Page 95 of Lease to Love

No.

No, it wasn't.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't fucking breathe.

My chest seized so hard it felt like someone had wrapped both hands around my ribs and squeezed. I wanted to scream, but the sound that came out of me was something between a sob and a cry, and suddenly I was on my feet with both hands clutching my head.

The room went nearly silent.

Every face turned toward me.

Every single one.

But there was only one pair of eyes I could see.

Roman’s.

He was staring at me like he didn’t recognize me.

Like he had never seen this version of me before… Like I had broken right in front of him.

Because I had.

Underneath the velvet dress, underneath the makeup and the gold jewelry and weeks of fake dates and church service and fair food and kisses that were starting to feel dangerously real, I was still that eighteen-year-old girl kneeling on a sidewalk and holding her dying cousin while the world changed forever.

And this dress couldn't change that.

This event couldn't change that.

And this man couldn't change that.

I ran.

I didn't know where the bathroom was, only that I needed a door between me and every set of eyes still on me, so I followed the first hallway that looked like it led somewhere private, my heels loud and wrong against the marble, my own pulse roaring louder than that in my ears.

My throat had closed down to a straw. I couldn't get enough air through it, and the not-enough-air made everything worse, made my chest feel like it was folding in on itself, made the hallway tilt half a degree in a way that had nothing to do with the wine.

I ran to the nearest bathroom and locked myself inside, pressing both palms against the cool marble counter.

Breathe.

In.

Out.

Again.

I ran cold water over my wrists, then splashed some across my face and watched droplets collect along my jaw before disappearing into the neckline of my dress. It took several minutes before my heartbeat stopped trying to claw its way out of my chest, and even then my hands kept trembling as I stared at myself in the mirror.

Mascara smudged beneath one eye, lip gloss mostly gone… Hair still perfect somehow.

I almost laughed.

Of course.

I could look like at least half a million dollars while feeling like somebody had ripped my insides out.