“Will you marry this woman?” Frost asks, reading my thoughts.
“Da, in time.” I sit back and drape my arm over the back of the sofa. “But I would like her pregnant first.”
“Why?”
“A paper is nothing.” I wave a hand dismissively. “I will make my vows to her, but my child in her body is the unbreakable bond.”
“There is no woman I wish to be bound to.” Frost tips back his glass, and I smile at him.
“Yet.”
“Never.” He shakes his head. “I will not do what they did to us.”
“And you think I will?” He looks up at me, and even though I can read his thoughts, he still says them aloud.
“No, but you are stronger than me.”
“You’re wrong.”
He remains silent to close the subject, and I allow it. Frost is as cold as his name, and if he truly shuts down, then there’s no going back. But I would feel sorry for him if he closed off his heart to what he could have. To what I feel for Pumpkin.
“Do you want to know who our mother thought our bride should be?” I ask, teasing a smile out of him.
“Did she tell you?” Frost can’t help but be curious.
“She showed up, late of course.” When he cocks his head to the side expectantly, I decide to tell him. “Chel.”
He barks a laugh so hard it surprises the both of us. “You are joking.”
“Nyet.” I shake my head.
Frost sobers after a moment and then looks into my eyes. “I have this feeling that it’s not over.” I nod in agreement. “You should keep a close eye on Pumpkin.”
I clench my jaw because he’s not wrong. There’s not many things our parents wouldn’t do to get what they want. Especially if someone was standing in the way of that. I think about what they might actually follow through with, and the thought turns my stomach.
Pulling out my phone, I send a quick text to Pumpkin telling her that I miss her, and I want to call her tonight so I can hear her voice. She doesn’t text back right away, but I assume that she’s busy, and I try to be patient.
There’s a knock on the door, and Frost scowls as he stands up from the couch. “I knew this would happen.”
We both go to the front door, and when he opens it our mother is standing there alone. I glance behind her to the town car, but there’s no one else besides the driver.
“He’s not with me,” she says softly, but neither Frost nor I make a move.
“You’re not welcome here,” he says.
“You were always the cruel one,” she hisses at him, and when he moves to step toward her, I block his path.
“What do you want? You knew coming here would only upset us.”
“I just came to apologize. I guess I misread the relationship.” She motions between us like we’re strangers to her. “But Chel is more than willing to make exceptions.” Our mother smiles as she shrugs. “But she seemed so eager to have both.”
“What is wrong with you?” I want to scream at her, but her slight frame and skittish manner make me keep my calm. “You are selling us like cattle for the sake of your social status.”
“Arranged marriages are common in our culture,” she hisses and then looks down her nose at us. “You are both spoiled.”
I wish there was a way to get through to her, but I know there can’t be. “You made the choice to stay with him.” I level her with a glare, and for once she doesn’t respond. “We tried to get you to leave him, but you stayed and blamed us.” Frost grabs my shoulder to stop me, but it needs to be said. “You were a terrible mother, and we succeeded in spite of you.”
“Miller—” she begins, but I cut her off.
“You will not get your way with this. I don’t care what you do, you will not make us bend.”
There’s a long pause, and the smile I see curl at the edge of her lips sends a chill down my back.
“We shall see.” With that, she walks off the porch and silently gets into the waiting town car.
Frost and I stare after her for a long time before he closes the door and looks at me. “What now?”
As I pull out my phone and send another text to Pumpkin, dread fills my stomach. There’s still no response from her, but I have to trust that if there was a problem, she would tell me.
“We try to make it through the night.”
Chapter Seventeen
Pumpkin
I see my phone light up, and it buzzes on my nightstand. I’ve gone from crying to being pissed, and now I’m wondering if he was with her tonight. Did he jump at the chance to be with her after I told him that I couldn’t spend the night with him? I don’t understand any of this. When he let me go, he all but said we’re moving in together.
This happened so quickly that there might be sides to Miller that I don’t know about. Am I the mistress? He acted like he wanted to wife me, but maybe I’m the fling. The thought of him being with another woman makes me sick to my stomach. Hell, it makes me feel sick when I think of myself being with another man. I guess sex is different to him.
Cookie walks into my room and sits on the side of the bed. “You should talk to him.” She grabs my phone and reads his text. “He misses you.”
Damn it, why are my eyes filling with tears again? I was sure I was past the crying stage.
“If you don’t say something or respond, he’s going to show up here.” She has a point. “Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?” she teases.
As kids we'd always sneak into each other's rooms to whisper late into the night. We’ve always been close and didn't go through a phase in our teenage years of not liking each other.
“I’ll text him.” I take the phone from her hand. “If he shows up here and gets his hands on me, I’ll forget why I’m upset. That man has put a spell on me or something.”
“I think that’s love, Pumpkin. You’re in love with him.”
She is right, and my heart aches. The way he touched me and the sweet things he said don’t make sense when I think about him being with someone else. I can’t wrap my mind around it, and I’m starting to see why my sister refuses to date. She gives me a giant hug then leaves me to send my text.
I debate if I should call but chicken out quickly and go with a text. I can’t stop myself from rereading all the texts we’ve sent each other, which only makes me miss him more.
Me: After a lot of thought, I think that we should end things. I’m not ready for a relationship.
When I hit send, I see the time stamp change to show he’s read the message. I stare at the screen waiting for him to say something, but he doesn't. After five minutes, I drop my phone on the bed and close my eyes. What the hell?
He didn't even ask why, which pisses me off. He probably can’t text back because he’s with the blonde in the picture. She was beautiful and looked like a woman who would fit perfectly on his arm.
I get out of bed and go downstairs to make hot chocolate. Everyone else is already in bed, so I search the cabinet as quietly as I can for marshmallows. When I turn, a hand comes down over my mouth and I scream against it until I realize it’s Miller. He’s standing over me with a scowl on his face, and I wonder how the hell he got here so fast…and made it inside my house.