I Choose Him, Your Worst Enemy novel Chapter 160

Friday rolled around, and Wynette found herself following Adriel out to the farm just as they'd planned.

It was a bigger operation than she'd expected, and it wasn't just the grandparents keeping it running, either.

They'd brought in a solid crew of hired hands to help manage everything.

Adriel took her on a slow, wandering tour of the grounds, and eventually the two of them ended up inside one of the greenhouses, picking strawberries.

He trailed behind her with a basket already half-full, watching her crouch in the row with practiced ease.

"Grandma had a few of the chickens and ducks butchered and sent over to your place," he said, speaking to the back of her head as she worked. "She wanted your folks to have something fresh."

She'd also packed up a generous haul of her own homegrown vegetables and fruit to send along with them.

Wynette tilted her head back and looked up at him. "That's way too much. She really didn't have to do all that."

The thought of going home with her arms full of someone else's generosity made her face go pink, more from embarrassment than anything else.

Adriel reached into the basket, pulled out a strawberry, gave it a casual swipe against his shirt, and ate it in one clean bite. "We've got more than we can possibly eat here. Some of it goes to Rainmist House anyway.

"Whatever Grandma hands you, just take it with both hands," he added, popping another one into his mouth without ceremony. "She'll be hurt if you don't."

Wynette watched him demolish a third strawberry and felt the need to say something. "At least wash them first."

The words were barely out of her mouth before Adriel had already wiped another one clean on his shirt, turned around, and crouched down directly in front of her.

He held the strawberry right up to her lips. "It's sweet," he said. "Try it."

Wynette glanced at him, then reached up to take it from his hand herself.

Having him feed it to her felt like crossing some invisible line she wasn't quite ready to cross.

Adriel gave her hand a light, unhurried tap. "Your hands are covered in soil. Let me."

She looked down. He had a point.

She looked back at the strawberry hovering at the edge of her mouth, and finally leaned forward and bit into it.

The juice burst across her tongue, sweet and bright and perfectly ripe, the fragrance of fresh strawberry blooming all the way to the back of her throat.

Wynette's eyes curved into a warm, delighted crescent. "It really is sweet. That's wonderful."

She leaned forward and finished the rest of it right out of his hand.

Adriel smiled. "Want more?"

He wiped several more in quick succession and held each one up to her lips, one after another.

Wynette kept picking, and Adriel kept feeding her, staying close at her side the whole time.

The part where she'd told him to wash them first had completely slipped her mind by now.

They filled the basket steadily, though a fair number of strawberries never made it that far, having taken the considerably more direct route of ending up in one of their mouths instead.

Adriel picked up the basket and walked out of the greenhouse with Wynette at his side, his voice easy and unhurried. "When Joanne used to come pick strawberries, she'd never bother with a basket. She'd just say she could bundle them up in the front of her shirt.

"Then she'd forget they were in there, sit down wrong, and crush the whole batch. Shirt ruined, strawberries ruined, everything ruined."

A low, warm laugh moved through his voice. "Or she'd pick one, wipe it on her sleeve, and eat it right then. By the time she'd made one full loop of the field, she'd eaten herself completely full and didn't need lunch."

Wynette was grinning by the time he finished, something genuinely fond softening her expression.

She looked at him with bright eyes. "Alright, your turn. Tell me something about you."

She'd actually heard bits and pieces about Adriel from Joanne over time.

He was steady and mature from a very young age, the kind of boy who was always expected to be more than he was, and was held to standards that didn't leave much room to breathe.

Joanne had roamed freely as a kid, wading into streams to catch fish, climbing into the hills to pick wild berries, tagging along to every fair and amusement park within reach. Adriel hadn't been allowed any of that.

His whole childhood had been carved up and allocated, every hour filled with lessons of one kind or another.

When they were little, Joanne used to feel so guilty about it that she'd occasionally drag him out on secret escapes, the two of them slipping out when nobody was watching.

But every single time they came back, Adriel ended up grounded for it. Eventually Joanne stopped asking.

It was nothing like the cold, composed Adriel she thought she knew.

He held her gaze for a long, unhurried moment, and then his eyes dropped briefly to her ankle, just for a second, before he spoke. "You won't," he said, his voice perfectly calm. "I won't give you the chance."

Then, without missing a beat, he said, "Let's head back. Grandma will be worried." He looked away and stepped ahead of her, smooth as turning a page.

Wynette didn't know if she was imagining things.

But something about the way he'd looked at her just then had sent a faint, inexplicable chill running from the soles of her feet straight up her spine.

His face had been exactly the same as always.

She followed a step or two behind him and tried to shake off the strange, unsettled feeling blooming in her chest.

What Wynette couldn't see from where she walked was the moment Adriel turned his back to her fully, and his expression dropped like a mask slipping off a wall.

His hand had the basket in a grip so tight the wicker frame had begun to warp under his fingers.

Something burned in the depths of those dark, still eyes, something fixed and obsessive and very, very deliberate.

The question she'd asked was still turning in his head. He'd thought about it before, actually. More than once.

He'd thought about what he'd do if she ran.

The answer he'd arrived at was simple: he'd find her. And he'd bring her back. And she wouldn't be leaving again.

He was even, at this present moment, giving genuine consideration to whether having something custom-made for the occasion would be prudent.

It'd be something that would ensure she stayed exactly where she belonged, if it ever came to that.

The thought flickered and then he pressed it down, hard, before it could fully form.

He could not scare her. He absolutely could not afford to scare her off.

Restraint. He needed to exercise restraint, and he needed to do it right now.