The Hating Season (Seasons #2) - K.A.Linde Page 0,109
I ignored it. Too many carbs. I’d be sick as a dog if I ate any of that.
“I could have picked you up.”
“We’ve already been through this,” I said, scanning the menu for the salads.
The waiter appeared then with a warm smile to take their order.
“I’ll take the 28-day aged dry rub rib eye, medium-rare, with béarnaise sauce,” Camden ordered without even looking at the menu. “Scallop potatoes and green beans.”
“Yes, sir. Excellent,” the waiter said, taking his menu. “And you, Miss?”
“Greek salad. Dressing on the side.”
I offered up the menu. Camden eyes smoldered.
“A salad?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not that hungry.”
He looked up at the waiter. “Bring her a steak too.”
“Yes, sir,” he said before departing.
“I don’t need you to order for me,” I growled.
“You need to eat. You look like you lost more weight.”
I rolled my eyes and flung my hair over a shoulder, taking a long sip of my wine. “Most people think that’s a good thing, Camden. I’ve been working out with this new trainer. It’s clearly paying off.”
“Well, I’m sure your trainer will tell you that you need to eat more calories to make up for the deficit.”
“I do protein shakes,” I said dismissively.
“Katherine…”
“You know I didn’t come here for you to be an ass about my eating habits,” I said evenly.
“Fine,” he snarled.
The conversation lapsed as we waited for our food. But I helped myself to more wine. I was into my third glass, feeling the first hints of a buzz when our food showed up. I accepted the salad first and let them put the steak down next to it. It did look good, but fuck, it was so much food. No way was I going to finish that.
“Are you excited about the resort?” Camden asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “I’d already be here if I wasn’t here.”
Camden’s face hardened into stone. “Poor thing.”
“I’m almost used to it.”
“Could you cut the attitude for one night, Katherine?”
“Me?” I asked with a half laugh, stabbing my fork into my salad.
“Yes, you. Do we have to fight each other through this entire dinner? Can we not just enjoy yourselves?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, Camden. Can we? Have we ever?”
“We did in the Maldives.”
I pointed my fork at him. “That was different and you know it.”
“Why does it have to be?”
“You know why,” I ground out.
“Because you ran back to Penn?” he spat.
I stopped breathing. “And you ran back to Fiona,” I challenged. “I haven’t forgotten Halloween.”
“Katherine…”
“Why don’t we just eat before the food gets cold? Save our cheery disposition for later.”
Camden lapsed into silence as he dug into his steak. The bloody thing looking like something he’d massacred in his rage rather than something that he should be eating. But the turn of the conversation just made me feel sicker. I didn’t touch the steak just picked around at my salad. I’d lost my appetite.
Silence lingered as our plates were cleared.
“Dessert?” the waiter asked eagerly.
“I’ll pass,” I said.
His jaw clenched. “No. Just the check.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“I thought that you liked their bread pudding,” Camden said.
“I just couldn’t stomach the carbs.” I shrugged. “Next time.”
Camden paid the check while I polished off our third bottle of wine. I was feeling good now. This dinner wasn’t half as bad I’d thought. Not that I thought the night was going to get better from here.
I set down my empty glass and began to rise, but Camden halted me. “Wait.”
I sank back down and arched my eyebrows.
Camden reached into his suitcoat and pulled out a small navy blue box with the letters HW on the front. Harry Winston. Shit.
I froze in place, going as still as a statue.
“Happy anniversary,” he said, sliding it across the table to me.
“What’s that?”
“Open it and find out.”
I didn’t reach for it.
“Why did you get me something?”
“Because we’ve been married a year,” he said evenly. “Now, open it.”
His command sent a shiver through me, and I tentatively reached out for the box. I had no idea why he was giving me this. We’d never exchanged gifts before. Not on birthdays. Not for our wedding. Not for anything. I hadn’t been expecting a gift. Did it come with strings?
I popped the lid. Inside was a pair of obscenely large diamond earrings. They each featured a central diamond with smaller diamonds haloing around the center and then five tear drop shaped diamonds winged out across the bottom like feathers. They were gorgeous and must have cost a small fortune. I should have swooned over them. Instead, my stomach tightened and I felt the chains of our binding even further.
“Why?” was the only word I got out.
“I saw them and thought of you.”
I shook my head. “You do nothing that isn’t out of your own self-interest. I know who I married…and why.”
His eyes hardened. “You don’t accept them?”
“I want to know what strings are attached.”
“Why must you be difficult?”
“You knew who you married too,” I shot back.
He said nothing for a moment as if considering and then deciding to move forward. A deliberate calculated move. Like everything he did. “I thought we could…discuss what comes next in our relationship.”
I swallowed. “What comes next…”
“We’ve been married a year, Katherine.”
“I know how long we’ve been married,” I said, clenching the box in my hands.
I knew what he was going to say. The one thing that he truly wanted from me out of this arrangement. More than the linking of our two powerful names. More than submission in the bedroom. More than his desire to break me completely.
“I want us to have a baby.”
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