by Marian Tee
Daniel saw his father's face whiten at seeing his wife shake her head in response to his question. He started to speak, but his father had already walked away.
Wiping her tears from her cheeks, Bee took several deep breaths and used the time to calm herself. Just three days, she reminded herself. Three days, and then she could leave the ranch for good, and just love him from afar.
She was no longer in love with him. The realization echoed over and over in his mind, and he found himself doing something completely out of character as he drove to the nearest bar and started drinking in broad daylight.
Anything to get rid of the memory of seeing Tabitha shake her head when his son asked her if she still had any feelings left for him.
But it didn't work, the pain seemingly too much that the memories just kept hurting.
He had fucking tried. God, how he had fucking tried, ever since he had practically blackmailed her into convalescing at the ranch, to make her see that marriage to him wouldn't be so bad.
He had bought her gifts every day. Flowers. Jewelries. Whatever food her pregnancy hormones had her craving. But while she always smiled and thanked him politely, none of it had worked in breaking down the walls that she seemed to put up every time he was around.
He had tried asking her out on dates, but she always had one excuse or another to say no.
And yet she always said yes whenever Harry, Isla, or his own damn son invited her out, was always ready to pitch in or lend a helping hand every time a non-profit org, small or big, came knocking on their door.
And what he hated most of all was how she was getting a little too damn close to the bodyguard he had hired to look after her until Horace's trial reached its destined end, and the man was locked up for good.
If only Drake Morrison hadn't come so highly recommended, Nicholas would have long fired him and replaced with someone else, preferably someone without a dick.
Nicholas asked for the bartender to refill his glass, and as he watched the other man pour another shot of bourbon into his glass, he wondered broodingly if he had accidentally hit on the real reason behind his wife's change of heart.
Had she stopped loving him because she had found someone more deserving of her?
Chapter 16
"Heading somewhere?" Nicholas asked the next morning when he saw his wife coming down the stairs and looking exceptionally lovely in a cream-colored pantsuit.
"San Antonio," she answered hesitantly, "for a board meeting."
"One of your non-profits?"
She nodded.
"Let me drive you then, since I need to head up to the office as well."
Her eyes widened. "Oh, but you don't have to---"
"I know," he said pleasantly. "But I want to."
Outside, Nicholas bit back a curse when he saw Drake already waiting by the Bentley.
"Good morning, Mr. Sutherland, Mrs. Sutherland."
Too damn fucking handsome to be a bodyguard, Nicholas thought darkly. When Drake started to open the door, Nicholas derived a lot of pleasure in saying, "That won't be necessary." He slid a possessive arm around his wife's waist. "I'll be the one driving her to the city---"
"Mr. Sutherland?" Thomas came out of the main house, the wireless receiver in his hand. "It's a phone call from one of your partners in Munich."
Fuck.
Seeing her chance to avoid getting trapped in a confined space with Nicholas, Bee said quickly, "You should take that. I can just go with Drake and Jerry as planned." She moved away, and her heart squeezed as she felt his arm loosen its hold.
Nicholas' face hardened as he watched her smile up at the bodyguard before stepping inside the Bentley.
After closing the door, Drake glanced at him, murmuring, "Mr. Sutherland."
He had the strongest urge to drive a fist into the bodyguard's face, but managed to control the impulse. "Make sure nothing happens to her," he said curtly.
"I'll take good care of her, sir."
Nicholas' jaw clenched. Asshole. That wasn't what he had asked, dammit.
As the Bentley cruised down the highway, Bee couldn't help wondering about the seeming tension she noticed between Nicholas and her bodyguard.
"Drake?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Has my...has Nicholas spoken to you recently about anything?"
"I was to make sure nothing happened to you."
"And that's it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Oh well.
Maybe she had just been imagining things.
The weather was pleasantly cool and cloudy when Bee arrived at a clubhouse in San Antonio, with her bodyguard tailing behind her. As always, the sight of Drake Morrison's dark good looks had most of the women around them sighing and literally batting their eyelashes at him, but Bee's bodyguard didn't even spare them a glance.
It was probably why, Bee thought ruefully, a few women also took the time to shoot envious glares at her back. If looks could kill, she would have long been dead. Several times over even, since people's interest in Drake had been quite intense, from the very first time his photo had gone viral and joined the select ranks of The World's Sexiest Bodyguards.
There was only one other person around when Bee entered the boardroom, and Drake came to stand behind her as she took her usual seat.
Today would be her last time to attend meetings like this, Bee couldn't help thinking. In two days, she would be moving out of the ranch and into an apartment near the city headquarters of Nicholas' company. It wasn't complete freedom, but at least she no longer had to see him every day.
So just hang in there for two days more, Bee told herself. Two days and all this would be over.
Drake bent down, a curious look on his strikingly attractive face as he asked, "What about two days?"
"Oh, um, it's nothing," Bee said quickly with a shake of her head even as she was privately aghast that she had unintentionally blurted her thought out loud.
