Page 93 of Finding Forever

The last four words emerged on an almost defeated whisper and his shoulders fell.

“Do you hateme?” Fern asked reluctantly, not sure she was ready to hear the answer. Her voice was made nasally by the painful lump lodged in her throat and the tears clogging gup her nasal passages. “And the baby?”

He opened his eyes and met her gaze with tormented eyes and she felt herself recoil at the sight of his obvious turmoil. He looked so unhappy andshe’ddone that to him. Fern always seemed to make everybody else’s life that much worse just being in it. And it was more than apparent that she’d done the same to Cade.

He didn’t speak and she tried fill the silence with her own inadequate words.

“Cade, I?—”

“No.” He shook his head, scrubbed a hand over his face and, before she could say another word, swiveled on his heel and strode toward out of the living room. He was gone in a second, taking the stairs two at a time until a short while later she heard a door upstairs slam shut.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Cade was furious with himself. He shouldn’t have let his temper get the better of him. For the most part he’d been so damned proud of Fern tonight. The way she’d handled that interview, her natural charm and grace. She’d won Mike Holmes and the studio audience over with her genuine sweetness. And she’d made a new friend in Iris Abbott, just by being her endearing self.

But from the moment she’d brought her baby into it, he’d been irrationally fucking livid. She was right, announcing her pregnancy had made absolute sense. It had been the right moment, her instinct had been spot on about that. She’d had a friendly audience, a sympathetic host… the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

But Cade had hated it. And he’d resented how the conversation had veered from them, their relationship, their supposed love story, to the baby and their impending parenthood…

When all Cade could think of was that it washerbaby.Herimpending parenthood. He wouldn’t be there for that. Nothing to do with him at all. All he had to do was sit back and let herleave and take her child. Cade’s only duty after that would be to carry on as if this marriage had never happened and forget that Fern and her baby ever existed.

But how the fuck was he supposed to do that when the whole damned world would be there asking him about them? About where they were? How they were? Why they were no longer a part of his life?

He sank wearily down on the bed and buried his face in his hands. He could have handled the whole thing a lot better. And then storming out the way he had like a dramatic emo teen had been… unfortunate. And very fucking unfair. She hadn’t deserved it. Not one bit. And after his irrational tirade, her question about the baby had been entirely justified and yet had completely wrong-footed him.

“What the fuck are you doing, Cade?” he asked himself impatiently.

He lifted his head and sighed, staring blindly around the bedroom, as he heaved an exhausted sigh.

He needed to fix this. Have a rational discussion about it. His feelings about the baby were complicated. He didn’t know if he was allowed to feel anything for it, and as such, tried to keep what was happening to her at a distance. Meanwhile his concern about how the pregnancy was affecting her health had become almost all-consuming.

He had to find a way—find the words, really—to tell her what was happening to him. Even if he didn’t really understand it himself. Anything was better than the way he’d handled the situation tonight. He wasn’t in the habit of explaining himself to anyone, but he owed it to Fern to make the conciliatory attempt after the way he’d blown up at her.

He got up… determined to have that talk. She hadn’t yet come upstairs, he’d have heard her, which meant she was still down there, probably hurt and uncertain of his mood.

Everything was eerily quiet when he got back down to theliving area. Quiet and dark. A hollow curl of foreboding settled in the pit of his stomach as he turned slowly to get a three-sixty view of the open plan kitchen and living area. Hoping to find her curled up on the large sofa, perhaps.

“Fern?” His voice fell into the suffocating silence and that feeling of foreboding escalated into full-scale dread. Surely, she hadn’t left? She couldn’t have. Where the fuck would she go? Did she even know this city?

“Fern?” His voice was louder this time, filled with an authority he did not feel. Hoping to scare her out of whatever corner she’d retreated to.

Nothing.

He swallowed down his nausea, as he tried to keep himself from panicking. He’d probably missed hearing her go upstairs. She had a light tread, easy to miss… she must have gone to bed.

He took the stairs three at a time and after only the briefest of knocks slammed into her room. It was lit by only one bedside lamp and was distressingly empty. Her bed was littered with clothing—likely things she’d tried on a discarded before the show—make up was scattered across the dressing table. The bathroom door was open, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. She very clearly wasn’t here.

He tried a few more rooms, delaying that inevitable moment when he’d have to acknowledge to himself that she was gone. And he had no fucking clue where the hell she could possibly be.

He had his phone in his hand, staving off full-scale panic, as he tried to call her. But it was when he heard her phone buzz from the kitchen counter, that he truly knew fear.

Fern was gone. A mere babe in the woods, without even her phone to call for help if she needed it, and it washisfault.

He’d failed at the one fundamental task he’d set for himself upon their marriage.

Protecting her.

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