Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“One more?” Lucia asked, her voice still babyish.
John laughed. “You have to go to sleep, Lucy.”
“Lucia.”
“Yeah, still Lucy to me, though.”
Lucia sighed.
John grinned. “Fine, one more.”
“Yay!”
Lucian slipped back out of the room.
No need to interrupt the kids.
Sometimes, they didn’t always need him. They just needed each other.
A Woman’s Anger
Women had phases of anger, Lucian had come to learn over his life span. It usually started with a warning—a look from one’s wife, or if a man was really pushing his limit, she might even give him a verbal one. When that warning didn’t work, and a man wondered if he might have crossed a line because the attitude came out to play, the dangerous things started to happen.
The it’s okay.
And the I’m fine.
Women were not okay.
And they were certainly not fine.
The thing about men was that they were notoriously stupid. If they knew that those I’m fines meant a woman wasn’t really fine, they tended to push. Far more than they should. As if repeatedly asking their wife if they were sure, or what was wrong, would somehow magically fix the problem.
It never ended well.
And then came the silence.
When all else failed, when a man really fucked up, a woman’s anger turned into something else entirely. Something more painful than her anger formed in words and actions. Something far more worse than all of that put together.
She simply went quiet.
And that wasn’t just dangerous.
It was downright terrifying.
Especially when a man loved that woman.
It had been eight days, twelve hours, and twenty-four minutes since Jordyn last spoke a word to Lucian, and he was dying. Not that he would know whether or not she cared about how he felt, because even when he sat in the same room as his wife, she refused to even give him the grace of her stare.
Her attention?
Not for him.
Her time?
He didn’t fit into the schedule.
She wasn’t fucking around now, and he was going crazy. There were only two times in his long marriage to Jordyn that Lucian could remember making her this mad at him. Once was the first time he’d been arrested, and spent a couple of months in jail, missed one of their kids’ birthdays, and their anniversary. Every single phone call he made from jail was ignored, and all communication went through their lawyer, for the most part. She brought the kids to visit him, but she didn’t speak.
Eventually, he figured out that his wife wasn’t so mad at him as she was pissed off at the entire situation. That it happened at all. That he put them in that situation. And he understood entirely, so he let her have that moment.
They moved past that time.
Another time had been over something far more petty. A simple argument that just became worse and worse until she all out refused to speak to him, and Lucian finally gave in, and went back to his wife on his knees, begging to fix it, even though he still didn’t know what exactly she was mad about.
Because compromise.
Wasn’t that what marriage was all about?
This time would not be the same.
Lucian knew that much.
It couldn’t be the same when Jordyn’s anger had been brought on by the one thing in their life that she loved above everything else. The one thing she protected, even to the detriment of herself. Her entire life.
One of their children.
Lucia, specifically.
“Jordyn—”
All it took was Lucian saying her name, and his wife’s fiery gaze turned on him from where she sat at her vanity. It was the quick pull of her lips falling into a scowl that told him all he needed to know about what was going to happen tonight.
He would plead for her to listen.
To hear his point of view.
She would dead-stare him.
He’d continue talking.
Like a fucking idiot.
Lucian would sleep alone.
Fun.
“I know you’re pissed at me,” he muttered, “but I’m doing what I think is best with Lucia and this whole Renzo situation. Better I keep her in the house where we can watch what she’s doing, than let her run free with him, yeah? Who fucking knows what trouble she’d find with him because she can’t seem to stop chasing him around all the damn time.”
Jordyn kept staring, saying nothing.
Lucian felt his anxiety spike.
He hated that.
Her stare.
With nothing more than a look, he understood everything there was to know about this situation, and his wife’s current state of mind regarding him. She was very close to wanting to just tell him to get the hell out of her face. And if he got too close, he’d be lucky if her anger didn’t make her punch him right in the balls.
Not that she’d ever done that before.
She looked like she might right now, however.
Perfect.
It meant she was so exasperated with him that she didn’t even have the energy to form words. And he was just stupid enough of a man to think that if he talked enough for the both of them, then he might be able to fix this.