Chapter 25 #2
“Fuck, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to look worse than Nox does right now, but here we are,” Gideon breathed, his amused but contemptuous gaze raking over Smith in disdain.
Smith was well aware he looked awful. He hadn’t shaved since he’d gone camping with Kenna a week ago. His hair needed trimming, and his clothes were sweat-stained, grease-streaked, and grimy.
And he was absolutely knackered.
After wrapping up his business in Riversend, he’d finally left at noon, and had been on the road for seven hours—eight if one included the annoying stop in the middle to change a punctured tire.
Only to arrive home to face this angry and hostile crowd.
He was tired, irritable, hungry, thirsty, and fuck it, longing to see Kenna.
And she was the only fucking person not here.
“Where’s my wife?” he demanded of the room in general, and every brow raised in response.
“I’m not sure you’re entitled to call me that anymore,” the quiet voice that he’d been longing to hear said behind him.
He swiveled on his heel to face her, suppressing the wild joy that had bloomed in his heart at the sound of that voice.
She looked fucking phenomenal.
She was wearing an ice-blue silk sheath dress.
It fell to just below her knees, hugging all her curves, and was held up by the thinnest of spaghetti straps.
Once again, his modestly endowed wife had opted out of wearing a bra and his mouth went dry at the sight of that modest cleavage, so beautifully showcased by the draped cowl neck of that dress.
She folded her arms protectively over her chest and he recognized that he’d been staring enough for her to notice. And take exception.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he greeted tenderly, longing to take her in his arms. But those frigid eyes and the closed-off body language told him that the gesture would not be appreciated. “You didn’t tell me we were hosting the old man’s birthday this year.”
Her full lips thinned.
Her glossy black hair was swept over one creamy shoulder. She’d done something to her eyes to make them all smoky and mysterious. And her full lips boasted a shade of dusky pink lipstick that he longed to eat right off her mouth.
God, she was beautiful.
“What are you doing here, Smith?” Her voice held all the warmth of an arctic tundra. “You’re ruining my father’s birthday party.”
He grimaced and tossed a look over his shoulder at them. Every single man in that room looked ready to tear him limb from limb.
“Can we talk?” he asked, lowering his voice. “Privately?”
Her eyes narrowed and she looked at him with a speculative glint before shaking her head.
“Nope,” she decided. “If you have anything to say to me, Smith, you can do it here. In front of my family.”
Fine.
“Right.” He ran a hand through his hair and cast another look at her family. Gideon sat down, stretching his long legs out in front of him and leaning back to watch with an obnoxious shit-eating grin on his face. The other men followed suit. Fern and Beth both looked sympathetic but curious.
Well, it didn’t look like there was any way out of this, and really, he deserved this little bit of payback for the way he’d royally fucked everything up.
“I shouldn’t have left the way I did,” he began.
But he was nervous and the words spilled from his lips faster than he’d intended and clumsily bumped into each other in their haste to be heard. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to slow things down.
“I’m sorry, Kenna. I fucked up. I needed to think.
Needed to figure out how to tell you that our new arrangement wasn’t working for me.
That I didn’t want to wait and see what would come of it.
We had one rule, one clear-cut fucking rule.
Communication. We’d talk to each other, be honest about our feelings, and within days, you were keeping how much you hated camping from me.
And I was keeping how much I hated that you hadn’t told me that immediately from you.
“We were back to repeating the cycle we were desperately trying to break and I was afraid of what that meant. Concerned that we would never figure this out. I needed to clear my head, think things through. And I stupidly decided to head back to Outeniqua. I figured, the gear was packed, I had enough food, why not head up to my favorite campsite to clear my head? I never intended to leave without a word. I sent a text. I swear to God, I did. But it failed to send. I didn’t even realize it until two days later.
“Going off like that in the first place was wrong. I know that. How fucking arrogant of me to head off into the wilderness to make decisions about our relationship by myself. At least that’s one thing my dumb, impulsive trip gave me the clarity to see.
It wasn’t my place to make decisions about us.
That was something we should have been doing together.
