Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
I wished I was there now.
Wished I knew if Sloane was doing okay. She’d seemed better before I left.
Had shocked the shit out of me when she chased Chloe off. For good, I might add. Her strategy had worked. My lips curled in amusement, remembering the moment. Aye, Sloane Harrow had fire in her.
My smile dropped, remembering the hurt she’d tried to cover when I shot down her offer to have coffee.
Fuck.
That invisible knife in my chest twisted deeper.
“That’s it. I’m done,” I murmured before jumping off the wall onto the promenade. I’d come face-to-face with whatever it was Rich thought I needed to find here. I’d hovered around the coastal town outside Edinburgh for a week, haunting it like a fucking ghost.
Nothing was better.
Nothing was solved.
And worse, thoughts of another female I’d let down had chased me here.
I needed temporary oblivion. It was time to go find that instead.
Nine
SLOANE
Monroe knew everything about my life. Over the past year, we’d built trust and love and shared all of our deepest traumas with one another. It made carrying them easier, to have someone in our lives who knew what had shaped us. To have them care these things had happened to us, and to want a better life for us going forward.
Roe had become the best friend I’d ever had, and in her I fully trusted.
It was because of that trust I left the café in Inverness, feeling confused and more depressed about Walker than ever. Go to speed dating, Roe said. It’ll help you get over Walker, she said.
The pepper spray I kept in my purse was now in the pocket of the light cardigan I wore, my hand clutched around it. Yes, life had made me extra cautious, even in the middle of a city when there were witnesses around. But it was a city I was unfamiliar with as I reoriented myself to where I’d parked my car. Out of the twelve guys with whom I’d just spent five minutes each—time I’d never get back—not one asked me anything beyond my name and occupation. The self-absorbed asshats spent the rest of the time telling me about their jobs, their likes and dislikes, and staring at my breasts.
To be fair, I was not physically attracted to any of them. Now that I knew I could physically react to someone the way I reacted to Walker … that’s what I wanted. I wanted butterflies and hot tingles between my thighs. I wanted to be aware of his proximity, to feel every touch like I was near a live wire.
I tried to relax as I followed the map on my phone back to my car. A few more people strolled along the high street, the area brick paved and designed for pedestrians. A mix of architectural styles suggested the street had been added to over many, many decades, maybe even centuries. Parts of it looked Georgian, while other buildings screamed the sixties and seventies. I’d only been to Inverness a few times but hadn’t really taken it in because Callie was more interested in dragging me from store to store.
The high street gave way to a road, and I crossed it onto the sidewalk, passing a beautiful building that resembled a small castle. It was so out of place that it drew the eye. I knew from Monroe it had been built in the 1700s for a lord and was now Inverness Town Hall. I focused on it, lit up in the twilight, and clutched my pepper spray when I heard boisterous male laughter behind me.
I neared a pub, however, and a few sober adults stood outside smoking, so I tried to relax.
Tried being the operative word. I was more than a little jumpy these days, so I quickened my step, hurrying off the high street and up a steep, brick-paved hill that I now remembered walking down. I passed quaint brick buildings with large dormer windows that looked like they still might be residential and followed the narrow lane almost to the top.
A little out of breath from the climb, I was never more thankful to see the parking lot where I’d left my car. It was much busier than when I’d left it, and now that I wasn’t rushing to get to the event in time, I took in the surroundings in the darkening light. Apartments. The parking lot was surrounded by two apartment blocks. I’d parked in a residential lot. No wonder there was no meter.
Ugh. I hoped I didn’t have a ticket.
This night had been the biggest bust, and I needed to tell my best friend about it. Walking across the lot, I dug my phone out of my purse.
“How did it go?” Monroe asked without preamble.
The days were still long this far north, even in late September, but twilight was almost night now as I tripped over a grassy sidewalk that cut between the parking spaces for some bizarre reason. “Crap.”