9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
-Annabella-
I couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. Or maybe I could. It was not like he was known for being a sweetheart. He was known for his brutality, but I thought maybe, as his wife, I might be spared.
Yet I was clearly wrong, and when I had tried staying angry and focused on our discussion, his stupid male brain had apparently decided my breasts were more interesting than my words.
“Really?” I asked.
He turned to me. “What?”
“Would you rather have a conversation with my breasts? Am I even needed here?”
A small smile crept onto his lips, and he leaned a little to the side before his eyes went lower again. “Well—”
“Answer that question, and I'm leaving again,” I snapped.
“It was instinct,” he defended, but he was still smiling.
“Instinct? Really? So you just go around and look at any breasts out there?” I shot back.
He chuckled a little, finding the situation amusing, while I was fuming.
“Kace!” I shouted.
“It’s not my fault they were right at eye level, which they will often be considering where I sit,” he chuckled.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t still want your attention!” I reminded him.
“You want my attention?” he asked, sounding a little intrigued.
Yet as I replayed my words in my head, I heard how they sounded, and I could see they had a double meaning. I sighed and rubbed my eyes before I lowered my hands and placed them on my hips.
“Can you focus up here?” I inquired.
“I am focused,” he promised and met my eyes, but to be an ass, he glanced down again, finding himself hilarious.
“That’s not funny!” I hissed.
He couldn’t help but smile, though, and I groaned, ready to leave.
“Hold on, Anna,” he told me.
“Annabella!” I retorted.
“Very well, Annabella—”
“Yes, because only friends of mine can ever shorten my name,” I told him and crossed my arms.
Why did he almost seem impressed? In one moment, he looked tired of talking to me, not wanting to let my insecurities show, and in the next, he seemed intrigued by me.
“But we are married,” he pointed out.
“It’s hardly a marriage,” I countered. “I'm your experiment, and you are…”
“I am?”
I looked away, reminded of the awful humiliation I had been put through. “My escape,” I whispered before shortly meeting his eyes, seeing an intrigued look in them, but I quickly shook my head, not wanting to discuss more about it. “All I'm saying is that it’s not like we like each other. We don’t even know anything about each other.”
“But that will change,” he assured me.
“Well, if it does, you can call me all the nicknames you want to,” I countered.
He smiled and nodded, seeming satisfied.
“It will change,” he stated confidently.
I rolled my eyes, not wanting to continue this talk. We weren’t going anywhere, anyway. “Can we go back to the real focus here? The dinner and not my insecurities and breasts.”
“I do enjoy one of those subjects, but fine, let’s go back to the dinner.”
My God, he was not at all sorry about his previous behavior , I thought.
“What do you want to do about it?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he inquired.
“I don’t want them here!”
“Why?” he questioned.
“Why do you want them here?” I shot back.
“I don’t, but we are family now, and it’s not like we can escape them, and if they come to us, then what is the big problem?”
“The big problem is that I came here to get far away from them!” I yelled.
“Why?” he asked, now looking serious. “You don’t like your family?”
“Do you?” I countered.
“Yours or my own?”
“Yours!” I retorted.
“Well, a bit hard to like people who are dead,” he replied, making me realize what I had brought up.
I placed my hands over my face and sighed, feeling like a complete idiot for forgetting that he had become an orphan at a very young age.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and lowered my hands. “No… I don’t like mine very much. They… don’t like me either.”
I began fiddling with a ring on my finger, not sure what else to do. It was a simple gold ring that I never took off, but as I looked at it, I remembered who I had gotten it from: Zac.
I suddenly hated having it on, and I began pulling it off. Yet nothing escaped Kace’s sharp look, and he watched as I slipped it off before I held it behind my back. Then our eyes locked, and he held out his hand.
“What is that?” he inquired.
“It’s… um, a ring,” I whispered.
“Not from me,” he countered.
“Yes, but you didn’t really propose.”
“I'm working on it,” he revealed.
“What?” I inquired.
“A ring, of course,” he told me, shocking me.
I didn’t really care about a ring because this wasn’t an actual marriage, but it did intrigue me the way he said it. His voice lowered, and he sounded almost a bit nervous.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t seem annoyed that I didn’t get you one,” he pointed out.
“Maybe because this isn’t an actual marriage,” I reminded him.
“But it is, and I'm getting you one.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“That’s all?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you not want to decide what it looks like or the size?”
“What? Am I carrying a giant diamond on my hand?” I joked, yet he remained serious.
“Is that what you want?” he inquired.
“No, I won’t be able to move my hand around,” I told him, and he looked shocked.
“You don’t want a diamond ring?”
“If it is at this size,” I explained to him, then held up two fingers with only about half an inch between them.
Kace seemed even more shocked and sat up higher in his smart wheelchair. Yet I was unsure how to interpret that look and stared right back.