AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How, and why, I still didn’t know. All I did was give him a paper flower and a dinner date that technically never happened. Then suddenly we were in Puerto Rico and the rest of the world ceased to exist. It was almost like those months we were separated were erased, except when either one of us was feeling particularly bitter.
Now we were back in Easton, picking up the pieces, trying to make a life together while his ex-lover clung to the hopethey’dpatch things up. Clearly I was hanging on to the past, too, evident by a fucked up dream that had me standing in the kitchen at three a.m., buzzing on benzos and bourbon, snooping through Leander’s cell phone.
He, on the other hand, wasn’t clinging to anything. Leander wasn’t lying to me and carrying on a secret relationship behind my back. He cast her aside. He chose me, just as he said. By all intents and purposes, I “won,” like he announced on the plane. But not really. I wouldn’t claim that victory until my nemesis was dead and there were no more challengers vying for my place.
Snatching the bottle of bourbon out of the cabinet again, I tossed his phone back on the counter and made my way to the conservatory. There was no way I was going back upstairs. Despite the dual depressants metabolizing in my system, my mind wouldn’t shut up or even slow its roll.
I stretched out on one of the wicker couches and folded an arm behind my head, looking up at the glass ceiling overhead. Exhaling, I focused my attention on the night sky beyond. The stars were out, twinkling away without a care as to what turmoil happened here on Earth.
I was still surprised by the date he chose as his password.
February 26.
The first night we spent together. The night all of our barriers came down. They went right back up the next day, for reasons within our control and those forced on us by outsiders. But for that one night, a few precious hours, we weresofucking happy. It wasn’t just the sex. It was everything. I didn’t know anything about soulmates or twin flames or any of that shit, but I knew from that night on that Leander held my heart, my life, my very soul in his hands.
Now I knew he felt it too — the password was proof. Even through the months of separation, the months without me,thatwas the number combination he used to safeguard his phone. Looked like he was also a masochist, giving his heart little cuts every time he had to type out that date, even while he was withHer.
Hedidchoose me. He chose me first and hekeptchoosing me, even when he thought I was gone forever.
The realization made me smile, whisking away the tension in my body just like that.
The bitch still had to die, though.
So that’s where my thoughts carried me. Beneath the bright starlight, with bourbon and Xanax warming me from the inside out, I focused my energy on planning Lorelei’s death until sleep finally reclaimed me.
10
Bennett
The late afternoon sun streamed through the library windows, illuminating the dark wood, its golden undertones shining through. It was warm, made all the warmer for the fact Leander was using my lap as a pillow.
“Have you ever thought of expanding?” I asked, glancing around.
The built-in shelves were jam packed with books, as were the free-standing shelves in the middle of the room. If that weren’t enough, there were stillmorebooks in the attic he didn’t display for one reason or another. Not to mention, his ever-growing Poe collection. Why he felt the need to possess as many copies of the same book as possible was beyond me. Then again, my collections involved fine art, where only the original mattered.
“No,” he replied, turning a page in his book. He didn’t even bother looking up at me, nor did he seem to have any intention of elaborating.
I should have been reading the contract in my lap, but I was too distracted by my hangover and the blonde hair I plucked off of one of the curtains earlier. No matter where I went, she was fuckingthere. I may have felt better after my drunken revelations, but I really didn’t want to find pieces of her all over the place for the rest of my life.
“Why not?” I prodded, looking for a distraction from my murderous thoughts.
“I can’t go out because of structural issues and I can’t go down because of utilities.”
“What about up?”
He laid the book on his chest and looked up at me finally, his brows lifted. “The master suite is above us.”
“My point exactly. Fuck Irene and fuck her room.” I picked up the contract and searched for the spot I left off, trying to keep my tone airy and casual. “Besides, you can always make a new master suite on the west side by expanding into the blue guest room.”
Two birds, one stone. Expand the library he loved and demolish the space of the woman he loathed. Meanwhile, renovating the blue room would remove the final trace of his mistress from the property, since Yolanda kindly informed me that was where the annoying doctor spent most of her time after Leander disappeared. Apparently it was just too “hard” being in Leander’s room without him.
Although after that dream, I saw Lorelei’s dead body every time I went into Leander’s room. I loved remembering her dead, but it wasn’t an image I wanted to live with — not unless it was a reality and not some fucked up scenario from my subconscious.
If Leander saw the remodeling idea for what it was, he didn’t say anything. He simply picked up his book and resumed reading.
Running my hand through his hair absentmindedly, I tried to focus on the fine print instead of the fact it had been exactly twelve minutes and eighteen seconds since his lips touched mine.
My fingers shifted downward, stroking the underside of his sharp jaw. He turned his head slightly, giving me greater access to his throat.
