Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t nothing.” His sharp tone cut through her defensive words with surgical precision. “It wasn’t fucking nothing, Kenna. It was something. And it happened to you. It happened to us. And that’s important too. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a goddamn minute to grieve and recover both physically and emotionally.”
Her voice dropped to a distraught whisper. “This is the only way I know how to do that.”
His lips clamped shut on whatever he’d been about to say next and his jaw tightened. Those piercing green eyes bored into hers and she swallowed uncomfortably, not sure what to make of that intent stare.
“You’re really going to do this?”
Her hand tightened around the handle of her briefcase. The loaded question confused her because she wasn’t at all certain what he meant by it.
“I’m not—”
“You’re going to pretend that it never happened? That it didn’t matter? That he didn’t matter?”
Her throat seized up at the barrage of questions and she fought hard to keep her expression under control, not wanting him to see the anguish hiding behind her calm veneer.
“I have to go,” she whispered through stiff lips. “Paul is waiting with the car.”
She brushed by him to make her way to her driver.
“You can’t possibly be this cold.”
The words drifted toward her in an anguished undertone and she halted for the briefest of moments, her back to him, as she absorbed the hit. For those few awful seconds she allowed herself to feel, allowed every soul-destroying emotion that lurked just beneath her paper-thin skin to show on her face, before she squared her shoulders. She scraped every errant emotion back into her chest, desperate to escape from the anger, grief, and pain she could hear in his furious voice.
She couldn’t—she simply could not—deal with his pain when she was barely coping with her own. It would destroy her. Tear her to pieces. And she didn’t think she could survive that.
Not one bit.
So she left before she gave in to the temptation to turn back toward him, to lose herself in his arms. She was out the door before he saw the tears streaming down her face and the agony in her eyes.
Kenny didn’t ever want this man to see her so vulnerable. Not when he had married her out of some misguided sense of obligation and not when he was bound to recognize, sooner rather than later, that the reason he’d married her no longer existed.
Best not to get too emotionally dependent on him. Not when he would inevitably leave her.
Day 188
A momentary weakness. It meant nothing. But for some reason they were still bound together in this ridiculous sham of a marriage. And as far as Kenny could tell, Smith was as faithful to their vows as she’d been.
They’d always been good together. And it had been so long since she’d been touched like this. Touched by him.
They were healthy, consenting adults who’d always enjoyed each other’s bodies. And besides they were married…for now.
Surely there was no harm in enjoying the one thing that had always worked between them? At least while they were still married.
It needn’t be more complicated than that. Just the occasional slaking of an insatiable thirst.
Day 540
“You okay?”
Kenny’s head jerked up at the unexpected sound of Smith’s voice.
“You’re back.” Her redundant observation felt a little ludicrous considering the man was standing right there. In the flesh, looming above her larger than life, and bristling with that restless energy so unique to him.
He grunted, broad shoulders lifting and falling in answer to her words.
“Bad news?” he asked, tilting his chin toward the phone clutched in her hands and she lowered her gaze to the device.
Oh, right.
Smith’s unexpected appearance after a two-week long business trip to Tokyo had offered a welcome diversion from the news she’d just received.
“You didn’t tell me you’d be back today.”
He must’ve just arrived. He was dressed in faded jeans and a black and blue plaid shirt, sleeves messily rolled up to his elbows, top three buttons undone, thick dark gold stubble shadowing the strong line of his jaw. He had a leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder, which, combined with the gold rimmed glasses he rarely used perched on his sharp nose and the messy, hand-raked waves of his red gold hair, gave him a professorial appearance.
A hot, weary professor.
“Since you never see the need to check in with me with your comings and goings, I didn’t think you’d care about my schedule.” The words were flung at her as nonchalantly as his bag—undoubtedly filled with important documents outlining deals worth millions and millions of dollars—was tossed onto the coffee table in front of her.
He was clearly still pissed off about her unannounced trip to Edinburgh last month.
She hadn’t expected him to be quite so…furious about that. She’d seen the blaze of his eyes, the set of his jaw, the compressed line of his lips. Witnessed the clench of those strong, big hands and the tense sweep of those impressively broad shoulders. And then she’d watched him draw that anger inward and push the indifferent frost outward.