hell was that woman?”
Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths. We need only one unstable person in this relationship at any one time, because two could be seriously damaging. I need to calm things down. Ava knows they mean nothing to me. She fucking knows. “You know I have a history, Ava,” I say quietly, going to her. Touch her. Let her feel that she’s all that matters to me. Remind her.
“Yes, but have you fucked every female member of The Manor?”
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
“No,” she retorts, pacing to the cabinet and swiping up a bottle. She pours it into a glass with shaking hands, and my eyes fix on it, watching as she takes it to her lips and downs it. Neat. No mixer, no ice. She may as well have swigged it out of the bottle like I do.