”Are you sure? Even if you’re ill, it's my duty as your fiance to be very concerned.” Brendan narrowed his eyes. “Or are you sulking because I’ve been neglecting you?”

As he spoke, he quietly drew his distance closer and closer to Charlene until his face was only several inches away from her. “I mulled about it for a moment and decided that, yes, I’ve been unfair to you. We are to be married, after all. I’ll be staying here for the night.”

That offer would have sent Charlene straight to rapture if it had happened at literally any other time. At that moment, though? It just made her so panicked she was on the verge of breaking down.

“No!”

She rejected him so immediately and urgently that Brendan stared at her.

“I-I mean, what about Miss McKinnon? She’s still here in the mansion! I thought about this and, you know, it’s inappropriate to do this to her when she’s pregnant with your kid. We still have a lot of time together, but hers is running out. We should, you know, be the bigger