Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
Her head shook, and he would bet money she was fighting back tears. “I don’t want you to give me words you don’t mean. But I would like to know where you see this going if we’re not in love.”
Not in love. He didn’t actually like the sound of that, but there was a part of him whispering. His parents “loved” him until he was inconvenient. Deanna “loved” him until she found someone who could give her more. Manny was supposed to be his best friend. How many times had Manny said he “loved” him like a brother?
His brain buzzed with warning alarms.
This was a woman who read romance novels like they were her lifeline. She talked about epic love and swooned over weddings. He would lose her over this. Why hadn’t he fucking said the words? They didn’t have to mean anything. Hell, he didn’t like rom coms and yet he sat there and watched them to make her happy. She had zero interest in what she called sportsball, but she laid with her head in his lap while she read a book and he watched the Blue Jays play so he could stroke her hair and have her close. Couldn’t he say a couple of dumb words?
She took a long breath and put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now. We’re just having fun.”
Not what he’d told her. He gripped her wrist, unwilling to let her walk out. Not like this. He needed to get her back in bed. He was good in bed. Fucking terrible at this. “We agreed we were serious. When we met that day at Top, we agreed we would give this thing a try. Are you threatening to leave me over a few words? I didn’t once say we were just having fun.”
“And when this mission is over?” Kenzie asked, and now the tears filled her eyes. Her blue eyes that kicked him in the gut every time he looked at her.
The cell buzzed. A text. He ignored it. If it was Joseph, he could talk to Tim. “I don’t know. We both go back to work and see each other when we can. We work together a lot.”
“We work together when it comes to Huisman,” she said. “If we take down Huisman, I think you’ll find there’s not a lot of work for us to do. What if I decided to work less? With my sister moving into a supervisory position, I was thinking it might be time to look at the private sector. Maybe it’s time to open an office in Toronto. My dad always wanted one in New York, but this could be better.”
Kenzie in Toronto? He liked the idea, but what would they do? What would he do? He’d joined CSIS to take down Manny. What would he do when the job was done? Would the job ever be done? Could he marry Kenzie and have kids, because that woman would probably want kids. He didn’t have anything to offer kids. He couldn’t bring his family into it because he would never trust them again. He could still hear his father telling him to look them up once he’d solved the problem and maybe they could talk then.
He would never speak with them again, much less introduce them to children he loved so they could fuck them over, too.
Why was she pushing this? He wasn’t ready for any of this. “I think you should hold off on making decisions like that. You like the job too much. We can work things out. We’ll be good.”
If they weren’t living together, they wouldn’t have to deal with the whole kids and marriage thing. He could still be her Dom. They could meet up and play and spend long weekends together. He wasn’t sure he would be a good husband. She deserved a good husband. She deserved the kind of life her parents had, and he wasn’t sure he could give that to her. Certainly not until they handled Emmanuel Huisman.
She pulled away, and this time he let her. “All right, Ben. I’m going to clean up and I’m going to stay with Lucy tonight. I need to think.”
So she was going to punish him. A hint of bitterness crept through his fear. This suddenly felt like manipulation. “So the princess doesn’t get the words she wants and I get cut out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Ben, I’m emotional. I’m trying to keep it together, and I’ve attempted to avoid this conversation several times now because I don’t want to say something I don’t mean. If you had let me have a couple of minutes, I might have been able to pull myself together.”
“So now I’m not reacting the way you want.” He knew the words she was saying made sense, but he was getting a restless feeling. This was where everything fell apart. He hadn’t danced to her…