She placed a hand over her growing belly, the gesture unconsciously protective. This whole business of leaving Nicholas and starting over was stressing her more than what was safe for the baby. Maybe...maybe she should simply jump right in and leave?
It was just two days, anyway. Surely, in the larger scheme of things, it wouldn't really matter that she hadn't been able to fully comply with the month-long rest that the doctor had ordered?
"You're quite the character, Mrs. Sutherland." The words, spoken out of the blue in a soft, malicious drawl, startled Bee into lifting her head and meeting the rather catty gaze of the elegant-looking redhead seated across her.
Chloe, Bee belatedly recalled. The woman was a four-time divorcée, and if rumors were to be believed, the redhead would soon be on her fifth wedding, this time to a Bolivian tycoon whose source of income was dubious to say the least.
"When I learned what kind of woman our dear Nicholas had married---"
Bee couldn't help gritting her teeth at the way the woman spoke his name in a caress.
"I was quite surprised. And your involvement in that ghastly trial in Georgia---" Chloe gave an affected shudder. "Did you really have to poke that man's eyes out?"
Bee couldn't even find it in herself to feel offended, astonished as she was that there really were women like Chloe in real life. "I was about to get raped," she said finally, "so I had to do what I could."
"But that was just so disgusting..."
"Yes, it was. Wasn't it?" Bee had a hard time keeping her face straight as she realized just how genuinely revolved the other woman was.
"My friends and I were talking about it over lunch," Chloe was sharing, "and after considering all the very visible factors---" The other woman glanced tellingly at Drake for some reason. "That was when we realized why Nicholas would choose someone like you. Because that's your appeal, isn't it?"
Bee was utterly confused. "Sorry?" And what did her bodyguard have to do with her marriage to Nicholas?
Chloe tittered. "Oh, come on, darling. Don't start playing c
oy now. We both know you understand me perfectly fine. Nicholas' just so conservative and decent on the outside, it was only natural he'd need someone like you to balance things out." Chloe wrinkled her nose. "Honestly, if I had realized this sooner, I wouldn't have hesitated to play the freak for Nicholas. I've always thought he was the most exciting one among the SAFEs."
The media-coined acronym stood for San Antonio's Finest Eligibles, of which Nicholas, along with Devon, Sean, and Logan, was a member of. Bee had only learned about the name weeks ago, and realizing what it meant had only served to further convince her that she really wasn't meant to be a wife to someone like Nicholas.
And apparently, Chloe and no doubt most of Nicholas' peers, too, thought the same.
"I'm just curious..."
Bee suppressed a sigh, realizing the other woman still wasn't done.
"Is he meant to make your husband jealous?"
She saw Chloe direct another oddly telling glance at her bodyguard and couldn't help frowning. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, please. It's not like the whole world don't know about you two."
Bee stiffened. "If you're saying what I think you're saying---"
"I absolutely am," Chloe cooed just as the doors swung open and the rest of the board members started filing in.
The meeting started soon after, leaving no chance for Bee to ask what Chloe meant. Even so, the other woman's innuendos continued to bother her, and as soon as she and Drake were in the privacy of Nicholas' car, she took her phone out and Googled her name.
A gasp escaped her a moment later.
Tons of gossip reports had been written about her in the past two weeks, and all of them were suggesting that her "closeness" to the bodyguard meant the two of them were having an affair right under Nicholas' nose.
Chapter 17
"Mrs. Sutherland would like you to know she's waiting for you at the study, sir." Thomas' face was somber as he relayed the message, and Nicholas' face hardened.
So this was it, he thought grimly. Just two damn days until she was properly free to leave his home, and she couldn't even wait that long. Was she really that in love with Drake? The mere thought of another man touching her was enough to put him in a violent mood, and he remained on edge even as he entered the study and found a nervous-looking Tabitha seated on the couch.
She looked beautiful in her rose-printed dress, the fabric fit enough to blatantly advertise the pregnant curve of her belly. As always, the sight of it made him hard, hence the loose trousers Nicholas had recently taken to wearing.
"Hey." The smile that formed on her lips was as tentative as the tone of her voice.
Nicholas knew she was hoping he would smile back, and he almost laughed at how damnably optimistic she was. Did she really think he could smile, knowing that she had come here to let him know she was leaving him for another man?
Not on your life, baby.
He might not be able to force her to stay with him, but he was damn well going to make it as hard and awkward for her to go.
Bee's heart banged nervously against her chest as Nicholas sat next to her on the couch. It was the closest he had been since she had temporarily moved back to the ranch, and oh dear God, it was making the butterflies in her stomach do the craziest things.
He was just so, so beautiful. Still the most beautiful man in her eyes, really, and oh, how she ached to once again have her fingers running through the silky golden locks---
Stop that, Bee!
Their marriage had never been real, and so she had never any right to touch him.
"Well then, wife..." Nicholas saw her visibly start at how he had addressed her, and he asked mockingly, "Is something wrong?"
Bee could only shake her head silently.
"It seemed so long ago," Nicholas murmured, "when you would've replied differently every time I called you that. You'd be blushing and smiling at me, and you'd address me with that one word you're so inordinately fond of. Husband, wasn't it?"
