Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“It was at a company event this summer. He’d always… looked at me like that. Like I was eye candy. But you and I were fighting, and you left with…” I didn’t say her name. “And your father approached me.”
“What happened?” he asked, low and brutal.
“Look, I handled it. He touched my butt, and then I poured my drink on him. He’s never done it again. But I know the kind of person he is.”
Camden looked like he was about to explode. “And he’s never going to do it again because I am going to kill him.”
I squeezed his hand and held him in place. “Camden, no, please. I don’t want you to do anything. I never told you because I knew this would happen. I knew you’d be mad.” Or he wouldn’t care. Though I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I’d thought it was a possibility. “I don’t want or need you to defend my honor.”
“Katherine, he touched you.”
“And?” I demanded, holding my ground. “For one, I told you that to explain that I understood your anger and that you could tell me what was going on. And two, why do you even seem to care?”
“Fine. He was pissed about Candice coming home pregnant. He wanted to know why we weren’t pregnant. Suggested that I wasn’t doing my duty,” Camden told me.
I winced at the words. The ones we had been arguing about before his father went and spit on him about it. It wasn’t Camden who wasn’t ready to have a baby. It was me. And I could see that written on his face.
“I see,” I whispered.
“Yes, so do you see why I didn’t tell you about what he said? You’d just get more pissed off that I was bringing this shit up to you.”
“Fine,” I said, straightening my spine and letting the rest of it drop. “But you didn’t answer my second question. Why did you get so mad? It’s not like we’re together. Not like that. We haven’t been for a while.”
“You are my wife,” he said fiercely, as if that explained everything.
Considering the fact that this had all been arranged and Camden never seemed to care one way or another that I was his wife, it didn’t feel like enough of an answer. Was he mad because it was his father? Was he mad because it was me? It didn’t make sense. Not with how we’d been together for months.
“So?”
“What do you mean, so?” he asked. “You’re my wife. If another man touches you—I don’t care who the fuck he is—I’ll kill him.”
I froze at those words. I wanted to relish them. I hadn’t been with another man other than my husband, but that didn’t mean that he had been similarly faithful. Not that either of us had made promises to each other. Not for a long time. He could do whatever he wanted. And he did.
“I don’t see why,” I told him.
He just shook his head. “It’s been a long fucking night. I don’t want to talk any more about this. I want to get drunk and forget this night ever happened.”
“I could drink with you,” I offered.
“No, forget it,” he said, pushing away from me and heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked, following him.
“Out. I need to blow off some steam.”
“Camden, we’re leaving in the morning. Just stay here and get drunk and sleep it off.”
He’d already grabbed his coat and pressed the button for the elevator. I couldn’t believe this was happening. What the hell had really happened with his father that made him react like this?
“Should I go with you?” I offered in vain.
His eyes lifted to me. “I wouldn’t have even had this conversation with my father if you’d held up your end of the deal.”
I took a step back in shock. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Your father is a dick. That has nothing to do with me.”
“Sure, Katherine.”
Then he stepped into the elevator and left me behind in his apartment. I stared at the closed doors in shock. Camden and I had our differences. We yelled at each other and hurt each other. This should have been par for the course. Especially after how I’d acted on our anniversary.
This was why I didn’t put myself out there. He had accused me of being the problem, of the things that his father was responsible for. Nowhere in the contract did it say that I had to be pregnant in the first year. It just said have a baby, for fuck’s sake.
I stormed away from the elevator and went into the extra bedroom where I’d stashed my suitcase for the vacation tomorrow. I’d planned to stay here so that I wouldn’t have to wake up and get over here before we headed to the airport. I was regretting that now. It would be nice not to sleep under the same roof as him.