Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Salem almost grinned as she sat back. “Those boys are no strangers to trouble. If you don’t bring it, they’re just going to find it somewhere else.”
“Now that is the truth.” Eden nodded.
“So how did you end up back here?” Tessa asked, voice full of the scandal.
I figured I might as well give it to her.
“Logan won me in a bet.”
Eden choked on a shocked laugh, and Tessa’s eyes widened with glee. “Shut your fucking face.”
“It’s the truth.”
Incredulous laughter rolled from Salem, and she lifted her cup. “To destiny. However it brings us to where we belong.”
“Is that what you think it is? Destiny?” My heart beat erratically.
My direction.
My destination.
My North Star.
“I think sometimes life cuts us a break and lands us exactly where we’re supposed to be.”
Her blue eyes gleamed with the promise.
That maybe…maybe that promise was mine.
And right then, I felt it sink in and take hold.
I used a napkin to dry the tracks of tears from my face. They all watched me as if they understood.
As if I weren’t a burden or a threat.
In staunch, unflinching support.
“Now about Logan…” Tessa waggled her brows.
A giggle got free. “You know I haven’t even slept with him since I got back here.”
“Holy shit. That boy either is losing his touch or he is lost for you,” Tessa said.
My phone rang from my purse before I got the chance to answer, and a grin split my face when I pulled it out to see Logan’s name on the screen.
Affection billowed from my spirit.
There was no chance of stopping it.
“Ah, I see who’s lost,” Salem teased.
“I’ll be right back.” I waved my phone a little and stood from the chair so I could dip out of the bar to hear him. Or maybe I just wanted the privacy.
To confess to him what I could feel simmering all around.
This feeling that had bloomed. Or maybe it’d been seeded long ago, and these women had only fed and nourished it so it could grow.
“Hey,” I rushed, my tone a little too excited when I finally stepped outside into the frigid cold and answered his call.
“Aster, where are you?” Panic steeled the sharp cut of Logan’s voice.
Confusion knitted my brow. “I’m at O’Malley’s with everyone. What’s wrong?”
Ferocity radiated from Logan’s being, palpable through the phone. Dread slithered down my spine, as cold as the snow that fell from gray, heavy clouds.
“Just stay put. I’m coming to get you.”
I paced a couple steps down the sidewalk. My head was bowed in worry as I whispered, “What happened?”
Then the air froze in my lungs when I felt the ice-cold hand clamp around the back of my neck. Jarek squeezed tight, his voice a callus that scuffed in my ear. “Hang up the phone, Aster.”
My hand shook.
Fear clouded my vision.
“Aster!” Logan shouted. “Do not fucking move. I will be right there.”
“I said to hang up the phone. You should never have forgotten to do what I say. If you remember correctly, when you don’t abide by my commands, it doesn’t end well in your favor.”
Horror skated across my skin in a slow slide of awareness. It spun with hatred and hurt and this rising determination.
A culmination of who I wanted to be.
Or maybe it was just who I had always been, and I was finally setting her free.
The one thing I knew for certain was I hated him.
I hated him.
The women’s belief from inside filled me up like a fortress of fire.
Magnified the love that Logan had been pouring into me.
The truth that the fight was worth it.
I was worth it.
I’d known I was done with Jarek the morning I’d last spoken to him, but that was the moment I accepted I was finished with it all.
Jarek gripped me by the collar of my jacket and dragged me the few short steps down the sidewalk to an alleyway that broke between the two buildings. He shoved me into it.
I stumbled on the pitted, coarse pavement, trying to get my bearings.
My senses.
My strength.
I stood away from him, my shoulders heaving with the force of my haggard breaths.
With the force of the hope.
With the force of my love.
With the force of this conviction.
Jarek slowly spun me around. Every line in his face was contorted in disgust and loathing. As if I were the one who should be ashamed. It was a face that would be handsome if I didn’t know every gruesome thought behind it.
“Such a whore. You’ve always been, haven’t you? Fucking the one you don’t belong to?” The look on his face intended to hurt. The bastard thought I should feel disgraced?
Screw him.
Lifting my chin, I hissed the words, “It seems you’re mistaken, Jarek. I don’t belong to you. Logan won me, remember? Because of your pathetic bet? Do you remember that? How pathetic you were in the basement? All those men who saw you sweating? Out of control?”