Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80283 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80283 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“I’m not going to die of pneumonia.”
He rolls his eyes. “Right. You’re going to prick your finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on your twenty-sixth birthday.”
I bristle. “Usually it involves a fall down some stairs or being thrown from a horse, which you’ll see if you take even a cursory glance at my family tree. But sure, make jokes. It’s easy to make jokes when you know everything there is to know about everything and are right and perfect and even your armpits smell nice all the time.”
“My armpits do not smell nice all the time,” he says, his volume rising.
“That hasn’t been my experience,” I shout back. “And people who’ve never had stinky armpits or been kidnapped and returned to a playground hours after they were abducted to find that their sisters and nanny think they’ve only been gone a few minutes don’t have the right to tell other people what is real. My real isn’t your real or anyone else’s real. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll stop being so grouchy about people not behaving the way you think they should.”
“So, you’re saying that reality is subjective?” He scowls harder, seeming truly disturbed by the thought. “That’s insane, Elizabeth. Some things are verifiably real. Some things, like the fact that you’ve been hiding a phone from me, are true and able-to-be-proven and are the same for everyone, no matter their past life experience or point of view.”
“Not true.” I shiver harder even as sweat beads on the back of my neck. “In my reality, I was protecting my sister’s future happiness. I wasn’t hiding anything; I was defending the person I love most in the world. So take that!”
He sighs. “Get in the bath, Elizabeth. I’ll be back with medication. And then I’m going to find the phone and call my brother.”
I leap forward, grabbing him by the arm, finally starting to feel embarrassed by the fact that I’m half naked. Blushing, I beg, “Please, can we fight about this later? When I’m wearing a shirt?”
“I’m not looking, I promise,” he says in a softer voice.
“I know.” My cheeks burn hotter. “You aren’t interested. You’ve made that abundantly clear. You don’t have to rub it in.”
His cool hand cups my cheek, applying gentle pressure until I tilt my face up to his. “You. Are. My. Brother’s. Fiancée,” he repeats, pushing on before I can correct him again. “But if you were not…”
He exhales, his breath minty on my lips, smelling of the tea I forced him to share with me before we drifted off on the couch. He’s a coffee man, but I told him it was too late for coffee, and I’m so glad I did. Right now, the warm mintiness of his breath is the sexiest smell in the world.
I won’t be able to smell mint again without thinking of him.
Of the way his fingers are threading into my hair as he tips his forehead closer to mine and whispers, “I would make love to you every minute of every day until we were both too exhausted to move. And then I’d take a nap with you curled up in my armpit and wake up and start all over again. I want to be inside you almost as much as I want your fever to break.”
My nerve endings tingle with delight, and goosebumps rise on my skin. “We don’t have to wait until my fever breaks. I’m not contagious.”
“But you are out of your head,” he says. “And you’re still engaged to my brother. But…that could all change with a phone call. Tell me where the phone is, Lizzy, and let me put an end to this farce before someone gets hurt.”
I bite my lip and wrap my arms around my shivering body. “I can’t. Please understand. Everything is going to be fine. Andrew and Sabrina are going to be happy.”
“I have to call my brother.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, sensing he’s nearly at the end of his patience. “We’ll do it together. But promise you won’t call until I’m better? You’re right, I’m not in my right mind, and I should be. I have to explain things in a way that won’t make everyone hate me. Or each other.” I cast pleading eyes up at Jeffrey. “That’s what I’m most worried about. If this doesn’t come out the right way, Andrew might hate Sabrina, and this isn’t her fault. I’m the sneaky one. I should be punished and despised. He and Sabrina should stay in love and be happy and make beautiful babies together.”
His gaze remains narrow, but his jaw softens slightly, giving me the courage to add, “Pretty please? Two days. Give me two more days to get well, and then we’ll call our siblings and sort everything out.” I press my lips together for a beat before adding, “And then you and I can see what we think about each other with all the conflicts of interest out of the way.”