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)
“How’d you get that scan if you haven’t seen a doctor yet?”
“After a missed period, nausea, mood swings, swollen and tender breasts—” She blushed when his eyes fleetingly dipped toward her breasts, before he dragged them determinedly back up to her face. “And two positive home pregnancy tests. Which—let me tell you—were not easy to obtain in a place where my every move was watched like a hawk, I snuck out to a walk-in clinic for confirmation. That’s when I got the scan. They confirmed the pregnancy, handed over some pamphlets about prenatal care as well as options on whom to reach out to if I couldn’t keep or have the baby. They also referred me to several OBGYNs and advised me to have some other tests to rule out, y’know…” She flushed and shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. “To rule out STDs and stuff.”
Cade tugged at his collar, sharing her discomfort with the subject matter. He felt like a dumb teenager. He’d used a condom for God’s sake, this was not a conversation they should even be having.
Yet here they were.
“You weren’t a student,” he said choosing not to address—or think of—anything else just yet. “Why were they still watching you like a hawk?”
He was immediately annoyed with himself for asking. He didn’t want to know more about her than absolutely necessary.
Fern moved toward the kitchen counter and climbed onto one of the high barstools, coming dangerously close to giving him a panty flash. He quickly averted his eyes and when he looked back at her after a moment, she’d placed her elbows on the marble countertop and propped her chin in her hands.
“Because my stepfather paid them to,” she informed with a shrug. “They were nothing more than glorified babysitters, and I was their unwilling hostage.”
His jaw tightened but he chose not probe any further.
Fern knew she must seem like an absolute doormat to him. It embarrassed her, how completely under Granger’s control she’d been.
She lowered a hand to trace a pale green vein on the white marble countertop, ashamed now by how very little power she’d had in her life. And she now—for the first time since making this arrangement—wondered how much more of it she’d ceded to Cade.
“I borrowed the money,” she admitted, her voice soft and self-conscious. “From a student. For the train fare to the clinic. I didn’t want to go to the clinic in town, everybody would know. I had to find a way to get to Bern and have it done there.”
His eyebrows lowered into a formidable frown.
“Why borrow money? You were working for the school, right?”
She laughed, the sound devoid of any humor. “They let me to stay because it was convenient to my stepfather. He paid them to keep me there. My job? Purely made up. I was allowed to stand in the classroom, hand out assignments, write notes on the whiteboard. I worked for room and board and earned a small weekly salary for personal items. Honestly? I don’t think the arrangement was even legal. The salary was barely enough for even a return train ticket from Rapperswil to Bern.”
She covered her face with her hands and heaved a sigh into her palms.
“I must seem like such a loser to you.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I’m beginning to comprehend just how much courage it must have taken for you to come to me the other night.”
The words were delivered in such a carefully neutral, unemotional tone that it took Fern a second to recognize that he’d paid her a compliment.
“Yeah, it takes a lot of guts to sneak out of your room and slide a letter under somebody’s door,” she said dismissively and his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t do that.” This time there was censure in his voice and in the thinning of his lips. “Don’t trivialize what you did. It was a huge step, and it altered the course of your life.”
“Cade, I swapped masters. That’s all.”
His eyes snapped dangerously, and he jerked upright at her words. She’d offended him. She could tell. She wasn’t even sure why she’d said it. Except that she really felt like she’d exchanged one man dictating her life for another.
“How the fuck can you say that?” he asked, his voice tight, his back and shoulders rigid with tension. “I have no interest in controlling your every move, Fern. You’re so used to being managed that you’ve failed to recognize that you’re now the mistress of your own fate. I have your mother’s company and that’s all I’ll ever want from you. You will soon have a hundred and fifty million pounds in your bank account, to do with whatever the fuck you want. You also own several properties in about eight different countries on three separate continents, including this one.”
She blinked at him, the reality of her situation finally starting to sink in, and she felt the beginnings of a soft, hesitant smile tug at her lips.