Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
I’m about to say something to change the subject when I get a whiff of Ryder’s salmon and find myself choking from the smell as well.
I cough a few times to try to get a handle on it, but when it feels like I’m going to throw up, I quickly excuse myself to use the restroom, where I barely make it in time to throw up everything in my stomach.
After rinsing out my mouth and washing my hands, I head out of the restroom and run straight into Julian.
“You okay?” he asks, looking concerned.
“Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I say honestly. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
“Does your throat hurt? Do you feel weak?” He presses the back of his hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel warm.”
“I don’t feel sick. I think it’s just all the stress from this week.” I shrug, unsure how to explain it. “It’s messing with my body.”
“Good thing we’re going away,” he says, wrapping an arm around me and pressing a kiss on my temple.
When we return to the table, Ryder’s fish is gone, and he and Nora are arguing under their breaths.
“Sorry about that,” I say, sitting back down. “I’ve been feeling weird all week.”
“Try feeling weird for nine months,” Nora laments.
“It’s only been a few months,” Ryder mutters under his breath.
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to feel nauseous twenty-four/seven?” Nora cries. “To have aching breasts and a sore body and be emotional all the damn time?”
Tears fill her eyes, and I can’t help but feel bad for her. It’s clear she’s struggling with being pregnant—even if there’s a chance that she did this to herself.
“That sounds horrible,” I tell her, trying to be compassionate while thanking the birth-control gods that I’m protected.
“It is,” she mutters through a sniffle. “And I still have, like, a million more months to go.”
“Well, on the bright side,” I say, stifling down my laughter at her dramatics, “at the end of all that pain and suffering, you’ll have a beautiful, healthy baby.”
I smile at Nora, who nods in agreement, while Ryder sighs in what looks like defeat.
“We should totally get together sometime,” Nora suggests a little while later while we eat our dessert.
Thankfully, the rest of the meal was uneventful, and without having anything to complain about, Nora has been almost pleasant. But that sure as hell doesn’t mean I want to spend time with her.
“Oh,” I say, trying to come up with something to say. “I’m so busy with work …”
“But not for long, right?” she inquires. “You guys are married now.”
“Um, yeah, we’re married,” I say slowly, confused by her statement. “But I still have every intention of working. As a matter of fact, if things go my way, my husband will be working for me soon enough.”
I wink playfully at Julian, and he chuckles.
“What do you mean?” Nora asks.
“We’re both going for the CEO position,” I explain. “My dad is retiring, and at the end of the year, he’s going to select one of us to replace him.”
Nora scrunches her nose up like she smells something gross. “Why would you want to be the CEO? Aren’t you worth millions?”
“Nora,” Ryder hisses.
“What?” she says innocently. “I just don’t get it. Why would you want to emasculate your husband by trying to take his job when you don’t even have to work?”
“Because Ana is just as capable of being the CEO as I am,” Julian says, sliding his hand to my thigh and squeezing it. “She’s smart and educated, and she knows the business as well as I do. And just because she’s a woman who comes from money, it doesn’t mean she should be home while I work. My wife is a marketing badass, and nothing about her fighting for the CEO position is emasculating.” He looks over at me with heat in his eyes. “It’s a fucking turn-on.”
And that right there is why I love my husband.
“What would it take to convince you to move here?” I ask Julian, my eyes closed as we lie out in lounge chairs that are covered by large umbrellas, keeping the direct sun off us, but allowing us to enjoy the South Florida heat in September.
“Probably not much,” he says, running a hand up my thigh despite there being dozens of people around.
I’ve learned that my husband doesn’t give a shit about public displays of affection. He loves to touch me and doesn’t care where we are or who we’re with.
“But we both know you’d be bored in about two seconds,” he adds with a chuckle.
I pop a lid open and mock glare even though he’s not wrong. We’ve been in Fort Lauderdale for three days, and I barely made it the first day before I was doing work on my laptop for a marketing campaign I had been asked to look into. I love my job, and Julian was right when he said I’d get past everything that’d happened.