Page 58 of Seaside Cowboy's Marriage of Convenience

Never let people see you cry.

Her mother didn’t like to see Kennedy cry. It had given her mom headaches. If Kennedy hoped to see at least crumbs of her mother’s affection, she had to be like a pretty doll with an eternal painted-on smile who never, ever cried.

Now she didn’t just cry for her cousin who was like a sister to her and who might’ve paid the ultimate price for someone else’s fatal weakness. Kennedy cried for her parents, whose love she’d never know, who had so much and yet probably wanted something—the love of someone—they could never have. She cried for Mrs. Dixon, who’d spent her life shackled with regrets and was sick now. Kennedy cried for her uncle and auntie, who’d lost their only child. She cried for Austin, who’d married a woman too broken to give him the warmth and affection he deserved.

But most of all, selfishly, she cried for herself, for the person she’d become and didn’t even notice. And even more, she was crying for the decision forming in her mind.

All her life, she’d tried to be someone she wasn’t. First, that smiling pretty doll her mother could play with and then place on a shelf—or rather, return to the nanny. Then the dutiful, hardworking, and intelligent mentee to her uncle, the substitute daughter who made sure to create as few issues as possible. After all, she was just a stand-in for the real daughter he’d lost because of Kennedy.

Now she was just a substitute for an affectionate, cheerful, warm wife for the most affectionate, cheerful, warm man in the world.Sheneeded this marriage—hedidn’t. She’d been unfair to him in how she’d sort of trapped him in it.

She clung to him as if he were an oxygen tube, as if she needed him desperately simply to breathe. This was unlike her. She kept her distance from people.

But as she gathered the fabric of his shirt in her little fists, she couldn’t let him go. It would crush her. Shelovedhim too much. It wasn’t the best moment to realize it, and she struggled against it because she’d lost nearly everyone she’d loved. But because her emotions were so heightened at this moment, she knew the simple truth. She loved Austin.

Yet precisely because he mattered to her so much, she needed to give him the option to have a better life.

His arms tightened around her. “It’s going to be all right.”

But she didn’t believe those words. And maybe he didn’t either.

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Austin noticed a changein Kennedy, but it was understandable. She was grieving her cousin all over again, and they weren’t closer to finding Zoey.

Kennedy’s wound was poked into again and again. No wonder her gray eyes were so sad. An absent smile touched her lips as she petted Caramel at home, but her eyes looked past him as if her mind was many miles away.

Helplessness in making it better for her hollowed him out, draining his energy and natural hope. But he couldn’t bring Zoey back. He couldn’t even bring back the Kennedy he’d gotten to know. After that fated conversation with Mrs. Dixon, something had shut down inside his wife.

“We need to talk.” Her statement made his heart sink to that cold milky marble floor. Nothing good ever resulted from those words.

He picked up both dogs from the floor for emotional support because he had a strong feeling he was going to need it. Then he sank onto the nearest chair, which happened to be near the dining table. “O–okay.”

The beagle coiled in on Austin’s lap peacefully. But the puppy squealed in protest at the tight space, so he placed her back on the floor. Caramel wobbled away, then seeming to change her mind, stretched out under the table.

Kennedy sat in the chair nearest his and chewed on her lower lip. “I... I don’t know how to say this. I believe we need some time apart. This isn’t fair to you. You deserve better”—she waved her hand in the air—“than this.”

What? His jaw dropped, and he stopped stroking Smiley’s smooth fur. “I don’t understand. My life is the happiest ever. Why is it unfair to me?”

“This marriage—I sort of pushed you into it.Ineeded it—youdidn’t.” She looked him in the eye, her gray eyes bottomless and enormously sad.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Maybe not when you proposed. But that changed,” he finally managed to say. “I need you. More than you can imagine. Is this because I don’t like your house? I can get used to it. Honest. I can love it.” Because she was in it.

Her eyes widened. “You don’t like my house?”

Uh-oh. He nearly slapped himself on the forehead. She didn’t notice his dislike. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yes, you should have. I want you to be where you’re happy and comfortable.” Shaking her head, she looked away, and her voice dipped so low he had to lean in to hear her. “But that just confirms my decision. We should take some time out to think.”

“No!” He made a sweeping gesture and somehow sent the crystal vase holding the orchids he’d bought for her flying from the table to the unforgiving floor.

The vase shattered into many particles. His heart crushed in the same way. He nearly jumped but then remembered the beagle on his lap.

“I’ll hold him. Caramel, too.” She scooped up the wriggling puppy from under the table before the little one could step on the shards and cut her paws. Then she took over the beagle from Austin for the same reason. She was barefoot and thankfully stood in place.

He’d never want her to get hurt. He’d never want to see her cry, but her eyes were filling with tears now. Confusion, guilt, and yearning for her mixed inside his stomach, sharp and painful like a porridge from these crystal shards.

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