Page 42 of The Monster I Loved
“Great, you’re up,” she said, coming into my bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” Really, why did I have to deal with her so early in the morning? I tried to pinpoint the exact moment she’d begun to irritate me, but couldn’t.
If I stayed on this path, the road I’d detested my whole childhood would become my reality. Just like my parents, Melissa and I’d be married, have a child, and spend our lives avoiding each other. At least if she’d been the one in my bed last night, I would have had that to look forward to. Shit! All my life, I had looked down on my father; now I knew exactly how my parents had ended up in that scenario. A man never wanting to be home, always sleeping around, and a woman embarrassed time and time again.
“Let’s put our cards on the table,” I said. It was better to hash out whatever the hell our relationship was honestly, I decided in that moment.
“Oh God, calm down. I let you have your little Halloween party fun, didn’t I? Why the attitude?”
“What do you mean,let me?” I asked, riding over that last ridiculous comment. “Last I checked, it was my family’s money and house.” I could feel my dick sink inside me as I talked with her. Recently, every word out of her mouth was a turnoff. And then there was Summer. Fucking Summer, who’d taken me for a ride last night. A spark of satisfaction lit inside me as I remembered her expression in the police cruiser.
Melissa and I stood there, facing each other. I shook my head in disgust.
“Let’s call it off.” My father would have to wait for his heir. There was no way I was marrying Mimi.
Laughter filled the room. I watched her, perplexed. “Why? Because of whoever’s lipstick is all over the sheets?”
Tension locked my shoulders as I glanced at the bed.Yeah, last night was wild. The lipstick was probably from when I had Summer face down in doggie style. My cock hardened. “This isn’t about her. To be honest, I don’t like you much. And, let’s be honest, children between us may never happen since my dick is losing interest in you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mimi walked over to the sheets. She peeled a long strand of blonde hair from the pillow. “You sleep with one blonde and...Oh my God. This is about Summer, the one who got away.”
“One that got away?” I sarcastically repeated.
Mimi sat on the bed. It smelled of the two of us. Of Summer and me.
“So, that’s why you two are always at each other’s throats all the time. Sexual frustration. It makes so much sense now! You love Summer.”
I walked around the bed, into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
“Don’t be stupid. We’re at each other’s throats because I hate her for what she did. I don’t love her.”
“So, you’re telling me you and Summer aren’t still in love with each other?”
My jaw tightened. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! Summer left this house in handcuffs; she had one plan, and it wasn’t to love me. She wanted me dead.”
Mimi’s eyes flew open.
I slammed the bathroom door.
Shutting Mimi up was almost as satisfying as watching Summer getting dragged to the police car, yet my annoying fiancée’s words stuck with me.‘You love Summer.’
I knew I hated her. I felt that in every bone of my body.
But was that it? I had loved her once. And she’d tried to kill me. And she was someone who I’d once built my entire world around. And that sex...my God, that sex! It was as if nothing had changed.
Ten years ago, I was able to differentiate between what Summer hid and what Clive did. I’d never wanted to hurther. It was never abouther. At some point along the way, all the hatred I’d felt for Clive, the grief of losing my mother, the betrayal of Summer for keeping Clive’s secret, it all focused on Summer, even the parts not meant for her. She was the only one left.
Summer
Daisy bailedme out two days later. My advice: don’t get arrested on a weekend. Technically, I wouldn’t have needed bail if I’d shut my mouth or even denied some of what Thaddeus said. It would be my word against his, and I didn’t have a prison record, but I wasn’t in my right state of mind. In the panic of being arrested, I’d forgotten everything I knew about the law. From theback of the police vehicle, to walking into the station, even in the interrogation room, I told everyone who would listen the same thing: “I went to kill Thaddeus and would try again.”
“Summer, maybe you should stop talking,” an officer warned. I couldn’t remember his name. It didn’t matter.
But I wouldn’t listen. I went on and on. I bought the gun, went there last night, and my plan failed.
So yeah, they charged me. I went before the judge. Thank goodness for Daisy, who’d agreed to pay my bail. I was free (for now).
“Summer, I’m worried about you,” Daisy said as we drove away from the station.
