Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
I’d never been so physically unhinged by my reality. “That’s Hale. You have to hide.”
“No.”
“Barrett, please. If he finds you here—”
“Let him.”
“I know you want to punish me right now, but in my defense, I don’t remember anything from last night. Your brother gets really jealous, and everything’s supposed to be perfect for the wedding. Please don’t mess this up any more than it already is. If not for me, for Hale.”
“Rayne?” Hale knocked again and bile rose in my stomach as a rank sweat broke over my skin.
My chin quivered. “Please. I’ll do anything. A permanent favor for the rest of your life.”
“Fine.” Barrett stormed into the bathroom. “I’ll hide in the shower. You have thirty seconds to get out of here.”
Hale knocked again as I dressed quickly. “Rayne?”
“One sec! Ah, ah, ah…” My feet were too swollen and battered to squeeze into my ruined shoes.
“Rayne, open the door.” Damn his persistence.
“If you find any of my stuff, bring it back to The Plaza. Don’t make a sound until we’re gone,” I hissed, pulling the bathroom door shut.
Panic built like a tsunami as I turned the knob and took a galvanizing breath, then I smiled. “Hale. What took you so long?”
I didn’t make it out the door before red flags blew up around me and his grin faltered.
His hand shot out, catching the door before it locked. “Hold on.”
“Um, I’m really hungry—”
Not listening to me, he pushed into the hotel room and scowled at the disaster. Bottles littered the floor and a pizza box hung open on the dresser, nothing but a cemetery of half-gnawed crust and bottle caps scattered inside. He bent down to retrieve one very large male shoe. “And this belongs to…?”
My insides locked. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Why would I be mad, Rayne? I find my fiancée in a hotel room on the other end of New York, a bed that stinks of God knows what, sheets a mess, your hair looking as though you’ve been fucked hard, and a dead man’s shoe on the floor.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“No? Then explain it to me.”
My head pounded as a sweat broke across my skin. “I… Let's just get out of here and get some coffee. Once I have food in my stomach—”
“Whose shoe is this, Rayne?”
Before I could answer, something clattered to the shower floor. Hale’s gunmetal eyes snapped to the bathroom door and he dropped the shoe, his hands balling into fists as he barreled forward.
“Hale wait!”
He shoved open the bathroom door and flung back the shower curtain.
Barrett froze like a deer in the headlights.
I shoved my body between them before any more regrettable mistakes happened, but all of Hale’s anger shifted to shock and then hurt. “Barrett?”
“It’s not what it looks like, Hale.”
His scowl dropped, his disappointment cleaving through me with physical force.
“Hale…” I repeated his name, but his shock cocooned him in emotional armor that reason couldn’t penetrate.
“I need to get out of here.” He was out of the room and moving faster than I could manage on my scraped feet.
“Hale, wait! I’ll come with you—”
“Not this time, Rayne.”
The world and my legs screeched to a stop with an earsplitting whistle and my ears filled with thunder. My heart took the brunt of his rejection, but my entire body absorbed the pain as I staggered back, the wind knocked clean out of my lungs as my heart cracked in two. There seemed a literal split in time and reality and I might have actually died.
“This time, I think distance is best.”
“But…” My body swayed from the impact.
He couldn’t shut me out. I would fight. Do whatever he wanted. I’d plead. Literally beg. I just needed him to give me the chance to make this right.
“Hale,” my voice cracked.
“I need time to cool off. Alone.”
Hale… His name was a hollow breath, an ache too great to make a sound, a silent plea overshadowed by the ping of the elevator as he left me there.
Alone.
Unwanted.
Ashamed.
I staggered into the wall, tears welling in my eyes as I covered my mouth to hold back a sob.
“Hey,” Barrett appeared at the door, eyes apologetic.
When he reached out to comfort me, I held up a hand. If he touched me I’d shatter and then who would put me together again?
“He left.” My shock betrayed my composure as I physically crumbled.
Ignoring my request for space, Barrett caught me. “It’s okay,” he whispered, pulling me to his chest.
Nothing was okay. I was speechless. Breathless. Abandoned by the man I trusted most in this world to never leave me.
I pushed him too far and he couldn’t forgive me. He left me here. He just left. Walked away and turned his back on me.
How had I let things come to this?
Glancing down at my battered feet and filthy clothes, I smudged the tears from my eyes. Gasping for breath, I tried to find the answers I needed so I could fix this. “What happened last night?”