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)
“She was different from everyone else there,” he said. “Shy, quiet… and that was what drew me to her. Peaceful, serene moonlight, in the middle of all the clashing colors and chaos.”
The audience aawed and Mike Holmes smiled.
“You’re more poetic than I gave you credit for,” he said.
“What can I say?” Cade asked with a careless shrug. “She brings it out of me.”
“Fern, do you want to continue?” the host invited and Fern chewed on her lip while considering what to say next.
“We were drawn to each other, I knew who he was. He didn’t know me. Nobody knew me. My stepfather ensured that I was always heard of but never seen. If you’ve done any research into me before the show, I’m sure you found little to no pictures of me online from before my marriage.”
“You’d be right about that,” the man agreed with a somber nod. “Did you tell Niall of your connection to Granger Abernathy that night?”
“No, it was the first taste of freedom I’d had in fifteen years. I wasn’t going to ruin it by bringing my stepfather into the conversation. Cade knew my first name only.”
“Cade?” the man asked blankly.
“That’s my uhm nickname for him.”
“Oh?” The host still looked puzzled.
“It’s my second name,” Cade elaborated with an easy chuckle. “Fern likes it.”
“Right, of course.” Mike Holmes nodded, his smile back. He glanced down at his notes, before continuing, “So what happened that first night?”
Fern blushed and shook her head, lowering her eyes to their linked fingers.
“That’s personal, Mike,” Cade inserted smoothly and Mike, along with the audience, chuckled as if on cue. Inferring, quite correctly, what they refused to speak of.
“Right. And were you in contact after that?”
“Not at all,” Fern said. “But when Cade and his father showed up at my stepfather’s home two months later, and we saw each other again…”
“I’d been thinking about her non-stop since that night,” Cade inserted quietly and Fern slanted him a swift, amused glance, knowing he’d mostly been cringing at the memory of the bad sex. “It felt like a bizarre dream seeing her there again.”
“You got married the very next day,” the host pointed out. “How did that come to pass?”
“Two reasons,” Fern said and now Cade was the one who side-eyed her, looking alarmed because she was going off-book. This time she squeezed his hand, hoping he’d understand that it was a plea for him to trust her. “We saw each other and the sparks were still there, as powerful as the night we’d met. And… well, I’d been trying to find a way to contact him rather urgently since that night but our interlude had ended without us exchanging any personal information. He didn’t have my full name, and as you can imagine, it’s not very easy just finding contact details online for a man like Cade Hawthorne. But I was desperate to speak with him, because I’m pregnant, you see? And when we saw each other again, and realized that we still had all these feelings for each other—added to my pregnancy?—we knew the only next step for us was marriage.”
The audience—more captivated by their story than she’d ever imagined they would be, along with Mike Holmes—gasped in unison to her revelation.
“You’re pregnant?” Mike Holmes repeated. Fern imagined that not many things shocked or surprised this man, but she could see that her words had absolutely thrown him for a loop and he glanced up at his teleprompter, then down at the cards in his hands. Before eyeing the camera wryly and making a big show of tossing the cards up in the air.
Fern, as well as Cade, whose lips had tightened—his only outward show of disapproval at what she’d done—laughed at the dramatic gesture.
“And I take it this is your official announcement then?” Mike asked and Fern kept her eyes on the host’s face, while trying to ignore the way her husband’s grip had tightened to the point of pain around her hand.
“Only Cade’s family knew. So yes, this would be our first public announcement.”
“Congratulations!” the host proclaimed, while the audience applauded enthusiastically. “Do you know what you’re having?”
Fern canted her head genuinely befuddled by the question before replying without thinking, “A baby, Mike.”
The audience hooted in appreciation and Fern went bright red as she belatedly understood what the man had meant by the question and recognized that her response must have seemed facetious. Not that Mike Holmes or his audience seemed to mind.
The host eased over her awkwardness like the consummate professional he was, by mugging for the camera and then angling his gaze toward Cade quizzically.
Fern sneaked a peek and was relieved to note that her husband’s eyes had sparked with reluctant amusement and a small, wry grin lifted his lips.
“We don’t know yet,” he clarified. “But, as I’m sure you’ve gleaned from Fern’s response, it doesn’t really matter to us.”