Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
I’m not sure there has been a word invented to describe how the experience made me feel. Bittersweet touches and brain-melting inducements. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. And nothing I’ll ever experience again.
This week has been like living in an alternate reality, from Oliver’s offer of payment—which felt like a dream come true—to claiming back a little of myself, of my autonomy and my self-worth. And then Fin. He helped me discover the parts of me I never knew existed.
Watch me, Mila. Watch how I make you mine.
But they’re just words. I’ll get over them. Besides, the only person you can truly rely on is yourself. Though Fin was an excellent crutch while it lasted.
My gaze slides to the tiny window, the sky beyond pitch, as I recall waking Sunday morning to find myself in bed with Fin. I hoped it was worth it, that the sex had been amazing, and that it would come back to me as the silver lining of what seemed like the ruination of my escape from poverty.
I was possibly being a little dramatic, but I don’t think I’m being so now when I say I’ve changed my mind. I hope I forget the last five days. I hope the memories fade as quickly as my tan. Because, as I said the morning I woke to find I was Fin DeWitt’s wife, “Sweet Jesus fucking hell, what have I done?”
I told myself we’d have great sex with little connection, but it’s been so far from that in reality, and I’m a little scared. I let my walls down with Fin, but I just need to remember who I am—who I really am. Or who I was before life kicked me down. I’m as capable as I am determined. As professional as I am thorough. So shields up and armed. I’ll just ignore how my soul hurts in the meantime.
I won’t regret my time here, though I know I’ll pay for it, because despite the things I told myself—despite the things I said to him—of course I want to see him again. As he sits across from me tap-tapping on his laptop, I want to touch him so much that my fingers ache.
But I can’t lose my heart to Fin, and pretending I could settle for being just another notch in his belt would be foolish. I’d be lying to myself, and to him, because I’m just not built that way. And even if, in some strange, alternate reality, there’s a chance Fin might be the one, I have too much going on in my life to be distracted by love.
Not that I love him. I esteem him. Like him. I fancy the rotten pants off him! I’ve gotten off on our interactions. Sometimes quite literally. But I don’t love him. I can’t love him. And that’s the end of that.
I ride the Tube to get around. He has a private jet. We wouldn’t last in the real world.
“May I take your plate?”
I glance up into the purser’s smiling face.
“Yes.” I give myself an internal shake. “Please. All finished!” I paint on a polite smile and stop short of asking her if she’d like a hand with the dishes. Anything to distract myself from these thoughts. Thoughts that drift into memories. Memories that pierce like claws.
“May I refresh your drink?”
Because on a private jet there’s nothing so gauche as a refill.
“Thank you, but no.”
I watch as she folds away the tiny white tablecloth that was placed across my half of the table. Fin declined food, though he is nursing a whisky.
“Thank you, Agata,” Fin murmurs, glancing up. “How did your granddaughter’s rehearsal go? Sophie, right?”
Agata, an attractive sixtysomething, beams. “She got the part!”
“That’s great!” Fin says, his genuine pleasure evident.
“We’re so grateful for—”
He makes an almost indiscernible motion of his head—barely a tilt. “I only picked up the phone. Sophie did the hard part. Please pass on my congratulations.”
“Of course.” Agata inclines her head before disappearing to the back of the jet.
I stifle a sigh. Like I needed reminding how not awful Fin DeWitt is right now.
As though sensing the weight of my gaze, he glances up from his laptop and gives me a sad-looking smile. We’ve been sitting like this for what feels like hours, him supposedly catching up on work and me with my nose buried in my phone as I read. Which is more a case of staring at the same page as my mind tortures me with impossibilities.
Maybe turning cold toward him this morning was a step too far. He probably doesn’t realize that I said my goodbyes while he was still sleeping. How I lay in his arms, marveling how, in the space of a few days, he’d become my cave of safety. Every morning we’d woken the same way, his body curved around mine, his arms holding me tight. I can imagine how, after a bad day, a girl could retreat into the cave of Fin so easily.