Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Goddamn.
It’s not that I didn’t believe she was in pain.
I definitely did.
It was more the fact that it was a miserable fucking experience, watching my wife go through that much pain without having any power or control to help her. I couldn’t take the pain away for her. All I could do was stand there and hold her hand and not let go, even when it felt like she might break every one of my fingers.
I—and probably every single staff member inside that ER—was relieved when we were eventually discharged.
After that, I wasted zero time getting us back to the hotel.
And the second I stepped foot in our suite, while Cass was busy taking a quick shower, I shot a text to my assistant and told her to get us a goddamn plane ASAP, and I grabbed our fucking suitcases and started packing.
I didn’t care that it was only Monday and we weren’t supposed to leave until Friday.
No offense to my wife, but we needed to get the fuck out of this city and safely back to our apartment before she could lead us toward any more plans.
Normally, I loved her plans.
But her track record in Panama City Beach wasn’t good.
I truly feared what might happen if we stayed here any longer. And with my beautiful wife pregnant with our son, there was no way in hell I was going to wait around to let those fears come to fruition.
Cass and our baby were my precious cargo, and it was my job to take care of them and keep them safe. Also, she’d mentioned getting the Supercock all jazzled up, and there was no fucking way I could let something like that occur.
For fluff’s sake, he was already huge as it was. If I developed a reaction like Cass did, I’d literally need a tailor to sew a third leg into my damn pants.
Both suitcases on the bed, I started tossing all our shit inside them, with little regard to his and hers or any system of organization.
By the time Cassie got out of the shower and walked out of the bathroom, I’d already received confirmation from my assistant that a private plane would be waiting for us and I had almost all our shit packed.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked, her eyes going wide when she took in my current state of packing.
Shit. I’d completely forgotten that I hadn’t given her any sort of heads-up about my plans.
I was so fucking focused on just getting us the hell out of there before anything else bad, weird, or insane could happen.
“Baby, I’m sorry, I know you wanted to stay here until Friday, but we need to go home.”
“What? Why?”
“Because we just have to,” I responded. “This is no fucking honeymoon, and I’m not going to wait a day longer for it to keep pretending to be. Let’s get home, get you and the baby safe, and then once he’s born, you and I will go somewhere really nice where I’ll pull out all the goddamn stops you can imagine. I’m talking some really nice shit, baby. The kind of stuff—”
“No!” she shouted and started shaking her head back and forth. “No. No. No! We can’t leave now! We can’t!”
“Cassie—”
“No, Thatcher! We have to stay! I have to get all of my wild and crazy out! I haven’t had enough time! I need more days!” Instantly, tears started to drip from her eyes, and my heart dropped to my stomach.
Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t realize before now that there’s a lot more to this than just a simple “honeymoon” trip. Kline and Georgia had tried to warn me, and still, I’d weaved my way around all the red flags like an Olympic downhill skier.
She had underlying reasons why she’d planned all this, and I felt like the biggest bastard on the planet for not fully realizing what had really been going on before now.
Fuck.
“Cass?” I questioned, my tone gentle as I stepped toward her. “Why do you think you need to get the wild and crazy out now? We’ve got time, baby. Hell, I’m kind of hoping we’ve got a lifetime.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “Because I’m going to be a mom soon, Thatcher!” she exclaimed through a sob. “I can’t do wild and crazy shit when I’m a mom! I can’t be Crazy Cassie anymore when our son is born! I have to be a normal mom! I have to be boring like Georgia!”
“Aw, honey,” I said, tenderness dripping from my voice as I wrapped her up in my arms. Her shoulders shook with emotion, and I held her tighter to my chest. “You’re always going to be crazy, Cass. Even when you’re a mom. That doesn’t need to change. Honestly, I don’t think it can. You and I, we’re a special set of people, and I guarantee that the mix of us is going to make a special kind of baby. Probably a little psychopath in his own right, you know? He’s going to need a mom who can handle him.”