Chapter 926 Prying for Answers
“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.
“1-1 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 people, right?”
Something lit up in Brendan’s eyes. “Your kindness might be wasted on her.” “I don’t
mind,” Charlene smiled weakly and did all she could to put on a convincing act of
compassion. “Miss McKinnon’s small-hearted because she knows she can never be
your wife. But I’m different. I’m your significant other and the future mistress of the
Brighthall family. I need to embody grace and graciousness.”
Brendan’s gaze turned profound. “You’re doing so much. Thank you.”
Charlene gnashed her teeth through the agony. “No, not at all. Go! Keep Miss
McKinnon c-company…”
Brendan shot her one last look and left. Charlene trembled in rage as soon as the
door clicked into the frame. Worried that throwing a tantrum in her room would attract
attention, she could only hide in her bathroom and sweep every item unfortunate
enough to be in her line of sight to the floor.
She looked in the mirror and saw a worn-out woman staring back at her. Her eyes
turned red. She had sacrificed so much-so she needed a win! She could not afford to
lose!
As Brendan came out of her room, Deirdre was nibbling at the food behind the dining
table. He joined her, and neither of them spoke.
It was only after she returned to the first floor that Brendan did his usual routine of
breaking into her room through the window.
“What are you doing!?” she cried, bewildered. The thought of barricading her windows
just kept getting more and more seductive.
Brendan lowered his head and kissed her before rubbing his lips against the edge of
her supple lips. “Prying for answers, of course. Wasn’t that what you were hinting at?”
Deirdre was livid. “Hinting at what? I didn’t hint at anything at all!”
He ignored her flimsy denial. He carried her fragile body in his arms and gently set her
on the bed. “Oh, really? Then what’s with the hesitation during our call this
afternoon?” “Well, it’s about-” Deirdre almost said it aloud before forcing the words
back into her throat at the last minute. She had no hard proof that Charlene had sex
with other men.
“About what?” Brendan’s eyes were twinkling with a mischievous smile that eluded
even himself. As he studied the young woman lying below him, he could not help but
tease her.
Deirdre was hard-pressed to answer him and made her frustration obvious by shoving
him away. “Can’t you just pretend it was a whim? Like, maybe I knocked myself in the
head and said something stupid in that momentary concussion? Just get out already.
Have you already forgotten all about that time Mrs. Engel found you hiding in my
bedroom, huh?”
Brendan hugged her even more tightly. “Ah, but it’s Charlene who told me to keep
your company today.” “Say what? Charlene!?” Deirdre was aghast. “Are you messing
with me!?”
What could make Charlene, obsessed with the goal of pulling Brendan away from
Deirdre by any means necessary, agree to let him into her room!?
“No, it’s true,” he replied. “I actually offered to stay with her for a bit as reparations for
ignoring her these few days. But she was surprisingly very against it. She was even
adamant that I stay with you instead, saying that we have ample time to be together
while your time with me is finite.”
Brendan pressed his cheek close to the young woman’s ear and exhaled quietly,
letting his breath roll into her ear and neck. It felt like the grazing of a featherlight
touch or the act of being covered by a wispy shroud. Every tickle his breath elicited
was pulsing with sensuality.