Page 123 of The Kiss of Deception

Time is an illusion.

It’s an illusion when minutes slip into seconds as the urgency grows to score a winning goal, and it’s an illusion when minutes swell into hours as the need surfaces not to suffer a goal.

Time ticks beyond the clock. It bends and stretches, and it crawls and races on its own accord, with a mind of its own.

The door slams. Zoe is home.

Time ticks lethargically against my urgency. My breath quiets. Awaits.

Time slows, suspended in the silence that follows.

Only silence—footsteps never come. Flowers never sprout in the air. Zoe’s beautiful face never appears in the doorway.

But I don’t dwell—on meaning, on consequence, on breathlessness, or chest pain.

Because Charles has a death wish.

“That damned bitch!”

I was oblivious to it, but it’s obvious as he shouts three little words.

Charles fucking Cox has a fucking death wish.

“Shut up.”

Undeterred by the low warning in my inflection, he proceeds with his final speech. “I knew it! I knew it had to be the little bitch.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I hiss over my shoulder, rage seething through my bared teeth.

“She just ran away. Of course, it was her!”

He connected the dots and arrived at the same conclusion I had.

Zoe came home, greeted by a slew of pointed fingers and false accusations.

So, she left.

“Stop speaking.” Clinging to it, to the wrath that fuels my blood, I finally turn from the doorway to which I’d taken a step and stopped, waiting with bated breath. “Stop speaking about my girlfriend.”

“You’re still defending her?” Like a madman, he throws his manicured hands in the air. “She just sold you out. She just ended your career. She needs to go a—”

My restraint is strung so tight my muscles complain. A little more and it will snap.

“If you say another word—if you so much as think about my girlfriend, you’ll be the one going the fuck away.” I make my steps slow. If I reach him too soon, I might actually do something I’d regret. “Everyone goes before I leave her.”

I would lose everything before I lose Zoe.

I would throw everything away before I leave her—or let her go.

“You are paid—very well paid—not to insult my girlfriend or opine about my personal life.” I bare my teeth, almost nose to nose with him. “So do your fucking job before unemployment becomes the least of your problems.”

His complexion reflects the hue of gray of his pinstriped suit. His shoulders hunch, but he isn’t smart enough to shut his mouth. “She—”

Snap.

The last string snaps with the underwhelming thud of my knuckles colliding against his nose.

Sharp pain shoots through my hand, and still it's dulled. Even his high shriek does nothing to dim the red haze around my pupils.

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