“I’m fantastic,” I laugh, seeing myself blush in the mirror.
“You sound fantastic,” she chuckles.
“I’ve got to go. My break's almost over but don’t forget Lauren, please.”
“I won’t,” I say hanging up. It’s 11 am. I’ve slept straight through breakfast. I call room service, order two breakfast plates and turn on the television. I feel absolutely refreshed. I lie back down and call Mrs. Scott to check on Caylen. She confirms she’s doing fine. I admit I feel giddy knowing our family is going to be complete again. Chris has finally come around.
Everything is as it should be.
Room service arrives twenty minutes later. I wait a few minutes for Chris but I’m starving so I start to eat without him. I finish breakfast and he’s still not here. I grab my phone and shoot him a text asking where he is adding a smiley face. I decide to hop in the shower while I'm waiting. I wish he were here to get in with me. After my shower, I check my phone and see that he still hasn’t responded. I call him and it goes straight to voice mail. At this point I’m a little annoyed. Why he would decide to run errands or whatever he’s doing instead of being here with me after what happened last night?
3:00 pm. I’ve called him four times and his phone keeps going straight to voicemail. I’ve called the concierge to see if he left a message for me.
Nothing.
I go down to the lobby and even check the fitness center. He’s nowhere to be found. I start to look around the room, tearing it apart to see if he left a note that I might have misplaced telling me where he’s gone.
4:30pm. I’m freaking out. I want to call the Scotts but I don’t want to worry them if this is nothing. There’s a reasonable explanation for this. There has to be. A chill shoots through me and I scold myself for thinking he went back to Jenna. I’m in panic mode by 6:00. I can’t even sit still, my heart's about to beat out of my chest.
I’m out of my mind with worry. I’m three minutes away from calling the police and lying about how long he’s been gone when I get a text alert on my phone. It’s his notification. I almost trip over the bed to get it. I pick it up and see it’s only one word.
What.
What? Is he kidding? I feel my blood starting to boil. I’m going to kill him. Is he for real? I start to text all of my thoughts with a lot of expletives and then realize that would be stupid. I call his number and he picks up on the second ring.
“Hey,” he says shortly.
“Hi…” I say just as short.
“Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering all day? I was completely freaking out,” I say frantically.
“Penthouse, Suite A. See you soon,” he says and the call goes dead. I feel my breathing accelerate, my heart beating rapidly. All my anger has melted away, replaced by a sudden chill.
I go down to the lobby and see if there’s a key to the penthouse suite left for me.
There is.
I walk back to the elevator, my thoughts in a haze. With each floor that the elevator climbs, my heart drops further into my stomach. When it stops and the elevator door opens, I have to will my legs to move.
How the fuck did I end up here? I've spent the last two years imagining what this would be like. Now I’m terrified of it. My heart’s beating like a drum. I’m confused and angry. A sense of guilt is creeping over me. I thought I’d grown, that he couldn’t make me feel like this anymore. Now I feel like I’ve been transported back through time and it’s all a game again. I’m at the beginning of a match that I haven’t expected or trained for. “I can do this,” I mutter to myself. Now, if only I believed it.
I take a deep as the door opens, my eyes glued to the floor. I’m just waiting for my brain to confirm what it already knows.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared. That won’t make this much fun.” His words vibrate through me. I can’t ignore the goose bumps popping up on my skin. I look up and see him dressed in a black fitted t-shirt, dark wash jeans, a gleaming Rolex on his wrist and his arms folded across his chest. The only thing missing is that cocky-ass grin on his face. Instead, there’s an angry scowl.
“Hey gorgeous. You happy to see me?”
Part IV
If I Break #3 Beautifully Broken
If I Break The Complete Series
Portia Moore
Copyright © 2015 Portia Moore
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Prologue
Dexter
I’m going to tell you a story. A story about a boy who was born to be a fuck up. If you haven’t picked up on this yet, this isn’t going to be one for children. The boy's biological parents were both dregs of society. His mother dropped out of high school when she was sixteen and had him by a man whose screw-ups were only outnumbered by his kids. The boy was one of six and could have been next in line for the less than desirable family throne. His lot in life was already determined. He should have been following in good ol’ dad’s footsteps.
At five years old, life was already pitted against him. Born to two asinine parents in an environment filled with fools, there wouldn’t have been anything else for him to be—but life intervened. It had a different plan for him…
Madison, Michigan is where he eventually grew up. Your typical insignificant town, home to less than a thousand people. The downtown area had a pathetic excuse of a movie theater, library and a city hall. That’s where he grew up. He was lucky to end up there, some would think. He had been born into an even worse situation; now he had it made. With a real mom and dad and even a dog for a time.
His new parents, ridiculously in love, volunteered for every charitable effort that took place in the town, even though they barely made ends meet themselves.
The do-gooders of Shelton County.
Their son, the boy, became a straight-A student, member of every little league team you could think of, captain of the junior varsity football team. The kind of boy you’d want your daughter to date. Popular, but nice to the misfits and you didn’t have to worry about him tainting your daughter’s innocence because he was such a gentleman. Almost a character out of a 1950’s TV show. They were the perfect family. What else could their son be other than perfect? He owed them perfection; they saved him from the wreck that could have been his life. He sacrificed the person nature had made him, for the one nurture would create. He assimilated to become a part of the picture perfect family he had been given. Until, one day when everything changed and the picture shattered. It jarred him—shocked him, even—as he discovered secret on top of secret, the type of thing that’s breaks most people. It broke him. I’d say it saved him, brought him back to life. He was free.