Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
“You asked me to let you in,” she said with her eyes on the coffee table in front of her. “Let’s get this over with.”
“How can you interview people for a living and hate sharing anything about yourself?”
“Because I’m not that interesting.” She lifted a magazine from a stack and flipped through it. “No one wants to know my story.”
I sat beside her. “I do.”
Her eyes lifted from the page. “What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you’ll share with me.”
“You want to know why I don’t trust you?”
I nodded. “That’s a good place to start.”
Clarke crossed her legs, drawing my attention to her lean thighs. My mind wandered for a moment to the last time she wrapped them around me. The last time she moaned my name in my ear and lost herself with me. I loved those times with Clarke, not because we were both getting something out of it, but because sex was the only time she was uninhibited. She showed a different side of herself when we allowed our bodies to do the talking.
“Because you can’t keep your dick in your pants,” she said. “That’s why I don’t trust you.”
“Name one time when we were together, and I was hooking up with other chicks.”
She dug her teeth into her bottom lip and looked away. “How about the night at the hotel bar in Manhattan?”
“I waited for two hours for you,” I groaned. “You left me hanging.”
“Because I walked into the bar and found you with another woman.”
I shook my head. “We’ve gone over this. She approached me because I was alone. You were late. I was bored and nursing a beer. It was nothing.”
“Did you leave the bar with her?”
Now, it was my turn to ignore her.
“That’s what I thought.”
“You blew me off! What did you expect? We were never together, Clarke. I didn’t owe you anything, and yet I drove all the way to New York. For you! And then you didn’t even bother to answer your texts or calls.”
“My cell phone died. I forgot to charge it before I left for an interview in Midtown.”
“I figured you moved on.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I knew it was never more than a fling for you.”
“I was all-in, Will, completely invested. You were the one who treated our relationship like it was nothing. Like I was another puck bunny.”
“Blame yourself for that,” I shot back. “You were the one who only wanted sex.”
“Because that’s what you wanted.”
“You think I drove two hours just for sex?”
She shrugged against the couch cushion. “Who knows? With your overactive sex drive, probably.”
“I’m not some horny teenager. Not everything they write about me is true. You should know better than anyone that you can’t believe everything that’s printed.”
“Drama sells papers.”
“Try being on the receiving end of that drama,” I countered with venom in my tone. “You know, I thought we could have a real conversation, but I guess I was wrong.”
“This wasn’t my idea. We can file for an annulment tomorrow morning if this is too real for you.”
I slid my hand across the couch and tapped my fingers against her hand. She stilled from my touch, though she did not bother to push me away. We sat like that for what felt like several minutes before I made the first move. When I slipped my fingers between hers, she didn’t fight me.
“One of my colleagues caught you with that woman,” she said in a firm tone. “She was going to write a story about you until I asked her to leave it alone.”
“Not like it would have mattered.”
She chuckled. “Yes, it would have. She was a hooker.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“That’s why my friend was at the bar. She was writing a story about a madam who ran a high-end prostitution ring out of the hotel.”
“I’ve never paid for sex. Your friend was wrong.”
Her eyes found mine. “Maybe. But I wasn’t wrong about you.”
“Give me time,” I pleaded. “I’ll change your mind.”
She cleared her throat. “I have trust issues. Have for a long time.”
“I know.”
“So be patient with me. This isn’t easy having you live with me. Pretending we’re in love is even harder. I hate lying.”
She pulled her hand from mine and spread her fingers, so I could see the dark ink on the side of her middle finger. Her tattoo said vincit omnia veritas.
Clarke pointed at the words written in script. “This means truth conquers all things. Something my dad drilled into my head when I was a kid. I guess I never had a shot at being anything other than a reporter. From an early age, I wanted to chase the truth. I thought it was my purpose in life to find the story.”
“I’m not hiding anything from you. If you want to know something, ask me. My life is an open book.”