Phoenix: The Beauty in Between (A Beautiful Series Companion Novel) by Lilliana Anderson

Author:Lilliana Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: triumph, triumph against odds, a beautiful forever, a beautiful series, paige back story, the beauty in between

Chapter Nineteen

Today is my birthday. I’m now seventeen. But no one has wished me ‘happy birthday’. No one even knows. My name is currently Linda. Paige is the girl in the mirror. I’m the only one who knows who she is anymore.

I have managed to stay with Ed for a few months now. He’s some sort of engineer in training and works in the city Monday to Friday. He’s gone from about seven-thirty every morning and doesn’t get home until after six every night.

Matthew works for the hospital. He works obscenely long hours and different shifts. For the first month, I barely saw him. He works rotating shifts and is generally, either working or sleeping. Although, some weeks he has a few days off in a row, so we’re in the house together.

Besides talking to him outside the bathroom that first morning, I’ve barely said a word to him. He hardly speaks to me. I feel as though he is either glaring at me or pretending I’m not there. I find him unsettling. I do try to be polite to him and talk to him when I can though, because if I’m going to stay with Ed, I need his friend to like me.

Relationship wise, Ed is as good as it gets. It seems as though he has decided that it’s his mission in life to take care of me. He is kind. He is caring. He is attentive. I couldn’t ask for more in a mate, although it pains me to understand that he cares more for me that I do for him.

He told me once, that he thought he might be falling in love with me. It was not long after we’d had sex, and were laying together afterwards. I didn’t respond. I simply pretended I was asleep and couldn’t hear him – he hasn’t said it again since.

I haven’t told him much about my past, and he doesn’t ask too much. I think he’d rather not know. I think he might be afraid to find out the truth about me.

In the bedroom, things are ok for me. He seems very happy though, which is the most important thing right now.

“Don’t you work?” Matthew asks me as he walks into the lounge room where I’m sitting reading. It almost lunch time and he’s just waking up. His dirty blonde hair is sticking up all over the place, and he’s wearing only a long pair of pale blue pyjama pants that tie with a drawstring and ride low on his hips.

I swallow hard as my eyes travel over his well-defined chest involuntarily. He pauses in front of me, waiting for an answer. My cheeks flame, and I drop my gaze. I feel embarrassed about the thoughts that flash through my mind when I see him half naked. What’s wrong with me? I wonder. How can I be thinking such things?

When I don’t give him an answer, he continues, “If you had a job, it might fix that homeless problem you have.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.