Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
That knocks the socks right out of the room. By socks, I mean air, and by the room, I mean my lungs. I need to reach for the counter to keep myself upright. The kitchen was small before, but now it seems like a black hole ready to suck me up.
“I don’t know how to respond to that.” Weland reads the room, and her posture changes, softening out. She’s not on the attack anymore, and she’s not defensive. She sighs instead of saying anything else, but then, after a brief moment, she does, adding, “I don’t know where to go from here. I want things you can’t give me. Meaning a partner, a marriage, a child, a family, and a life. I’m tired of being in limbo. I get that I signed a contract, and whatever you might think, I’m not reneging on it, and I’m sorry for the worry I caused. Maybe I brought this all on myself by saying what I said, and for that, I apologize.
“I’m still offended by you tricking me when you could have just been honest, and it’s going to take me a hot minute to get over it. So, yup, that’s where we’re at. I’m not sure how to go from here to everlasting happiness, but I know it’s not together, and honestly, that feels like a shame because, in a year, I was really hoping you’d remember my dog and me and do the impossible. However, now I’m finding out I might not have to wait a year, yet it’s actually a hard no and a never because you’re not who I thought you were.”
“Maybe I’m not who you think I am in that regard either.”
“Right,” she says with a snort. “You’re not that contracted husband—my secret piece of paper, name blacked out, ultra-private, keep-my-lips-shut gag order deal husband. You’re some other guy who secretly wants to make this marriage the real deal, and you’re actually here to find out if that’s even possible, if we could even like each other as friends, let alone ever think about being married for real, having babies, and doing life together. And you had to come in and do it undercover because it’s the only thing that would have worked, and it wasn’t all some bizarre test. You’re that kind of secret husband.”
I’m not one of those people whose brain takes off and makes them say things without thinking about them first and carefully weighing every single option. Without watching my back, guarding my fanny, and constantly looking over my shoulder. Without researching things first.
Except, apparently, I am.
“What if I were that kind of secret husband? What if we gave this marriage a real shot?”
Chapter seven
Weland
Hallucinations aren’t a thing for me. Auditory hallucinations included.
Normally.
I must have eaten something wild before bed, and this is all a dream. Maybe the one odd hour of sleep I had just isn’t cutting it. Whatever was going on, whatever I promised myself that I would roll out of bed and manifest the shit out of, nothing could have prepared me for this. In short, if it’s not a dream and it’s not real, then it has to be a hallucination. There is no Sterling, and he’s not incredibly hot, so hot that it’s a little bit unfair because no one on earth should get to be that good-looking, plus tall, dreamy, swoony, and good-smelling. He’s not here in my kitchen, and I didn’t just threaten to dice his arse ten ways to Sunday with a carrot peeler. He, for sure, didn’t just tell me he wanted to give this marriage a good old-fashioned shot. He did not just tell me he wanted to have babies with me.
Alright, so he didn’t say that last bit.
It’s just that making this marriage work, doing life together, finding out that it does work, and then eventually falling in love and being there for each other would probably one day entail us having a family. Becoming a family.
Holy banana and Beans’ farts, I need to sit down.
I stumble over to the super tiny round glass table and chair set I have in the corner. Pulling one chair out, I barely catch myself in it before my legs go into jelly mode. Across the room, Beans lifts his head and makes a sudden noise, growling low in his throat.
“I’m okay, boy. It’s all good,” I assure him.
But honestly, I don’t know if it’s all good, and I’m definitely not okay. How can this be happening? I can see how the dots can be easily connected, but it’s still just so crazy.
Sterling doesn’t walk over, but he’s still so close because the kitchen is so small. This whole condo is so tiny. It feels like he’s sucked all the air out of the room with his incredibly good-looking vortex and the huge bomb he just dropped on me.