Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 3
Nina
Thaddius doesn’t look like a farmer. Yes, he’s got the faded, stained jeans on, and yes, they are deliciously sinful despite me clearly being decisive about not noticing or caring about stuff like that. He’s more football quarterback in the body than old farmer tough, but maybe that’s because he hasn’t gotten to the old yet. Yes, he’s got the windswept chestnut hair, side parted. It’s long enough that the half mess and half curls somehow equal totally sexy. And yes, strands of it do fall over his forehead. I suppose that’s more backwoods than preppy jock, but he’s also got the bone structure of all the gods, at least when it comes to his face shape, cheekbones, and nose. His jaw, while angular, isn’t too sharp or abrupt. It’s also covered in a fair amount of scruffy beard, not chestnut but a few shades lighter. Beards are entirely nasty, in my opinion, but this scruffy thing that brackets perfect lips? I don’t hate it. Frick, I don’t hate it, just like I don’t hate the fitted grey T-shirt with the dirt smears across the front.
All in all, my betrothed is pretty damn hot.
My ovaries are overly appreciative. Ha, the puns. God, I’m killing myself here. It’s literally been one hell of a journey. I have to do something to amuse myself.
Shit, I forgot his eyes. They’re not piercing dark. They’re light caramel, shaded by auburn brows that match his beard. He has the direct kind of stare that means trouble for all involved. Right now, his eyes are really good at telling me off. They’re snappy, and they’re hooded by his brows just enough to make it obvious that glares from Thaddius could do things—scary or sexy or glaring things—but they’re lit up by surprise as well.
“That’s right,” I tell him, rolling with that momentary speechlessness he’s been struck with. It’s kind of nice. I don’t need another lecture on the fallacies of love from Mr. Hot Philosopher Farmer Pants over here. “We have to figure a way out of this. You have your own money, or so I’ve heard.” My eyes flick up, and I look over his shoulder at the white dots grazing on the other side of the field. “And you have your sheep. You don’t need your family’s wealth. I don’t currently have much of that myself, and I am still a year away from graduating college, but I can figure out a way to make it on my own after that. I don’t need my granny’s money either.”
Thaddius’ jaw sets hard, making his stubble look extra bristly. I kind of want to rub my palms over it and my cheek against his cheek. I think I’d like the burn.
Damn it. It just has to figure that he’d be hot. But he warned me about his not-so-nice nature. He might just be trying to chase me away, but if we’re going with sheep metaphors and cliches here, I’ve heard enough to decide that he’s definitely the black sheep of the family.
“My parents might stay mad at me for the rest of my life,” I go on. Silence makes me nervous. He’s too quiet. “But I can’t live my life just to make them happy. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to either of us that our parents drew this up at our grandmothers’ insistence. Like seriously. It’s just weird and all kinds of wrong. I came because this is the real deal. Both of us need to take it somewhere, get it amended, and sign it to say we’ll never marry each other. Or maybe we can take some of your plentiful wads of cash and bribe someone to give us a blood test and forge the results to say we’re not so distantly related. They can’t make us get married then.”
“I see.”
He sounds more like he’d rather be licking the side of a sheep than talking about this with me. His eyes drop down to my feet, where my fuzzy flip-flops are barely recognizable. They’re more like a not-so-fuzzy muddy monstrosity.
“I think we can just call it off,” he goes on. “Without anything official. You didn’t have to drive all the way here. It was a waste of your time. I would have agreed over the phone. Or even over an email.”
“I think we need a contract. You have no idea the lengths our grandmothers are willing to go.”
Emotional blackmail would probably be the first step, like disinheriting my parents.
“Oh, I think I do. Mine calls me the devil for moving out here and thwarting her. She doesn’t really mean it, but still. You should have just told your family to pound sand because this whole thing is insane. You could have told them you weren’t interested. This signing business isn’t going to happen because we don’t need to find a lawyer to refuse to get married. I might not have taken this seriously ever since I found out when I was a kid. Not until recently, at least, and still, I was never going to let my family force me into marrying someone I didn’t love.”