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“You need to leave,” Thaddius says. Firm, but not all that unkind. “There’s not going to be any legal documents drawn up because we don’t need them. I don’t want to marry you, and you don’t want to marry me, so that’s the end of it. Our families can’t do a thing about it.”
I sigh and shake the pages in my hand. “I get it. You like being out here by yourself. All you have to do is sign your name on this paper to say that you refuse. That’s all I want. I just want it in writing. That’s not too much to give me, is it?”
“I’m not exactly into signing slightly sketchy and random pieces of paper.”
Right. Trust issues. He just finished telling me all about that. “You have my steadfast and utter assurance that you’ll have no argument from me when it comes to all this, but I think you’re underestimating our families. I want something more ironclad than just words spoken and vanished.”
I know I can be stubborn, but it’s not always a bad trait. I do think I’m way more like my grandma than my parents, and right now, that chaffs my ass cheeks.
Thaddius is stubborn too. “No,” he replies.
That’s pretty much it for my patience. People tell me that when I get mad, they can’t even tell because I’m always so cheerful and perky and nice. My voice only goes up a notch, but it still sounds like I’m having a happy conversation here. “Days, Thaddius. I’ve been driving for days! I haven’t had a proper shower in almost a week, I’m covered from head to toe in grime, and my car is a smoldering wreck on the side of the road. I literally grabbed this contract from my parents when they told me everything and freaking drove all the way here.”
“I’m sorry you did that. And I’m even sorrier that you just found out now.”
“How long have you known?” I think he said something about being a kid, but I can’t believe that’s true.
“About us? That we were supposed to get married? Since I was a kid. But I thought it was a joke. I’ve lived with thinking it was a joke until I was old enough to date.”
“And then your family started chasing everyone away?”
“Sort of. They kept telling me I was basically engaged. That I had my life planned for me. But, like how usual suppression and repression go, it only made me more determined to make my own way. I still dated and all, but in secret. Kind of. Anyway, that’s not important. This was never going to really happen. I still refuse. You refuse. End of story. Have a good life. I really do wish you well.”
My eyes grow wide, which makes them feel even dirtier because all the grime in the creases there starts getting scratchy and stiff. “You’re really just going to…to not help me? My car is broken down. I have no way to get back home. I also have no money. My phone is freaking off in my car, and even if I had it on me right now, I wouldn’t suck it up and call my parents for help. Not after what they did to me. We should be fighting this as ateam!”
He raises a shoulder in a single, assholish shrug. “There’s no need for a team. We don’t have anything to fight. Let’s just get on with our lives. You’re going to have to go home sometime to do that anyway, even if it involves sucking up your pride. I just want to be left alone. I’m not taking no for an answer on this one.”
My pride? Oh no. I’m not taking lessons from him about pride when clearly all he does is let his pride talk for him.
Also, I realize I need to freaking change tactics here. I can see that Thaddius expects me to be all furious and rage at him. He probably thinks some cursing is in order. Not saying he doesn’t deserve it, though, especially since he’s not very darn chivalrous. Instead, I just stand here and study him. I know I probably look more like a dirt monster than an angel, covered in enough grime to gag a road, but here it goes anyway. My usual charm is coming on strong.
“Will you take Nina for an answer?”
He has no idea what that means, I can tell, but my sugar-sweet smiles clue him in that things are just gettingstarted. He might want to be left alone, but I’m not going anywhere. I can be just as sweet and innocent and as angelic as all hell. It will be so much worse than being mean and pushy.
Thaddius Wonderduck isn’t the kind of man a person can convince to do anything. He won’t be responsive to threats. I’ve met people like him before, and I know for a fact that the most effective way to get what I want is to slay, slay, slay with kindness. Ignoring the fact that, right now, a shower is essentially what I want most in the world, I have to keep my eyes on the prize. That’s my freedom. Signed, sealed, and delivered by a lawyer and then signed again by Thaddius and myself. I can be sweet, nice, and convincing. If he hates those things, all the better. He’ll just have to give in faster since I know what it takes to wear a person down.
If Thaddius wants that peace he’s so desperately going on about, he’ll give in. It’s either that or I’m not budging. In fact, I like the look of that nice little white farmhouse over there. And the red barn that is so…sofarmyard. I like animals of all kinds, and I’m pretty sure that little one-story farmhouse with the white peeling paint has a shower and something to eat, which sounds pretty fucking amazing to me.
Maybe this city girl would like to stay and experience country life for a few days. I know just the perfect host who will help me do it too.
And guess what? I just happen to be betrothed to him against my will.
Thaddius Wonderduck is still pretty much my “betrothed” since he refuses to sign a paper voiding the initial contract.
CHAPTER 4
Thaddius
“Oh, you have sheep!”
Oh no, she won’t dare. But she does. Nina is edging away from me, backing away from the fence and the fields. She keeps crab-walking backward, getting closer and closer to the house. Every single step she takes is getting her there. She stated the obvious as though she’d just noticed, but that had to be impossible. The sheep had been bleating on and on ever since she walked up to the fence.
I steal one last longing look at the fence I was in the middle of repairing. It’s Herman Merman’s corral—Herman Merman is the name of my donkey—but he has a temporary spot for the moment while I’m out here working anyway. There isn’t any reason I can’t leave and take a short break. Except I don’t want to, damn it. Yet here I am, breaking away and taking big plodding steps in the direction of the crazy woman who just showed up here and launched a huge freaking boulder into my day. No, she’s more like a mountain.
A very pretty, undeniably attractive mountain. Even after driving for days, probably sleeping in her car to save money, having said car break down, having to walk miles, and getting coated in grime, she’s in good spirits. She’s just had a mountain thrown into her life as well, compliments of finding out she has a betrothed. And she did something about it. It might have been something I’d classify as ill-advised, but she wrested control away and took matters into her own hands. I have to admire her for not giving up. Even if it isalsopure lunacy.
My steps quickly overtake the progress she’s made in those hellish things that once used to be flip-flops but are now more like…I don’t know. Grime mops? Shudder. If those snuck up on me and touched my toes, I’d lose it, yet there Nina was, acting like she just didn’t care.
