“No,” Austen corrected. “She reads Nora, remember? If you were acting like one of her heroines, you’d be picking yourself up by your fashionable bootstraps and fighting that evil yourself, because you don’t need a man to be happy unless he accepts you as his equal in all things. There are no stinky pajama-wearing, bad hair day yarn forts in Nora’s world.”
“I was untangling—never mind.” Hugo snorted, but Bronte was too agitated to laugh. “I tried to fight it, but he wouldn’t let me. He just kept coming. Stupid presents. Sweet texts. Those damn selfies. He read all the Bronte sisters. All of them, Hugo. And then we…” She blushed, looking back down at her plate. “Then, when I finally show up and give in? He sends me packing, throws all my stupid arguments back in my face and says, ‘Oh by the way, I didn’t tell you we could have gotten an annulment months ago. My bad.’ He doesn’t even know that I’m—”
She cut herself off and got to her feet, avoiding their interested gazes as she took her plate to the kitchen sink.
Hugo followed her. “He doesn’t know you’re what?”
She glanced over at him, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. He told me he’d give me a divorce. He sent me away.”
“He didn’t want to,” he told her softly. “I think you know that.”
Austen showed up on the other side of her, knocking her hip gently against Bronte’s. “He’s been after you from day one, hasn’t he? He didn’t let anything stop him. Not your constant rejections, or his family, or the distance between here and Baltimore… If you really love him, don’t you think it’s your turn to go after him?”
She had a point. “Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know how. I’m not like you or Tasha, Austen. I’m low on wiles, remember? No muss, no fuss, no romance. That’s me.”
Austen’s expression was rueful. “Clearly you have the wiles. You’ve already caught him. Now you need to reel him in before he swims away for good.”
Bronte frowned. “What do you mean? Is he leaving?” Again?
She turned to Hugo and he shrugged. “A man he knows in Baltimore has offered him a job. According to Younger, William doesn’t seem to think he has a reason to stay. Not even his sister has been able to get through to him.”
He couldn’t leave. No matter what he said, he’d missed his family. He’d wanted to come home.
And he loves you.
He’d never said it, but he’d shown it in a thousand little ways. Too many for her not to know how he felt. And Austen was right. He’d fought through every obstacle she’d put in front of him. Knocked down all her defenses and given her one new experience, one adventure after another.
She couldn’t deny that he’d lied to her. Pushed her away on purpose, whether it was to protect her not.
Pride, Tasha had told her. Male pride.
She should tell her the shirt advice didn’t always work.
“So what do I do about my husband dilemma?”
Hugo hesitated. “Well, there’s an idea a few of the Finns wanted to run by you. They’ve been looking into it for a few months, I heard. Ever since he left the first time. But they’d need you to really sell him on it.”
She nodded, putting a hand on her fluttering stomach to hold back the butterflies. “I’m in.”
Austen grinned. “Don’t you want to hear about the plan first? Get all the details? Think it through?”
“There’s nothing to think about. I’m his wife, and my husband isn’t going anywhere.”
Not without a fight.
Chapter Ten
Brilliant. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to piss off his sister, but Kate was definitely avoiding him. She’d hardly said a word to him last night, and she’d left before dawn this morning.
She didn’t agree with his decision to leave. No one seemed to, not even Pat Collins.
“Not that I don’t enjoy your company, William. You remind me of younger days, back when I first met my Sunday. But I don’t think coming back is the right decision.”
When William had asked him why he’d said simply, “Because your Sunday isn’t here. And you shouldn’t leave her unless and until life takes the choice away from you.”
Bronte. No matter how many times he’d tried to explain to the man that it was never meant to be a real marriage, that Bronte thought he was too young and too irresponsible to be husband material, Old Pat was unshakeable.
“I’ve seen what’s between you two. That’s as real as it gets.”
He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. They all thought he should keep fighting for her, apologize on his knees if he had to, and get her back. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought the same at least a dozen times a day. But then the voice of logic—a new voice to be sure—would remind him that his desire was a selfish one.