As soon as I realized what a moron I was being, I left.
I’m fucking ashamed that it took me as long as it did to figure it out.
I arrived back in town yesterday, but you were gone.
” His voice cracked embarrassingly and he stopped, desperately hunting for any semblance of composure.
Kenna’s lips trembled, and she cast a quick, uncertain look at her very silent family.
“Maybe we should talk privately after all,” she suggested.
Kenny didn’t know what she’d been expecting after walking in earlier to find Smith demanding to know where his wife was, but this certainly wasn’t it. She thought maybe he’d returned to pick up the rest of his things.
She’d demanded he speak in front of her family because she’d expected to need their support.
She wasn’t sure what this was, but seeing how frantic he was, hearing his desperation…
No. This was definitely not a discussion she wanted to have in front of her brothers.
He shocked her by sinking to his knees in front of her.
“Smith, what are you doing?”
His hand went to his breast pocket, and he fumbled for something before holding her wedding rings aloft.
“I don’t want a divorce!”
The words were tossed down like a gauntlet. Combative. Loud and a little desperate.
He stared at her through wild eyes. He looked so tired and a little beat up, thanks to the fading bruise around his eye. He’d spent the weekend camping and then had driven most of the day today to get here. He must be exhausted.
Maybe that’s why he wasn’t making any sense.
“What is this? Some kind of reverse proposal?” There was a muffled laugh from someone in the peanut gallery and she gave them a warning look, having momentarily forgotten that they were still there.
“Smith, I signed your papers.”
“No, fuck that. I contest.”
“What?”
“I contest. You can’t have this house. Or the car. Or my easy chair. I contest every damned term you agreed to.”
“They were your terms. Smith, for God’s sake, get up,” she whispered, putting a hand on his elbow and tugging. He glowered but got to his feet.
After another fulminating, frustrated glare at her avidly staring family—she really, really shouldn’t have insisted they talk in front of them—she tried to lead Smith away from the living room.
“Let’s talk in the study.”
“No,” he shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t care if they hear what I have to say.
I don’t care if anyone hears what I have to say.
I’m not ashamed of how I feel about you.
Look, I know I was an arsehole, and if your brothers want to knock the shit out of me for hurting you, they’re welcome to do so, because I fucking deserve it. ”
“Most sensible thing he’s said all night,” Nox said. “Although judging by that eye, it looks like someone already beat us to it.”
Kenny gave them an impatient glare, absently noting that none of them looked angry or concerned anymore. In fact, Cade had a half smile on his face.
“You can stay here if you like, Smith,” Kenny told him. “I’m going to the study.”
She walked away and he followed.
She shut the door firmly behind them, before sinking down onto the oversized leather chesterfield.
He didn’t follow suit, pacing up and down for a minute or so, before stopping abruptly and sinking down in the wingback chair. He leaned forward and stared at her intently.
“I. Do. Not. Want. A. Divorce.” He enunciated every word carefully and left them hanging there, waiting for her response.
She pursed her lips and considered that handsome, tired, bearded face for a long moment.
“Of course you want the divorce, you signed the documents before I did.”
“Weeks ago, a fucking lifetime ago…”
Her brain started going over the facts again and she chewed on her lip for a moment.
“If you were up on the mountain on Friday, you couldn’t have known they’d sent the documents.”
“No.”
“I thought…I thought maybe after you disappeared that you’d informed your lawyer to go ahead with—”
“No, sweetheart,” he moaned in anguish. “Fuck, Kenna, I signed those documents right after arriving in Riversend. I was in rough shape. Angry, unhappy, just so fucking miserable. I thought a divorce was the only solution for us. Your lawyer was ill, apparently, which is why there was delay before you got it. Honestly, after you arrived in town, those damned papers were the last thing I was thinking about. You occupied every corner of my mind.”
“Why have you changed your mind about the divorce?” She tried to keep her crazily fluttering heart under strict control, refusing to allow herself to hope yet. “It is because you don’t like failure? You don’t like losing?”
“Kenna, the only thing I’m afraid of losing is you.”