Page 213 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
Say fucking no.
She says nothing, giving him time to talk again.
“Last time, you asked me. I’ve never so much as asked for another chance. I just assume you’ll give them. But I’m asking now, and I’m asking you to think back to the moment when you asked me to be your husband and consider being my wife.”
I have no idea what she says next. The words don’t reach my ears because all I hear is that she asked him to be her husband… she asked him.
CHAPTER 51
Ambrose—present day
Heavy feet had taken me to collect my phone from upstairs while Dollie and Shane fucked around in the backyard, not literally, thank God.
Seeing them together, even just smiling at each other, was too much. Him down on one knee was fucking traumatizing. My whole body shook from that moment, and the second he left my vision, my mind took over my torment. It’d taken me three attempts to walk upstairs. Three times to pass the blood embedded in that carpet—serves me right for not taking my regular route. Three attempts to get back down, walk through the house without falling over Bubbles, who had come looking for me. And then three attempts to plop myself down in this chair with the breakfast that had also taken me three times to make.
I’m just exhausted,I bare-faced lie to myself. It isn’t exhaustion. It’s the stress from him being here.
After failing twice to type a message to Dollie, I try again, ignoring my breakfast to do it.
Lucky:
Morning, Unicorn!
I hope you’re feeling okay today.
Got another gig for you if you’re interested.
And also, I’m still waiting to finish our book.
I send that last text as soon as I type it out, forcing myself not to rewrite it and not to back out. Maybe that was a stupid move, but desperation makes me do crazy things.
I stare at her continuously as I eat my cereal and refill the bowl twice.
I’m not hungry.
I feel sick, and it has nothing to do with the sugar rush I’m getting from breakfast. Another colorful spoonful heads into my mouth.
For fifteen minutes, she smiles in my view. There’s still a faraway look on her face that only disappears as little bobas float up the straw between her pouted lips and disappear beyond them. Then it comes back again.
A message pings on my phone, and it takes all I have in me to divert my attention from Dollie to the text.
Duggan, who sits on the table close by, judges me.
The message is from Valaria, who seems in a decent mood, considering I’d bowed out of work early last night.
Valaria:
Did you speak to your friend about the cupcakes?
I’d never mentioned who Dollie was to me when I told Valaria I knew someone who could help with catering. It wasprobably a good thing, seeing as she caught us on the dance floor with our tongues in each other’s mouths.
I can only imagine what her reaction would have been if she knew every gory detail. The face she made over seeing me kissing someone during work hours was enough. The fact that I spent the following half an hour in the bathroom, vomiting because the whole situation made me feel sick, only added to her annoyance.
Ambrose:
Waiting for a reply.
I place my phone down with the screen up and wait for it to flash with another message from another person. But Dollie doesn’t even have her phone in her hand as I gaze at her again, wishing I were Shane because he has his hands around her hips.
