Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“You know it,” Kristie smiles sunnily. “Ready when you are!”
Then, I signal to the counter person for a takeaway container before manhandling the pastry into a cute pink box. I’ll bring this home for Karl because I adore the handsome Swede and his caveman ways. I love how he treats me, cherishing my opinions while also ravaging my curves like a hungry wolf. I love how he tosses me around in bed, my hefty curves no match for his powerful six foot six frame. I love everything about Karl ... and it’s breaking my heart to turn down his proposal.
11
Karl
The lock clicks and Ainsley appears in the doorway, her face rather wan and pale.
“How was it, sweetheart?” I growl. “Did you have fun seeing your friend?”
“Yeah, it was good to catch up with Kristie,” she murmurs before setting her bag down and coming over to the couch to sit in my lap. She’s fragrant, sweet, and soft and I bury my hair in those luscious red tresses. I’ll never be able to get enough of this woman, and have every intention of keeping her at my side. Forever, if she’ll have me.
But Ainsley’s emerald eyes fill with tears as her chin wobbles. I stroke her curls back from her face, gazing down at her delicate features.
“What is it, sweetheart?” I murmur. “What’s bothering you? Tell me.”
Her face collapses then, growing pink as tears pour down her cheeks.
“I c-can’t marry you, Karl!” she sobs. “I just can’t do it! You deserve better than someone like me. I’m in the middle of this Nazi mess, and you don’t need this! You deserve someone who’s pristine and perfect, like a clean slate, ready to have your babies.”
I hold her sobbing form tight to my broad chest.
“Slow down, sweetheart. I know the last couple weeks have been terrible, but this isn’t how I saw my marriage proposal going.”
“I know and I love you so much, Karl!” she gasp-cries, her eyes bloodshot as she drips snot. “This isn’t how I want it to end either, but I have to do this. For you. You deserve better.”
I hold her close as my heart thumps painfully in my chest. I adore this woman more than life itself, and Ainsley’s been going through a lot lately. The thought of leaving her pains me to my core. Literally, my heart squeezes with sorrow, but I make myself hold her tight while pressing soothing kisses to her head.
“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart,” I murmur. “I’m a grown man. I think I can figure out what I’m ready to deal with and what I can’t handle.”
She sits up abruptly, red splotches on her cheeks.
“But I’ve been branded as a Nazi sympathizer, Karl,” she sobs. “I’ll never be able to lose the taint, which means that I might never be able to work again. I’d be a lodestone around your neck, dragging you down.”
“Who says I don’t want a lodestone?” I ask with a wink. “Particularly if you’re swollen and heavy with my child. I’d love that kind of weight around my neck, sweetheart. A baby in your belly, or maybe even two or three? It sounds perfect.”
Ainsley blinks and stares at me.
“What?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” I say in a droll tone. “You think I wasn’t going to knock you up? I believe that goes hand in hand with marriage, sweetheart. I put the ring on your finger, we say our I do’s, and then you start getting pregnant. I’m looking forward to it, Ains. I’d love to have a little girl with red hair just like her mama.”
To my chagrin, Ainsley starts crying again.
“I’d love that too, Karl, but I don’t want our children branded as the spawn of a Nazi sympathizer. It’s too much,” she hiccups. “I can’t do that to an unborn baby.”
I shake my head, ready to pull out the big guns.
“Trust me, sweetheart. No one’s going to call you a Nazi sympathizer after we’re married.”
“No, they will!” she wails. “A diamond ring on my finger isn’t going to stop it.”
“No, they won’t,” I state in a firm voice. “Because I’m Jewish, sweetheart, and that’ll stop the rumor in its tracks. I know we haven’t talked about my religion because I’m not very devout. Hell, since my bar mitzvah thirty years ago, I haven’t been to temple much. But I am culturally, and familialy, Jewish.”
Ainsley stares at me.
“But you’re from Sweden,” she whispers. “I didn’t now there were Jewish people in Sweden.”
“There aren’t a lot,” I acknowledge. “But there are some. And I’m not actually Swedish either. My family is Danish, and during World War 2, we were smuggled into Sweden by the Danes in order to escape the reach of the German Gestapo. Because of the Danish resistance, many of whom were ordinary citizens, 99% of Denmark’s Jewish citizens survived the Holocaust. My grandparents were part of that 99%.”