Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Fucking her was addictive. Each time I had her, I was certain that it would take the edge off, but it only made me want her more.
It was part of the reason I left the way I did. I was afraid if I stayed much longer, I might never leave her shabby loft apartment, covered in cat hair. And I’m not that kind of man. I don’t do shabby or cat hair, and I have zero interest in anything long-term with a woman who wants children. My abusive, deadbeat father taught me all I needed to know about being a dad.
Namely, that I never want to be one. I’m not equipped, and I find the thought of raising a child equal parts terrifying and repulsive. The only way my mother’s dying wish for the Mendelssohn genes to live on is coming true is if I contribute nothing but sperm and money to the child’s upbringing.
“It’s fine. If you love Generic Rich Asshole energy.” Elaina turns, and there’s that smirk I remember. The one that makes me want to pin her against the nearest wall.
But then, what doesn’t?
“But the view is nice,” she continues. “I love how the sunset light lingers forever in the summer. It almost makes up for the hellish Maine winters.”
I cross the room, offering her one of the martinis—the “sopping wet” one with extra vermouth. “Well, depending on the choice you make tonight, Maine winters might be behind you for good.”
She pulls in a breath and lets it out in a rush, looking more troubled by the prospect than she did outside by the fire. “You’re really a ‘get down to business’ kind of guy, aren’t you? No foreplay, no romance, just sign away your firstborn on the dotted line and go pack your things, like some ogre in a fairy tale.”
“You know very well that I excel at foreplay.” I arch a wry brow. “And I believe you’re the ogre in that scenario. I told you; I have no interest in being a part of the child’s life. It’s explicitly stated in the contract that I will, in fact, refuse to do so, and that efforts to force me into interaction with the offspring will render all benefits to you null and void.”
Her eyes narrow to slits as she searches my face.
“Something on your mind?” I ask after a moment.
She hesitates before slowly shaking her head back and forth. “No. I was going to ask who hurt you, but I already know you won’t tell me.” Her words connect like a sucker punch, a fact I do my best to hide as she adds, “But like you said, I’m good with people. I’m good at knowing why they do the things they do. And no one goes to this much trouble to have a baby and never see it again without some serious baggage in his past.”
“Or, maybe I simply have no urge to be a father,” I say in my best bored tone, refusing to give her any sign that she’s barking up the right tree. “Maybe I just want to pass on the genes my mother so desperately wants to see made manifest in a new generation, and be done with it.”
“Speaking of genes…” she says, taking a slow, lingering sip of her martini. After she swallows, her tongue teases across the seam of her lips, sending a visceral memory of the way those lips looked wrapped around my cock rocketing through my head.
That’s better. I’ll concentrate on those memories, not the dark ones she came so close to summoning to the surface.
“Cancer on both sides of the family isn’t great,” she continues. “My mom’s was lung cancer, probably from smoking when I was little. But she hadn’t had a cigarette in decades, so there might be a genetic predisposition, too.”
“My mother was exposed to toxic chemicals as a child. So were all her sisters and her parents,” I explain. “The specialists I hired agreed that the contamination in the soil and groundwater is most likely the root of the diseases that plagued them their entire lives. And of the cancers that eventually killed them.”
Elaina winces. “God, I’m sorry. That’s awful.”
“It is,” I say, as dispassionately as if I’m talking about a junky souvenir shop closing down the block. I made my peace with “the family curse” a long time ago, and took my revenge against the people who caused it. Every man who invested a dime in that development, knowing full well their company had gotten the land dirt cheap because it wasn’t fit for human habitation, has faced financial ruin at my hands.
For a while, I considered embracing vigilante justice in more than an economic sense. But if I’d been caught, my mother would have been left with no family outside a federal prison. That knowledge helped keep my darkest impulses in check.