28 Seconds: A House of Valentine Novella Read Online Free PDF

possible you had something in your system already-”
    “Yeah, a fifth of vodka.”
    “I timed your last dose of Valentine to the second. Your heart rate is still spiking, you’ve had no appetite for anything but sex, coffee and alcohol, and your flashbacks are increasingly more violent.” He touched my knee. “Ariana, this is what we do. We’ve spent our lives in this business and your reaction is not normal.”
    Worried...he was worried. Not only that but there was an undercurrent of guilt that was easy to recognize. He was afraid that he’d done some lasting damage with the amount of drugs he’d pumped through my system. I exhaled, long and shuddering, to try and steel myself, and then started with the easiest first.
    “Coffee equals my mother. After we moved, or fled or whatever, on my very first day of school my mom told me that I was such a big girl that I could have coffee with her. Every day, no fail, she would wake me with a cup of fresh espresso and we would sit together. Sometimes we’d talk, sometimes it was complete silence.... but it was always the two of us and our mugs of coffee. It wasn’t even good coffee but, it was her.”
    He pushed aside the trays of food, moving to sit on the coffee table across from me. “I’m sorry, Ariana, for your loss. I should have said that a long time ago.”
    I waved him off because I knew if he said more I would fall apart. “The alcohol makes me numb. Just like anyone, I suppose. It drowns away everything so I can postpone facing anything. Cowardly, I know, but right now it’s all I’m capable of.”
    “You are not a coward. A coward would not have taken a man’s own gun and shot him point blank in the head. A coward would not have tried to fight off Marco Savatini with her bare fucking hands.”
    “Sex is, well sex,” I offered, quick to change the subject. “It’s a release, I’m young and it’s uncomplicated.”
    “No one on the planet would agree with that statement.”
    “Well, it was uncomplicated until you showed up in my bedroom.”
    “For the record, I have no intention of complicating your life any further.”
    “So you have made abundantly clear despite how very many times I find your hands on my body.” He frowned, just as I knew he would. “Which leads us to my heart rate. You know my body’s reaction to you because yours is the same. You are something real, your touch tethering me to the only thing I know to be true. Why would my heart rate not spike?”
    It took a minute but a slow smile spread across his face. “While I don’t doubt your sincerity, I have a memory for you. When I was a kid, your dad gave me a super expensive bike that I’d begged for. It was perfect: cherry red, chrome, shiny tires - a kid’s wet dream. I’d had it two days before I tried to launch it off Steel Pier. It went flying, it was this damn perfect arc...before it went crashing into the ocean. I survived but that bike didn’t have a chance. I was distraught. Not only had I lost the best gift ever, I’d destroyed what your father had entrusted me with. To my little kid brain, I’d just sunk the equivalent of a Bugatti Veyron into the Atlantic on a fucking whim.
    You were four and I came home to find you sitting on the porch of this very house. When I asked you how the hell I was supposed to face your dad because I knew, just knew he was going to kill me, you had the simplest of solutions: compliment him. You told me to compliment him and he’d never realize there was a lie buried in the truth.” He leaned forward, his hands clasping between his legs as he watched me. “I’ve no idea what part of your words were a lie, or what you think you need to hide from me, but you should be aware that while you can undoubtedly fool any person on the planet, you can not fool me.”
    “What I said about you was true.”
    “But?”
    I shifted off the sofa, walking back to the picture window. I tried to crank it open but my hands were shaking too much to