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)
Fern stared at their pictures and felt a surge of depression. Nobody would ever believe the whole love at first sight nonsense on the strength of these images. Cade Hawthorne could have any woman on the planet and, when they saw that picture of her, people would wonder why Fern?
She’d never minded her appearance much. She’d cursed her sun resistant vampire skin, her lack of height and curves, but she didn’t mind the way her features were put together. They were ordinary, but they weren’t terrible. And her one vanity was her hair, thick, wavy, soft she loved it because it reminded her of her mother. Those evenings before bed when she’d knelt in front of her mum while the woman brushed her hair. Her mother had loved spreading the strands over her lap and remarking on the color.
So no, Fern didn’t mind how she looked, but she knew that as a match for someone like Cade Hawthorne, she fell woefully short. No wonder he hadn’t enjoyed sex with her. She glumly stared at the list of names on one of the more gossipy articles—women Cade had been linked with in the past. Models, of course, actresses, pop stars—he’d even dated pop icon Laura Prentiss for a short time for goodness’ sake—and socialites. The list was daunting. Redheads, blondes, brunettes, tall, short, slim, curvy, all ethnicities and races—the one thing they all had in common was staggering beauty.
And Fern while passable was no beauty.
She shook her head, annoyed with herself for going down this rabbit hole and closed the internet browser. For a moment she stared at the numbered red tags on her apps and briefly considered just deleting everything unread. But she knew cowardice wasn’t going to help her. She’d made her decision—she ought to stand by it.
With that thought firmly in her mind, she dragged her thumb across the screen, knowing that time had come to face the music.
Chapter
Nine
Cade stopped dead in his tracks as he heard a familiar voice echoing down the hallway toward him. A voice he’d ever expected to hear in his own home.
Fucking Granger Abernathy.
His voice was muffled and coming from behind the closed door of Fern’s room. It was clear that he was shouting and this pissed Cade all the way off. Fern had married him to get away from this fucker, so why in hell was she taking his calls?
He stomped his way to her door and without thinking, swung it open and stepped into the room.
He blinked in confusion, when he found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, wearing nothing but knee-high socks and a T-shirt that was hiked so far up it revealed every inch of her pale thighs all the way up to her sage green panties.
“Uh…” He blinked at the unexpected expanse of silky skin on display before hastily diverting his gaze up to her face.
She was staring back at him in shock, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes wide… the flush creeping up her face added a bloom of delicate color to her cheeks. Her hair was wet and loose. Cade bit back a groan at the sight of it. It was so long it tumbled over her shoulders and down her back, with a good few damp inches left to pool on the bedcover around her thighs and butt.
“C-Cade?” She had her phone in her hand and she hastily lowered it to her lap, the move thankfully covering up her crotch area.
“I heard Abernathy’s voice,” he said, his voice rough. Jesus, he sounded like he’d swallowed rocks for breakfast and chased them down with a bottle of Glenfiddich.
“I was catching up on my messages,” she told him, lifting the phone to show him, then going an even deeper shade of pink as she very quickly lowered her hand. “Granger is very unhappy.”
“So that wasn’t a phone call?” he clarified.
“No, of course not.”
“He was shouting.”
“He always is.”
Cade eyed the soft-spoken fae-like creature sitting in the middle of that huge bed and felt an irrational surge of rage at the thought of Abernathy raising his voice to her.
“Not at you. Not anymore,” he told her. “Block him. If he wants to discuss this matter any further, he can contact me.”
Fern did not like the implacable way Cade had commanded her to block Granger.
“That will only enrage him further,” she argued. “If he knows I’m entirely complicit in this matter, that it was my idea, he might back off.”
He gave her a look of such pitying condescension she very nearly flinched away from it.
“You truly believe that hearing it was your idea would make him back off? When he’s been bullying you your entire life? If anything, it’ll make him come at you harder, he’d never accept being bested by someone he doesn’t respect. Telling him it was your idea is the last thing we should do right now.”