Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 142976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 477(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 477(@300wpm)
“I’m not comfortable with you telling her in the first place.”
“I’m not going to keep my pregnancy a secret, Cade. I’m not ashamed of it. And I’ll start showing at some point, it’ll be hard to hide it then.”
“I should be the one to decide when and where my family hears this news,” he snapped, and Fern flinched before she nodded, acknowledging his point.
“I know. I’m—” The sorry hovered at the tip of her tongue and she swallowed it back, knowing it would probably only worsen his mood. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but we were chatting and I just—it was so nice to feel like I had a real friend. Someone in my corner. It just came out.”
He heaved an exhausted sigh, before once again dragging a hand through his hair, leaving it a chaotic mess of peaks and waves. Her fingers itched to smooth it, to tame it back into some semblance of order and she curled her hands into tight fists as she fought the impulse.
“Did you enjoy your afternoon?”
The change in subject surprised her, and she blinked uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, before offering him a tentative smile.
“I did. Beth is lovely and I was thinking… maybe we could invite her and Gideon to dinner sometime? I’ll cook something amazing. As you know, I’m a great cook.” In this she was confident.
His lips twitched at her boast, but he schooled them into a straight line and kept his features unreadable.
“Why are you so afraid to smile?” The words were out before she could think them through and his impassive expression morphed into yet another frown.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said, in a ridiculously stilted voice.
“And I’m sure you do. You were about to smile just then. Before you policed your lips into that tight line.”
He looked uncomfortable with her observation and tugged at his cuffs, keeping his eyes carefully averted from hers.
“Cade?” She should drop it. Fern was aware of that and she wasn’t certain why she was pressing him on this. She had no clue where this newfound audacity stemmed from. But she knew she’d regret it if she pushed him further.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said. His voice was gruff, the words reluctantly conceded.
“The wrong idea?” She was confused, not sure what—if anything—to read into those words.
“About us. I’d prefer it if we remained distant, polite acquaintances.”
“For three years?” She couldn’t quite keep the incredulity from her voice. “Why can’t we at least try to be friends?”
“To what end? I don’t need another friend, Fern.”
“I do,” she whispered, embarrassed by the throb of loneliness in her voice, but unable to disguise it in anyway.
“That’s not—” He hesitated, clearly wondering how blunt to be, but after that moment’s pause he shook his head and let her have it with both barrels. “That’s not my problem. It’s yours. I refuse to be your crutch. I don’t want to be your friend. Or your confidante. I don’t want to hear about your past, or your future aspirations. I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is getting through this marriage with as little emotional investment—from the both of us—as possible.”
She shouldn’t have asked. She should have listened to her gut and just left it alone. But she had to push him and now there was this line in the sand. One which had always been there, but which she’d kind of hoped they could overcome. But that line had become a fifty-foot wall and there was no scaling it. No tearing it down.
“I don’t need a crutch,” she denied. “Unlike you, I just happen to believe that the easiest, most adult way for us to get through this marriage—as you so quaintly put it—is to at least be on amicable terms.”
“I prefer impersonal to amicable.”
“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear.” Fern dipped her chin in a curt nod, pinching her lips together as she gathered up a few of her shopping bags. “So be it. No smiles and no friendship and no meaningful conversations. Got it.”
Cade reached for her remaining purchases and she leveled a frigid glare on him that—unbelievably—managed to freeze him in place.
“I’ll get them myself. You wouldn’t want me mistaking your helpful overture as a friendly gesture now, would you? God forbid I should misread any of your signs.”
“Perhaps I merely find it expedient to help you,” he elaborated, shaking off the ice in her voice and picking up the bags regardless of her command not to.
“Yes, of course,” she said, her tone acerbic. “The sooner my stuff is moved out of the foyer, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair. Got it.”
“My home is your home for now,” he said, exasperation once again lacing the edges of his words. “You don’t have to get out of my hair, Fern. You live here too. We just need to respect each other’s space and privacy.”