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)
Cade however, continued to man-sprawl insouciantly in his chair. It was the most aggressive form of passive aggressiveness she’d ever had the privilege to witness.
Granger entered the room like he owned it, his expensive suit hanging off his skeletal frame, his skin pallid, and that sickly, insincere smile that she’d always hated on his thin lips.
His eyes lit up almost avariciously when he spotted Fern—who had also remained seated—but his face froze when he noticed Cade beside her.
“I thought this was to be a meeting with my stepdaughter alone. How am I to establish if she’s being coerced, when that man is sitting right beside her? Possibly intimidating her into giving the answers he wants her to give?”
Fern sighed and—despite his still nonchalant pose—she felt Cade tense beside her. Her hand dropped to his thigh and squeezed, begging for restraint and the tension left his body.
“Mr. Hawthorne is here merely as an observer and to lend support to his wife,” Cyrus said. “Please have a seat, if you don’t mind, Mr. Abernathy.”
It was framed like a polite request but it was clearly an order.
Granger slanted the attorney a look of acute dislike—a look that spoke of a history of unpleasant encounters between the two men—and sat down directly across from Fern. A couple of his attorneys sat on his left. And Richard Wilson oozed into the room to take up the position on Granger’s left.
“My dear,” Richard said, the sound of his too smooth voice sending an unpleasant shudder down her spine as it always had. “How lovely it is to see you again. I’ve missed you so much.”
His words made her frown in confusion. She hadn’t shared more than a few dozen words with the man in the past.
“Richard,” she greeted warily.
“Is that bastard really going to stay?” Granger asked, tilting his jaw toward Cade, who sat hand over fist and watching them over the top of his knuckles.
“I’d prefer it if my husband stayed, yes,” Fern stated calmly.
“We can’t talk with him here,” Richard said and Fern’s frowning gaze touched on his face again.
“I don’t really have anything to say to you anyway,” she said and Cade made a choking sound in the back of his throat. She threw him a warning glance that he merely returned with a raised brow.
“Fern, I know you’re still angry with me, but this has gone on long enough,” Richard told her in a whispered aside. A whisper loud enough to carry to every pair of ears in the room.
“What?” Fern was completely mystified by his strange behavior.
“Dickie”—Cade snorted at the nickname her stepfather had used and Fern didn’t even bother sending him a quelling gaze this time, because it was a ridiculous name—“has told me about the argument you two had the night you ran off with that man, Fern.”
“I’m sorry, what now?” Fern asked in confusion, her eyes on her stepfather’s sly smiling face.
“I admit that I didn’t respond very well to the news of your pregnancy, Fern,” Richard said, his gaze could almost pass as sincere and imploring. “But you know I would have come to my senses by the following day. I just needed some time to let it sink in.”
Fern’s jaw dropped as she finally understood what they were doing. She slid an incredulous glance at her husband, only to find him watching Richard with a speculative look on his face.
Surely, he wasn’t buying into this load of bullshit?
He shot her a dark, inscrutable look, before diverting his brooding glance back to Richard.
“What are you talking about?” Fern whispered in horror.
“You can come home, Fern. Dickie here is willing to be a father to his child and everything can go back to normal.”
Cade’s knuckles had whitened as his hand tightened over his fist. His face was tense and his eyes stormy with rage as he pressed his knuckles against his lips.
Fern was silent for a long, long moment and then she laughed. Slowly clapping her hands as she watched her stepfather’s smug face go slack with shock.
“Oh bravo, that was magnificent, if somewhat desperate. Did you two really think that nonsense was going to work? Even if Cade believed you, which by the way, Cade… do you?”
He lifted his mouth from his knuckles and gave her a quick, hard little grin, his eyes glinting with something that looked like pride.
“Not on your fucking life, sweetheart.”
“As I was saying… even if Cade believed you, nothing on this earth would ever compel me to go anywhere with you, Granger. I’m never going back. And you’re never getting your greedy, grubby paws on my money again.”
“You ungrateful little bitch.” Granger suddenly dropped all pretense, shedding the concerned stepfather routine the way a snake would shed its skin. “After all I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”
“What have you done for me, Granger? Kept me imprisoned and isolated for over a decade, destroyed my only friend’s entire family, and gaslighted me… all so that you could betray my mother’s trust and steal from me! You’ll forgive me if I find myself a little light on gratitude right now.”