Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
How strange it was that a pregnancy was what made me realize the connection. Made me actually… understand Fiona. I didn’t like understanding her, but it didn’t stop the fact that I did.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“You’re Fiona’s Penn,” I said softly, knowing the words would draw backlash.
He frowned and withdrew like I’d hit him. “I don’t particularly like the comparison.” He gritted his teeth. “Though I do see what you mean.”
“If I were in Fiona’s position, the first person I would have turned to was Penn.”
Camden’s hands balled into fists. “I like that comparison even less.”
I held up a hand. “I’m just saying that Fiona turns to you when things are hard, like I used to do with Penn. I guess… I kind of understand why she was here, asking you to deal with Kurt.”
“Are you saying that you believe I’m not the father?”
I slowly nodded. “I guess I am.”
“Good.” He stood and held his hand out to me. I let him lift me to my feet. “Now, my question.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been trying to call you all week. You’ve ignored all my calls. Why did you decide to come here today?”
I swallowed. Oh, right. The real reason that I’d hurried over here after my doctor’s appointment. Now that the time was here and we finally had so much out in the open, I clammed up. I didn’t know if I was ready to tell him. Telling Whitley had been hard enough.
“I think I’ll take that drink,” I said with a half-smile.
He shot me that knowing look. “One drink, and then you will be as forthright as I was.”
“Okay,” I told him as he walked across the room to the wet bar.
I was not ready for this conversation, but I knew that it was time to put it all on the table.
25
Katherine
Camden returned with two glasses of scotch. The good stuff. I didn’t normally drink scotch, but it felt appropriate for the moment. I took the drink out of his hand and took a small sip, letting the heat burn through me.
Here goes nothing.
“I went to the doctor today.”
He had just settled into his seat and came half out of it again at my words. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I gestured him back into his seat. He reluctantly sat, but his gaze still weighed on me heavily. “I think.”
“You think?”
I took a deep breath. This was going to be fun. “I’m worried that I can’t have a baby.”
Camden stilled completely. “What?”
“I… I think earlier complications in my life might have made me infertile. So, I went to the doctor.”
“What did they say?” he asked, his voice suddenly low and almost… afraid?
“Nothing.” I laughed sardonically and ran a hand back through my hair. After another gulp of the scotch, I continued, “They told me to stop taking my birth control and to go home and have sex. That I was stressing myself out.”
“That’s bullshit. If you’re afraid, they should test you,” he demanded.
“Yes, well, I went to see Whitley.”
“She’s a plastic surgeon,” he said in exasperation.
“I know, but she went to med school, and I trust her. I just needed an opinion. I can get a second. She said she’d recommend a fertility doctor if I wanted it.”
He downed the rest of the scotch and then set it aside. His eyes were steely. “We haven’t even started trying, Katherine. You made it seem that you didn’t even want a baby… or that you weren’t ready. What brought this on?”
I bit my lip and looked away. “I saw a friend yesterday who is infertile.”
Camden touched my chin, dragging my face back to meet his dark eyes. “What does that have to do with you?”
“We were… in therapy together.” I gulped. “After we were hospitalized for anorexia. She’d… she’d lost so much weight that even when she was better, she couldn’t have kids. It broke up her marriage.”
Camden hadn’t even blinked at those words—therapy, hospitalized, anorexia. “And you think you will be the same?”
“Maybe,” I whispered. “You seem very… calm about all of this.”
“You think I didn’t know that you were hospitalized?”
I wrenched back in shock. His hand dropped from my chin. All warmth fled me. “What?”
“Katherine, we were getting married.”
“The records were expunged,” I gasped out. “No one should be able to access them.”
“I’m very thorough.”
“No,” I whispered. “There’s no way. No one knows what happened to me. No one but the crew and my parents. My mother made sure that all evidence disappeared.”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “I had to make sure I knew the woman I was marrying.”
I stood. My mind was reeling. On one hand, it was good that I didn’t have to explain what had happened. But on the other, he had violated my privacy. What else had he looked at when he agreed to marry me? What else did he know that I’d wanted to keep from the world?