Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Every single move he’d made had been with my pleasure, my comfort, my happiness, in the forefront of his mind, and I’d never felt so special in my life.
And I wanted to feel it again.
I wanted to make him feel that, too.
I hadn’t asked him to annul the marriage because I didn’t want to be with him. Wanting to be with him was the whole problem in the first place.
If he felt the same way I did…
I turned my face out of the pillow and took a deep breath through my nostrils. I sighed it out of my mouth and sat up, scanning the room for any sign of him. Finding none, I resigned myself to getting out of bed and going on a hunt for him.
There was no way I was going back to sleep now.
I grabbed my dressing gown from the hook and put it on, tying the belt firmly around my waist. I paused to slip my feet into my mouse slippers before heading out of the bedroom and meandering my way through the manor. I greeted all the staff I came across happily, and Harry even looked taken aback by my brightness.
Thankfully, he was a smart man and merely asked if I’d like a cup of tea.
I rejected his kind offer and shuffled down the hallway to where Fred’s office was. The door was slightly ajar, and I frowned—he always kept it closed.
I peeked my head through the gap and glanced around the room. He was at his desk, bent over, with his head resting on his forearms. His upper back and shoulders gently rose and fell with his steady breaths, and I bit back a laugh.
Had he been sleeping here all night?
His back was going to kill him when he woke up.
Well, that was his own fault.
I quietly stepped inside and clicked the door shut. He barely stirred at the noise, and I tiptoed over when something in the empty fireplace caught my eye.
I paused for a moment, then changed course. It was an envelope, and I bent down to pull it out of the hearth. The contents were torn, and it took a great deal of effort to reach inside and pull them out without making too much noise.
Annulment papers.
Torn up annulment papers, to be exact.
My heart thumped. Had Fred done this? Why had he torn them up and thrown them into the fireplace? Sure, they were largely useless now, but…
I swallowed, looking towards the desk. There was another envelope and papers resting in front of his sleeping form, and my heart beat wildly again.
They looked familiar.
Clutching the ripped annulment in one hand, I walked over to the desk and picked up the others.
Divorce papers.
Our divorce papers.
Why was Fred at his desk with the divorce papers we’d drafted before we got married?
I’d meant it yesterday when I’d asked for this, but now that I was looking at them in front of me, I didn’t want this at all.
If he was going to do this, why had he not just done it last night? Why do all those things to me if he was just going to give me the papers in the first place?
Wait.
No.
I knew Fred. This wasn’t like him. The fact the annulment papers were torn and tossed into the fireplace told me everything I needed to know—that there was a genuine reason for this.
Besides, he’d told me he loved me. And the part of me that desperately wanted him to mean that the way I did clung to those words. Panicking and overthinking wasn’t going to achieve anything right now.
I sat down in the chair opposite him, putting the annulment papers on the desk, and gave the divorce ones my full attention. I didn’t need to flick through them. I knew what they said. The memory of writing them and the fights that ensued were as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.
I wanted nothing.
He was the one doing me a favour, after all.
Now, I still wanted nothing.
Nothing but him.
I swallowed, staring at them until the letters all blurred together. I couldn’t live without him. That had always been the case, but now, it was pure fact.
I couldn’t divorce him.
I wouldn’t divorce him.
I had to tell him how I felt. I had to be honest with him.
I was going to look him in the eye and say, “I’m in love with you, Fred,” as many times as it took for him to get the message.
Because he loved me, too.
“Deli?”
My name was but a whisper from his lips, and my stomach clenched at the fearful undercurrent in his voice.
I peered up slightly. “Well,” I said softly. “I didn’t take you for someone who’d fuck me then divorce me the next morning, Fred.”
He froze. “It’s not—no. It’s not what you…” He moved quickly, knocking something to the floor with a smash. “Oh, shit.”