Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Will do, Mr. Proctor. Thank you.”
“No thanks needed,” he said. “Take care of her. Tell her I am thinking about her and she can take as much time as she needs. I will smooth it over with the office.”
I hung up and kissed her head again.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
“Is he mad?” she asked.
“No, not at all.” I kissed her head again as we stood. “He’s more worried about you than anything else. Come on, let’s get on back to my place. I bought a couple of bottles of ginger ale.”
I grinned, and a faint smile curled her lip again.
“Okay,” she said. I took her hand, and we began to walk.
“Don’t worry. We will figure this out.”
CHAPTER 27
CAMILLA
I was positive now that I was at the beginning of the end of my relationship with Alex. There was no way he was going to keep dealing with all of this. He was being nice to me right now and got me out of the school when it was so obvious I wasn’t going to be able to handle being there for any longer. But he was a good guy. A kind, decent, compassionate man who wouldn’t want to see someone suffering.
Maybe that was all that was motivating this. I was so sure he was already thinking about how he was going to unravel himself from me. It was so clear that I was nothing but trouble, that trouble followed me wherever I went, and it was more than he was going to be willing to deal with.
What man in his right mind would want to tie himself up with a woman who had a violent, obsessive ex who had just gotten out of jail and was going to do everything he could to hunt her down? There was no reason Alex should have to deal with any of that. It wasn’t like he knew Doug or had seen us through our relationship. He would just be throwing himself into the deep end of our drama, and I couldn’t believe he was actually going to be willing to do that.
And to top it all off, I might be pregnant with his baby. In fact, I was almost certain I was. So sure, in fact, I almost said it out loud at the school when Alex was talking to me about Doug. When I was telling him that I was afraid of my ex’s reaction and what he was going to do, the first thing that came to my mind wasn’t him finding me and hurting me.
I was terrified for the potential baby. The first worry that came to my thoughts was that he would find out about the baby and try to take it from me. As disturbing as the thought of him raising a child was, it was something Doug always wanted.
He talked all the time about one day having children of his own. I was under no delusion that desire came from any kind of place of tenderness or actual care. It was all his arrogance talking. He wanted children because he thought he was a gift to mankind already and wanted to see more of himself in the world. He wanted the control and the power.
I knew if he found out I was pregnant, he wouldn’t hesitate to assume the baby was his and come for it. I couldn’t bear the thought of going through that.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was too much to try to think about all at the same time.
When Alex brought me to his house, I was expecting him to drop me off and go back to the vineyard or at the most to tuck me away in the bedroom and go about his day. Instead, he got me changed into comfortable clothes, settled me on the couch, and took out his phone.
I was so surprised by what he was doing, it actually took me until the third phone call for me to realize he was calling all of his brothers and gathering them up. When he finished with the last call, he came over to the couch and sat down beside me.
“My brothers are on their way,” he said.
“All of them?” I asked, stunned the four men who barely knew me would drop what they were doing in the middle of the day just because I was going through a personal crisis.
Alex nodded. “They want to help. Have you spoken with Fiona?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t even think about it.”
“You should call her. Get her over here. She needs to be a part of this too.”
He was right, of course. My best friend needed to know what was going on, and I wanted her there for me. I took out my phone, shaking a little when I dialed her number. She answered with her usual inquiry.