Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Who would have guessed?
We stopped for a series of pictures and then entered the vast ballroom, which was classically decorated for the event. We were directed toward our table for dinner. I recognized the other names at our table. All of our friends in one place. I knew that Lark had taken the St. Vincent limo for the rest of the party once I let her know that Camden and I were coming together. So, they shouldn’t be too long behind us.
I looked to the table directly to our right and stopped in my tracks. “Candice?” I asked in shock.
“Katherine!” Candice cried, rushing over to me and trying to bring me in for a hug. But her stomach was so enormous that she could barely even get her arms around my shoulders.
“I thought you were on a yacht in the Caribbean,” Camden said dryly.
As far as I knew, he’d personally shipped her and Lars off on the Percy jet to get her out of his hair.
“I was! But I’m so close to my due date, and I thought it’d be nice to come back to New York for delivery. Then I got the invitation for the gala. Lars thought it was crazy, but we live for crazy around here.” Candice’s eyes lit up. “How are you two lovebirds? Fucking like rabbits?”
I shook my head at her. She was just so outrageous. But… the venom I’d had toward her at Christmas when I was in such a deep, dark place and Camden and I were fighting like mad, well, it wasn’t there anymore. I’d spent so long finding Candice’s eccentricity a burden at best and a complete disgrace every other time. But maybe… she wasn’t so bad.
“I’m glad you could make it back. When are you due again?”
Candice grasped my hand and put it on her stomach. “Do you feel him kick?”
“Him?” I asked hesitantly. “It’s a boy?”
She shrugged. “I think so. Lars is convinced it’s a little Candice, but we don’t want to know. We want nature to take its own course. It’s going to be a surprise!”
And then I felt it. The baby did move. It kicked its little foot against the wall of her stomach.
“Wow. He is a strong thing,” I told her.
“He’s going to be a real swimmer, just like his dad,” she said with a bawdy wink. “Can’t wait for him to get out of there because I am dying to be properly fucked. Know what I mean?”
Camden sighed, but I actually laughed and nodded. “I think I do.”
“Also, I would kill for a drink right about now.”
“Speaking of,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Camden.
He just shook his head at his sister. “I’ll get us something.”
He disappeared then, leaving me alone with Candice, who regaled me with stories about her pregnancy on the yacht. It sounded like such a Candice adventure.
A throat cleared behind us, and I turned to find none other than Penn Kensington standing before me in a tuxedo. The bastard looked like fucking James Bond in that suit. It was uncanny. And though he admittedly looked very handsome, I didn’t have that same pang that normally came with coming face-to-face with my first love. Instead, I just was happy to see him… even with Natalie on his arm.
“Hey, Ren,” he said with a smile. “Thought I’d catch you before…”
He didn’t have to say what he meant. I was sure he’d only come over because Camden was gone.
Instead, I stepped forward with a smile. “It’s good to see you.”
My eyes darted to Natalie. She looked like such a different person than she had been a year ago at this same event. She’d had the world on her shoulders as she’d been set on ruining my empire. Now, we were both just occupants of this strange, strange world.
“It’s good to see you, too, Nat.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Crew for life, right?”
“I suppose so,” she said tentatively.
Then she gave me such a Natalie smile. The real one, the defiant one that had made me like her the first time I met her. So much had changed between us since that day. It was nice to know she was still there underneath it all.
“I hope you two have a fun night,” I told them honestly.
Penn shot me a skeptical look, but it was doused by the appearance of my husband. Penn didn’t back down. Though I could see he wanted to get out of the line of fire.
“Kensington,” Camden said, passing me a glass of champagne.
“Percy,” Penn said stiffly.
Then to the surprise of everyone assembled, my husband stuck his hand out. Penn looked at it as if it were a bomb. Like he was trying to find out what part of this was going to backfire.
But slowly, he eased his hand into Camden’s. They shook once. Nothing fancy. No words necessary. There was still mutual disdain. Just not as much as there had been in the past. This was a world in which they wouldn’t kill each other. Maybe, just maybe, we could survive this.