A stricken look crossed her face. "Why are you doing this?" Her voice shook, pain chipping away at her heart with every memory his words were forcing her to remember. "I know I've made a fool of myself---"
"Is that why you decided to turn the tables," he asked flatly, "and make a fool of me this time?"
Bee paled, her hurt all but forgotten at the realization that Nicholas, unlike her, knew what everyone had been saying about her and Drake. "I'm s-sorry," she stammered. "I didn't know people were talking about us that way."
Nicholas' jaw clenched. She was sorry that people had talked...but she wasn't sorry about falling in love with another man?
"I would never want to shame you."
No. She wouldn't. She wasn't that type of girl, and maybe...maybe it was also time to accept that he wasn't the type of guy who deserved her.
Nicholas suddenly felt weary. "Why did you want to talk to me, Tabitha?"
She swallowed hard. "I just thought...it was time to go."
"There are only two more days left."
Her throat tight with sobs that were suddenly struggling to come out, she could only speak in a stilted voice. "I know."
"Just two more days," he repeated, and the bleakness in his voice made Bee bite her lip hard. But even so, she could only stay behind the protective walls of her heart.
"Is my company truly that unbearable to you?" Nicholas asked dully.
Her heart hurt. God. If only he knew. But all she could do was say the same thing over and over again. "I'm sorry."
He gazed at her, and he couldn't remember feeling this sick, this fucking weak. The moment she left him, the moment she became someone else's, his life would never be the same again---
And before he knew it, he was on his knees, and she was crying. He took her hands in his, and she cried harder.
"I love you, Tabitha."
But his wife only cried, her dark eyes telling him she didn't believe a word he was saying, and terror and desperation grew inside of him. "Tell me." His voice was raw with emotion. "Tell me what to do so you'll believe me---"
"I just can't---"
"At least give me a fucking clue---"
"I'm so sorry---"
"I don't need your apologies," he said hoarsely. "I need you to tell me how to fix this. Didn't you tell me I'm the world's sexiest husband? Am I not that to you anymore? Does Morrison have more abs than I do? Is that fucking it---"
"Nicholas, please!" It hurt to hear him say such things. "It's not like that---"
"But it looks exactly like that," he said bitterly, "as far as the rest of the world's concerned."
"Nicholas, no." Pain was eating her alive at seeing him so broken, and it wasn't right. It just wasn't right, and it hurt. "It's not like that at all---"
"Then stay. Please fucking stay. I'm begging you. Please stay."
"Nicholas---"
"I love you, Tabitha---"
It was too, too much. She could feel herself weakening, and it terrified her.
"I'm sorry."
And then she was running out of the room. Away from him. Maybe even for good.
Leaving him on his knees. His heart in pieces.
He really had lost her.
Bee ran and ran, but the pain didn't leave her, and she fell to her knees with a sob. God. Oh God. She had thought she was doing the right thing, setting him free. But now she was no longer sure. All she could see was the ravaged expression on Nicholas' face. All she could hear were words that he had spoken, words that he should never have said---
Tell me what to do so you'll believe me.
At least give me a fucking clue.
I need you to tell me how to fix this.
She was leaving him because she believed he was only making the best out of the situation --- Didn't you tell me I'm the world's sexiest husband?
Am I not that to you anymore?
Does Morrison have more abs than I do?
Is that fucking it?
And her pride hadn't been able to stand that. Her
pride. Not self-respect. But pride.
The only time I see you happy is when you're talking to him.
Oh God, all this time she had been protecting her pride while unknowingly forcing him to lose his---
Then stay.
Please fucking stay.
I'm begging you.
Please stay.
Her heart threatened to shatter.
I love you, Tabitha.
Nicholas heard the footsteps first, but he couldn't make himself look up, couldn't risk looking up only to find out it was not her. Because if that happened---
"Nicholas."
And then she was there, kneeling in front of him, her hands cupping his face.
"Husband."
His green eyes were wet when they met hers, and more tears rushed down her cheeks.
"I love you." A smile wobbled over her lips. "I love you so, so much---"
His arms closed about her, his mouth taking her in a sweet, hard kiss that said the rest, and she kissed him back even as she cried and wrapped her arms around his neck.
And the kiss went on forever, as it should be, for it was the happy-ever-after Bee had often read about, and it had now come true.
Epilogue
On one fine Saturday morning, Nicholas surprised his wife by driving her to the city and taking her to a beautiful black and gold steamed locomotive. "Happy fourth monthsary, Mrs. Sutherland."
Inside the train, about a hundred guests waited to surprise her, and Bee's eyes teared when she saw numerous familiar faces from the factory she used to work for.
Nicholas watched in quiet satisfaction as people from Tabitha's hometown gathered around his wife, giving her tearful hugs as they congratulated her on her marriage.
It was only when the train's liveried conductor announced that lunch would soon be served that Tabitha's former co-workers temporarily relinquished his wife's attention, and he waited until her searching gaze found his before crooking a finger at her. Come.