Page 7 of Irreversible

I allow the moment to be what it is: kind, love-laced, and pure.

Retreating, I send him a smile. “I’ll meet you upstairs in a minute.”

He tucks a defiant piece of hair behind my ear that’s been newly zapped with humidity. “Cranberry juice?”

“Maybe.” I’m weird. I always need to have a cold glass of cranberry juice waiting for me on the bedside table post-sex. “It’s refreshing.”

“You’re a nutter.” Laughing, Jasper bends down and places another kiss on my forehead. Slow and precious, like he’s savoring a delicacy.

I swoon, gazing up at him with stars in my eyes. “If I’m a nutter, then you’re a nutter lover,” I murmur, lost in our galaxy for two.

“Always.” Smacking my butt, he steps backward with a grin and starts to toe off his dress shoes.

I flash him a toothy smile, then make my way down the hall and into the kitchen to fetch the juice. The evening’s events funnel through my mind, harnessing my joy. The lights, the crowds, the cameras, the shining accolades from peers and industry bigwigs.

A dream come true.

A future igniting in a multicolored swirl.

As I move around our custom quartz island, I drag my fingertips across the surface, a feeling of disbelief coursing through me. I’m only twenty-four years old, and this is my life—a devoted husband by my side, a dream home, a star-studded career on the horizon, just taking shape.

The next big thing.

I have it all.

And then the dream buckles, the lights dim, and my future shatters with a resounding?—

CRACK.

I let out a scream and nearly hit the ceiling.

Oh, my God.

Something exploded.

Something in my houseexploded.

My ears ring, my heartbeats hammering against my ribcage as a sickly cloud of fear envelops me. “Jasper.” His name strangles me on the way out as my world crumbles beneath myfeet. Spinning around, I dart back the way I came and stop dead in my tracks when I face the foyer. “Jasper!”

No.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.

A milky shaft of moonglow spotlights the image of my husband lying face-down on our Gioia tiles with a gunshot wound to his back.

“No!” I screech like a rabid howler monkey as my vision blurs. Almost as if it refuses to believe what my eyes are telling it to see.

He’s still, so eerily still, and I know there must be a gunman nearby, planning to shoot me, too, but all I care about is getting to Jasper.

I race to him as a pool of scarlet horror begins to form underneath his chest, oozing into the white tile cracks.

My husband. The love of my life.

He’s bleeding out before my eyes, dying in front of me.

My shrieky sob pierces the air as I fall to my knees and reach for him?—

But that’s as far as I get.

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