Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 105183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
I leave the dining room, Nick following, and open the door for him. “I didn’t mean to make your birthday so awkward. I thought you knew I was coming. If you had answered my calls, we may have figured out what your dad was up to.”
I ignore his little dig about the calls. “Yeah, I’m sorry about his underhanded tactics.”
“Does that mean there’s still no chance?”
I shoot him a surprised look. “Nick . . .” I whisper, so tired of rehashing the same thing over and over. “We . . .” I flap a useless hand between us. “You and I . . .”
“Amelia, I only mentioned the words marriage and baby, and you were gone like a rocket.”
“Well, that’s not true, is it?” I laugh lightly. It’s a laugh of disbelief. “You mentioned it many times.” I frown. “You told me I owed you some kind of commitment, Nick.”
“Is that wrong? To want all that with you?”
Probably not, but to say I owed him? It gave me the instant ick. “What brought it on?” I ask. “You’d never given any hints you wanted that before, and suddenly it’s all you talked about.”
He shrugs. “We’re not getting any younger.”
Ouch. “But you know how much my career means to me. I’m working toward partner, Nick. You know that.”
He moves in and crowds me. I’m instantly suffocating again. “Amelia, come on. You could go back to work after a baby if you really wanted to.”
If I really wanted to? What I really want is to have a career and not be judged. I want to have babies when I want to have babies. If I ever want to. I might not. I don’t know. And that’s the point. My pace. I want to do life at my pace.
“No.” I place my palm on Nick’s chest and push him back. “I don’t want to have a baby.” That’s not entirely true. I just don’t want to now. Or is it more that I can’t see my forever with Nick? I inwardly recoil at the unexpected direction of my thoughts. I also consider for the first time that he hit me with marriage and babies not long after I announced I was shooting for partner. Did my ambitions scare him?
Nick sighs and backs out, but something tells me his withdrawal isn’t a submission.
“Take care, Nick.” I close the door and walk back into the kitchen. Dad’s placing some dishes by the sink. I don’t make any snide remarks about him doing a woman’s work. “You have to stop this.”
His hands pause on the dishes momentarily. “Stop what?”
“Interfering.”
“Let’s not do this now.” Mum hands me a tea towel.
I take it, stopping myself from snatching it, and swipe a plate off the drainer, starting to roughly dry it.
“I’m not interfering,” Dad says, going to the fridge and pulling out a pot of cream. “Just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help, Dad.” I place the plate down and take another. “I’m happy.” Or I would be if Dad stopped with his kind of help.
“You don’t need my help?” he asks, his voice suddenly an angry whisper. “Then tell me, Amelia, who is providing your accommodation right now because you decided to walk out on a perfectly good relationship and leave yourself homeless?”
My jaw rolls. I could hardly end the relationship and ask Nick to leave the apartment, could I? “Dad—”
“Now, now,” Mum blurts out, getting herself in a flap, wanting to avoid the conflict.
Once again guilt rages inside. I’m usually so controlled around my father and his prehistoric ways. Have learned to keep my mouth shut to keep the peace and avoid fallout. There’s just no point trying to make him see. He’s unmovable. But today? I don’t know. Maybe it’s Nick showing up. Thanks, Dad.
“What was the point in letting me go to university?” I ask. “If you had no intention of allowing me the opportunity to progress in the family business, what was the point?”
Dad casts a look Mum’s way, and I know in this moment that it was Mum’s doing. She talked him round. “I thought it was a phase,” he mutters.
“You thought my hopes and dreams were a phase?” I ask, stunned.
“Maybe they still are.”
“What, you mean until I realise my true vocation in life is to marry and breed?” How the hell I’m talking so quietly and calmly, I don’t know.
“Amelia, come on,” Mum implores.
“No, Mum. Enough.”
“You’re punishing me because I gave the business to Clark, aren’t you?” Dad says. “That’s what this is all about.”
“And you’re punishing me for wanting to have a career. For not wanting to have babies and be a housewife.”
“What’s wrong with that? Look at your mother. She’s very happy!”
I actually do look at my mother. Yes, I know she’s happy. So when she glances at Dad with an indignant expression, I’m more than surprised.