Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
His head flinches back slightly. “To sleep…”
My eyes dart over his shoulder toward the guest room. “Okay…but…”
He follows my stare and glances over his shoulder. He then looks back at me but says nothing.
“Do you not remember that you moved into the guest room a few months ago?” I ask, surprised that this is something he’d forget or that would be washed from his memory because of the accident.
“I…remember,” he says. “But you and I are married, and that’s not how married people act. We won’t be sleeping in different rooms.” He moves past me and enters my bedroom—our bedroom—without waiting for me to argue.
My slight hesitation to follow him into the room is just the time he needed for him to shed his clothes. He’s lifting his shirt above his head, revealing his six-pack abs I used to love so much. There’s bruising around his rib cage, and a few bandages, and regardless of how he’s claiming he’s fine, I doubt he is completely pain free.
As he unfastens his pants, he looks at the bed. “Did you change the side of the bed you sleep on while I was in the other room, or is that still the same?”
I point to the left side. “Still my side.” Feeling uncomfortable that he’s now wearing nothing but his underwear, I say, “I’ll get your pajamas from the other room.”
I quickly leave, not sure why I feel so…uncomfortable. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him without clothes on and an even longer time since feeling any kind of desire because of it. But tonight…is it desire I’m feeling?
Grabbing gray satin pajamas I once got him for Christmas, I head back to the room with my mind and emotions spinning. There’s a reason he moved to the guest room. There was a reason we no longer slept together. Nothing has changed, or has it? Did a near death experience change a failing marriage? Is it as simple as that?
When I hand him the pajamas, he looks down at them and chuckles. “Okay…”
“You told me you liked them when I bought them for you,” I say, feeling as if I’m just now being let in on a secret that he actually hated them.
His eyes lift to mine as he stops laughing immediately. “I like them. I do.” He then dresses, and for some odd reason, appears completely awkward and out of place wearing them. “I was just laughing as I remembered what they had me wear in the hospital.”
I watch him climb into his side of the bed and wonder if I should be the one to head to the guest room. But I’m exhausted, and I’m sure he is as well. I don’t feel we need to have some long, drawn-out marriage talk tonight. Clearly something is different, and I don’t think he, nor I, have the energy to approach the topic of where we go from here. Heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed, I do everything I can to get the image of Apollo’s body out of my mind.
Chapter
Five
Daphne
I can’t sleep. I hear Apollo’s breathing, and what used to be a calming sound to me when we first wed, is now causing a sort of electric currant to flow through me. I feel his heat, even though we aren’t touching. I feel a sense of closeness, even though we haven’t connected at all.
Or have we?
He touched me tonight for the first time in…ages.
He held me. He carried me. His eyes looked into mine.
But more importantly, he spoke with me. We had a real conversation in the kitchen. Yes, it was awkward, but we at least spoke. And he made a dictate we’d no longer sleep in separate rooms. It was a command I wasn’t prepared for but one I wasn’t going to protest.
I was grateful he was already asleep when I came out of the bathroom once I was ready for bed.
Or was I?
Was there a part of me that was disappointed he wasn’t laying there waiting? Waiting for his wife.
Maybe…
So many conflicting thoughts and feelings running through me, but one thing is for certain—I can’t stay in this bed any longer. I need a moment to myself. I need to—
I climb out of bed as gently as I can so I don’t wake him and tiptoe my way out of the room and head down to the living room. Flipping on the gas fireplace to heat the chilly room, I sit on the couch and stare into the flames. It feels like a lifetime ago when Apollo and I got married. He had promised me the world. He had sworn to protect me and give me anything my heart desired. He had offered me a life of a princess on a golden platter, and I was so desperate to take it. He was a Godwin, and growing up on Heathens Hollow, I knew exactly who they were and what that meant. The family not only owned Medusa Enterprises, but they owned the entire island I lived on. Poseidon Shipping provided the majority of employment to the people of the island, and though that division of Medusa was run by Leander Godwin—Troy’s brother— and his daughters, I most definitely knew the name Apollo Godwin.