Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 32431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
I cringed and looked at him apologetically. “Sorry?” I made a pathetic attempt at an apology. I couldn’t believe all that he was saying. It seemed so surreal. One day I was nursing a broken heart, believing I’d lost him forever, and the next he was giving me everything I’d ever wanted. It didn’t seem real, didn’t seem at all possible for a girl like me.
“After that day, I hired someone to keep an eye on you. You weren’t talking and I guess I wasn’t ready to go out on a limb, but I needed to know what was going on with you. Imagine my surprise when he called in the middle of last night’s dinner to tell me you’d crossed state lines with two suitcases. I could’ve wrung your damn neck, and might’ve if I’d reached you sooner.”
“But I had time to think on the plane ride over. I saw how I’d treated you, how I’d taken so much and given so little of myself. I felt like a Class-A bastard. I guess the fear was stronger than I thought.”
“I lost one wife and child I couldn’t bear to go through that horror again. I didn’t want to get my heart involved, but with you I had no choice. You sideswiped me out of nowhere. Those nights when I left your bed I’d go home and pace the floor all night, missing you, wanting you, but not daring to let myself get that close again.”
“But when I got that call last night, old fears took a backseat. I can’t lose you Thalia, it would kill me.” If my eyes got any wider they’d pop right out of my head. Was he really saying these things to me? He stood from his seat and knelt down in front of me, taking my hands in his.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, sorry I made you feel you couldn’t come to me at a time when you needed me most, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He lifted my hands to his lips and kissed my quivering knuckles.
“I understand. You loved your wife and son very much and the loss was…” He turned a cold harsh look up to me and I recoiled back in my chair.
“Never mention her to me again.” My mouth as was usual when dealing with Jonas, hanging down to my chin. “What? But I thought…”
“She betrayed me and it cost me my son.” He got up and strolled to the end of the patio and back.
I could see it was hard for him to talk about, but I wanted to know. I didn’t want anymore secrets between us.
“The day my son was killed, my wife had broken things off with her lover. He didn’t want to let her go, so he ran her off the road. He didn’t care that my son was in that car.” There was such pain in his voice I found the courage to get up and go to him. I ached for him as I put my arms around him to offer comfort.
“ I had no idea about any of it, but it all came out at his allocution. I had to pay a lot of money to keep that hidden.”
“Where is he?”
“In prison, he pled out hoping for leniency but the judge threw the book at him. Which was a good thing because if they’d given him anything less than life I would’ve killed the bastard.”
“But I don’t understand. If he loved her why would he try to kill her?”
“She’d told him she was going to give our marriage a second chance. Apparently I was spending too much time at the office and on business, which was a crock. I never neglected my family. She fucked him because she wanted to. It was something she and her little country club friends cooked up. Some kind of sick game they played to see who could bag the most dick while their unsuspecting husbands were at the office brokering deals to keep them in designer wear and Hermes handbags.”
This was all too much to take in at once. Those pictures I’d studied for weeks had all been a lie? Couldn’t be. The woman in those pictures was happy, content and radiant.
“Anyway, it seems while she was playing a game he fell in love. Cynthia was easy to fall for; she was a great actress. I never knew any of this was going on until that day. Like everyone else I’d thought it was just a random accident, but after that day in court I hired someone to get to the truth. He wasn’t the first, but he was the only one she couldn’t shake when she was done.”
“After that, I couldn’t stand for a woman to touch me in bed. Couldn’t bear to hear those noises of pleasure. She was like that, very inventive and boisterous during sex. After learning of her many affairs I no longer trusted it. I was very angry for a long time. I used a lot of women, I guess in some misguided attempt to prove my manhood, though I didn’t see it that way.”