Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
For years I’ve felt he was responsible and even now, even after he’d managed to convince me on the phone that it wasn’t him, I imagine he’s somehow involved.
I can’t shake my gut feeling.
I want to murder him.
The thought makes me close my eyes, trying to rein in the anger from today and from all the years of second-guessing what happened to my mother.
When I open them, they’ve adjusted to the darkness and I stare at my phone.
I’ve asked him, but he’s a liar. I already know he’s capable of murder.
Everything in me is telling me it’s my father who hired that man and possibly left the note to scare Jules off before deciding to kill her. I have no other leads.
The person who left a note had different handwriting than his though, more feminine. Perhaps he has a partner or maybe he hired someone but who would he trust?
The only other enemy I have is Liam. He’s married, but I can’t see it being him and having his wife involved. And Liam wasn’t around when my mother died.
I run my hand down my face, feeling exhaustion weighing down on me, but not wanting to sleep. I can’t. I’m too afraid to take my eyes away from Jules. My guard refuses to go down for even a second.
I know she hasn’t forgotten everything and that maybe the other night, the moment we shared, was a mistake in her eyes. It kills me just to imagine her thinking of it as if that’s all it was. A mistake.
The sound of her stirring on the bed and the accompanying slow movements catch my attention. A soft sound of pain carries through the air, and I rise to see if she’s all right.
She turns on her side, pulling the sheet between her legs and letting it fall off her gorgeous curves. I brush her hair from her face, leaning down to kiss her gently on the cheek, loving how she can’t fight me in her sleep.
When I pull back, her long lashes flutter open and she looks up at me. At first there’s a softness to her expression, like the way she used to look at me. But it quickly changes, the trace of a smile dimming as her memories come back to her.
Her shoulders tense and she turns her head, but she doesn’t push me away, even as I run my hand down to her waist and sit next to her on the bed.
The bed protests as I climb in under the sheet, still in my white undershirt and flannel pajama pants. I sigh heavily, feeling exhaustion desperately try to force me to sleep as I rest my head on the pillow and pull Jules close to me.
Just like earlier this week, she lets me hold her. She doesn’t hold me back, though. Her hand merely rests against my chest, her head on my shoulder. Still, I’ll take it. The feel of her small body pressed to mine, the faint sounds of her breathing and the way she nestles her head down against me, brushing the hair from her face is everything to me.
“Talk to me, Jules,” I say softly. I miss her. I miss the banter and her optimistic energy. I miss her stories and the sweet sound of her laughter. “I miss you,” I confess.
“I’m not sure if we’re okay,” she says quietly, as if it’s a reminder to herself. “There are parts of you that scare me.”
I tell her, “But not all of me.”
Her eyes are wide open but staring across the room. I readjust my shoulders on the pillow, keeping my arm around her and debating what to tell her. She’s quiet for a long time but then she asks, “You said Jace had a woman killed?”
I can only nod.
She’s silent, obviously waiting for me to continue.
“I didn’t know him well, but he was…” I pause to take a deep breath and stare at the mirror across the room. In the reflection I can see the top of Jules’s head resting on my chest. Her eyes are vacant, as if she’s broken. Not the woman I once knew, not the Jules I fell in love with. She’s not running from me, as if this new woman has become resigned to her fate.
“I saw him for a meeting, and it was the only time I met him,” I tell her. I want to explain and I pray she understands.
She shifts on my chest and I splay my hand on her back to keep her close to me, to keep her from moving away, but I don’t have to. She’s only readjusting and she stays with her cheek pressed against my chest as she pulls the sheet up higher.
“I did it,” I say, feeling the words dying to come out of me. To tell her the truth. To tell her how angry he made me. How Jace was so sure of himself, so happy with what he’d done. “Her life was meaningless to him.”