Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 174

Chapter 174 Two Minutes at the Door

Nora nodded, the picture of obedience. “I understand. So will you come sit at the spa for me?”

“It’s your business, and it’s a medical field. Of course I’m going to keep an eye on it for you.”

Aesthetic medicine looked simple enough, and plenty of places ran without a single qualified person on staff, but those were back-room operations that would talk a customer into anything to make a sale.

Rosalind wasn’t about to let that business burn somebody she loved, so she said yes.

Nora laid it on thick. “I knew you loved me best. I love you more than anybody. Let me cut you an apple, and I’m staying with you all day.”

The fussing put a smile across Rosalind’s whole face. She watched the knife go around the fruit. “How are things going with Julian?”

The knife paused for half a second, and then Nora smiled. “Good. Somebody came after me a few days ago and he backed me up. We argue sometimes, but he gives in and talks me around…”

The one-year agreement behind that marriage was the part she had never mentioned.

Rosalind listened to her run through small stories about the two of them. Nora smiled the whole way through without noticing she was doing it, happy and a little soft with it.

The two of them were clearly doing well together, and that put her mind at ease.

Then, Rosalind said, “It’s been two months since the wedding, hasn’t it?”

Nora nodded. “Two months.”

The time had gone fast. She had expected him to land in the ICU on the day of the wedding and be dead a month after it.

Two months in, he was still here and still fine.

Rosalind frowned. “His health was bad enough that they gave him a month. Did he find a healer?”

Nora handed her the sliced apple. “He did. I told you about the Snowbell Healer, Cordelia Blithe. Her granddaughter is the one treating him now.

“So he isn’t dying any time soon. The way they tell it, she can buy him another six months.”

Rosalind took the apple and answered without much attention. “I see. That’s good. As long as he’s all right.”

“She’s impressive, isn’t she? She auctioned off Clearheart not long ago. Olivia has a grandmother like that spoiling her and backing her up. Nobody on my dad’s side ever did that for me.”

Nora had thought it through and decided to play small and see how much sympathy it bought her.

She turned the pout on her. “All I have is a grandmother who’s sick all the time and keeps me worried every day.”

1/2

TSU Thu, Oct 1σ.

Chapter 174 Two Minutes at the Door

Finished

Rosalind knew an act when she saw one. “If a useless grandmother bothers you that much, why ask me to sit at your spa? Aren’t you afraid I’ll change my mind?”

Nova gave her the saddest face she had. “It isn’t that. I’m upset, that’s all.

“Julian and I are good together. I love him. And Cordelia knows she’s the one keeping him alive, so she uses it against me.”

Rosalind’s brows came together. “She threatened you?”

Nora nodded. “Not out loud. Grandma Weston is the one who told me. To keep the treatment going, I have to put up with it. Nobody outside the family can know I’m his wife, and in a year, once Cordelia has him cured, I divorce him.”

Rosalind set the apple down on the nightstand hard enough to rattle it. “Snowbell Healer, my ass. Who does she think she is, holding that over you? She—”

Rosalind stopped short, because Nora was watching her with shining eyes, hanging on every word.

Nora blinked at her. “Grandma, that was amazing. Keep going. Snowbell Healer, my ass.”

Rosalind caught on. The helpless act had been bait to get her talking.

“I’m not saying she has no skill. I’m saying her character doesn’t match it. Treating the sick is what she’s supposed to do. Threatening you over it is something else.”

She had no interest in going further down that road. “You’ve never been the type anybody could threaten. What changed?”

Nora put the wounded look back on. “I don’t want to be. But it’s Julian. He’s my husband and I love him too much.

“If it keeps him alive, a threat about a divorce is nothing. I’d trade my life for his.”

Rosalind studied her. “You love him that much?”

Nora nodded hard. “That much, Grandma. I’m in love with him to the point of madness. If he doesn’t get to live, I don’t want to either.

“So could you treat him-”

Rosalind’s eyes moved to the doorway. “Julian. She loves you like that. If you ever let her down, I won’t forgive you.”

Nora froze. Then, slowly, she turned her head toward the door.

Julian was standing there, tall in the doorway, looking at her like he could eat her alive.

Nora’s face went up in flames, and she couldn’t make herself look at him.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify