Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“Soren, what the fuck? When was this taken?” Logan had helped himself to his phone.
“Friday,” he said through gritted teeth, frozen.
“You cheated on Jocelyn—”
“No, I didn’t fucking cheat on her!” He twisted and looked Logan dead in the eye. “I would never cheat on her. I… She… It was Warren Aldrich’s event. Of course Olivia was there. She’s a fucking viper, who obviously set this whole thing up and somehow sent this picture to Jocelyn.”
“Why?”
“Because she has this delusional idea that she has some sort of fucking claim on me!”
“Hold on.” Logan frowned. “Aldrich. Is this the same Warren Aldrich on the board? The one you’ve been sending us emails about, with the shipping company.”
He was shocked his brother had read the emails. “Yes.”
“Soren, this family is fucking with your life, and you’re thinking about giving them a ten-year, multi-billion dollar contract? Dude, what the fuck are you thinking?”
“I’ve put months into this deal.”
“I don’t care. You love her. That means you protect her. Who gives a shit how many contacts the fucking Aldriches bring to the table or how deep their pockets go. This,” he flicked the phone in disgust, “is trash.”
He couldn’t believe Olivia would do this to him. She knew there was nothing between them.
Did she honestly think a move like this would endear him in any way?
What must Jocelyn have felt when she saw that picture? Hurt. Betrayed. Deceived.
It was all bullshit. But without context, she wouldn’t know that.
He pressed a hand to his chest. “I think…” He couldn’t breathe. “I think I’m…” He swallowed. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“What?” Logan was on his feet and rounding the counter, at his side in seconds flat. “Shit, Soren, you’re turning red. What should I do?”
Soren lowered to the floor. The air thickened until he could no longer draw breath into his lungs. Each shallow and insufficient gasp crushed his chest cavity like a hollow tin can, collapsing inward as though his ribs were closing like a fist.
His vision tunneled, the edges of the kitchen softening into grey static. His heart beat in forceful punches that slammed through his chest from the inside out.
Sweat broke over his skin in rivers.
Logan spoke, but he sounded too far away.
Soren reached for his brother. Scared. His depth perception was off, and his hand cut through the air, unanchored and falling, as he gasped for breath that refused to meet his lungs.
Pain exploded in his chest, and he shook violently, wondering if this was it.
Logan shouted. Words were muffled and far away. Something about an ambulance.
He couldn’t die. He needed to fix things with Jocelyn. He needed her to know he hadn’t cheated on her. That he loved her.
“Lie back.” Logan cradled him on his lap, his face a distorted twist of terror.
“Logan.” Soren gripped his little brother’s shirt, his fear reflecting his own. “Don’t let me die.”
“You’re not gonna die.”
Pain burst in his chest. His hand flattened over his heart as it punched like a wrecking ball trying to break out of his chest.
“Soren!”
His throat constricted, burning as if a white-hot poker blocked his airways. Black bled into his line of vision. “I can’t…” The fractured words came out silent.
He reached for Logan again, holding onto him for dear life as his vision swam.
“Soren! Soren, look at me. Breathe! You have to breathe—”
The sound of his voice siphoned away as the world swallowed him in one painful wave.
“You’ve always been a drama queen.”
Soren scowled at his brother from under the ice pack the EMT had offered. “Fuck you,” he rasped, embarrassed to high hell and back.
“Okay, Mr. Hawthorne.” The paramedic approached with a clipboard tucked under one arm, her severe scrubs starched, and her movements as economical and precise as her tone. The fluorescent overhead light spilling from inside the ambulance caught the edge of her jawline as she stood in front of him. “Your vitals are stable, and your heart’s doing its job. No cardiac event, no stroke, no impending doom despite what your body tried to convince you of.”
“It wasn’t a heart attack?”
“At your age? I should hope not.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What you experienced was a panic attack, something brought on by anxiety.”
“I don’t have anxiety.”
She arched a brow. “Are you sure?”
Rather than answer, he explained, “It felt like I was having a heart attack.”
“That’s because your brain told your body it was dying.” She paused, tilting her head. “Have you been under a lot of stress lately?”
“Yes,” Logan answered before he could.
“Well, you’re lucky your friend here called us when he did. The symptoms of an anxiety attack can mimic the same symptoms of a heart attack.” She gave Logan a nod of approval. “You did the right thing.”
Logan beamed, and Soren rolled his eyes.
“It’s not my job to counsel you,” the EMT said. “But I suggest examining whatever life choices led to this moment and making some different ones.”