Page 14 of Accepted Precedent (Love & Politics #3)

Mickey

H ow the hell am I going to last years without them when I can’t survive an hour?

Andrew, Evelyn, and I are on a path to destruction. I promised myself I wouldn’t watch them exchange vows, but I couldn’t stop myself, imagining being in either of their shoes. With every minute, my heart darkens, and I question what the point of any of this is when we’re all in pain.

Is it even worth it?

I return to their hotel room, unable to stomach watching them pretend to be in love for staged photographs, and spot a book on the small desk in the corner—a copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion .

I read it when I was younger but can’t recall much about the story.

I skim the summary on the back, and hope blooms in my chest that it could be left intentionally.

Settling into the side chair, I open to the title page and find a handwritten note with one word—no author:

Enjoy.

Enjoy? Based on the premise, there’s hardly anything I would find enjoyable about this book.

Who the hell enjoys heartbreak and being away from the person they love for years?

I thumb through a few more pages until the first chapter.

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I begin the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth.

After the first two chapters, I close the novel, and bring it with me to my room.

Once inside, I pour myself a couple fingers of whiskey and settle into the story again.

Several hours later, I’m enthralled and can’t put it down.

The pain, the love, the struggle with responsibility.

All of it pulls me in. I flip back to the first page with the note, chuckling to myself—it has to be my devious angel who left it for me to find.

I avoid ruining the ending book by skipping to the last page like I typically do, and spend the next several hours reading, jotting notes in the margins as I go.

Every time a guest passes my room, my stomach drops and heart jumps out of my fuckin’ chest. It’s never Evelyn or Andrew. Still, I keep reading until the last chapter.

The story rips my heart out. In a perfect world, I could love them both freely, without obligations or consequences. If I have any say in it, I sure as hell am not going to wait nearly a decade to be with them.

The resort is quiet, and my soul shatters as I realize I’m both right and wrong, and my bed will be cold for the foreseeable future.