Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
“Okay.” I start to smile. “I can accept those terms, Fisher.” Because there is no way she’s been anything but good for me. It’s been so clear from the start. She’s been the one that’s helped me breathe. “But I should warn you,” I tell her.
“What?” she hesitates.
“I think you have healing hands.”
She rolls her eyes, her cheeks pinching as a smile forms. “I’d say you’re a dork, but you’re literally slouching and man-spreading like a jock.”
A laugh rumbles through me. Our smiles soften on each other, and I ask her, “Did you make a choice while I was gone? Do I have a rockstar girlfriend or a doctor girlfriend?”
She rests her cheek on the top of the seat near my forearm. “Which one are you hoping for?”
“Long-lasting girlfriend,” I say. “Into forever Harriet.”
“Fortunately for you, whether I become a rockstar girlfriend or a doctor girlfriend, I predict it’ll be long-lasting.”
I ease. “You think?”
“Yep.” She holds my gaze. “Which boyfriend am I getting?”
“Mentally unwell boyfriend. On the road to recovery boyfriend.”
“Into forever Ben?”
I nod. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise.
She clasps my hand that’s on the back of the seat, then slips her beaded bracelets onto my wrist. “I haven’t decided yet on medicine or music. I’ve been more focused on finding you.”
I rake my free hand through my hair. Pain cinches around my lungs, my heart, my ribcage. “Anything else I missed?”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, then grimaces. “I shouldn’t tell you this…”
“I want you to,” I press. “I want to know.”
“Fine. Only because I think it’s likely your brothers will say something, and maybe it should come from me first.”
Okay. I nod her on. “Lay it on me, Fisher.”
She lets go of my wrist. “I was paranoid I might’ve been pregnant. I’m not. But I took a test.”
I swear my heart stops beating.
Her eyes are steady on mine. “Say something, Friend.”
“You thought you were pregnant? And I wasn’t there?” I visualize what she went through, and it thrashes inside of me like a feral animal clawing, tearing, shredding. My jaw clenches. I smear my hands over my face, bowing forward as nausea builds.
“Ben.”
I reawaken and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my chest. “You’re okay?” I stare right into her eyes. Clinging. Holding. I cup her cheek.
“I’m all right,” she assures, her tiny smile easing me more. “I was paranoid, okay. I bought the test the same night you left, before you actually left, because I was freaking myself out.”
“The paper bag.” It dawns on me. I knew she was hiding something…but yeah, not that. “I’m so sorry…you shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone, Harriet. I should’ve fucking been there.”
She has a hand against my bare chest. On my hard-pounding heart. “I understand now why you felt like you had to leave.”
I take some deep breaths. “The test was negative?”
“Yeah, and I wasn’t alone. Your brother kept me company.”
I try to relax at the fact. But I’m sure my brothers finding out about a pregnancy scare went over great, especially while I was missing. “Which brother?”
“Guess.”
“Beckett,” I say like it’s just known.
“I get why you love him so much,” she murmurs softly.
“He doesn’t intimidate you anymore?”
“Oh no, he’s still intimidating as fuck.”
I laugh, and she smiles a little at my chest. I realize now that my pulse has slowed to a calm beat. She lies more against me, slackening into me, and I hold her closer while she rests her head against the crook of my neck.
I kiss her blonde hair as she fiddles with the beaded bracelets and the elastic Capybara one on my wrist. We both catch movement out the window, and we see my brothers walking toward the SUV. Beckett grabs the duffel I dropped.
“Charlie and Beckett,” she says, looking up at me with glassy blue eyes. “I owe them everything.”
Emotion barrels into me. I fight more tears. “Me too.”
Me too.
58
BEN COBALT
Ovid once wrote, “Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
Then again, this is supposedly from Ovid’s poem “Remedia Amoris,” which of course is in Latin, and according to my father, the better translation is, “He’s his own best liberator who snaps the chains that hurt his heart, and ends the grief forever.”
The first speaks about anxiety, the second speaks about lovesickness, and ironically, both speak to me. I’ve been doing more reading lately. Not necessarily at the recommendation of my new therapist. I’ve only met with Dr. Frederick Cothrell once, but I’ve only been back in New York for a week.
I hadn’t forgotten that we’d met before. He sometimes attends Cobalt Inc. events, galas, fundraisers. Still, this time felt different as I entered his office. I swept his features. Early sixties. Salt and peppered hair. Amiable, warm smile like he knew me since I was a child. Deeply knew me.