by Christa Wick
Now that she was soft and satiated, I massaged her back and limbs until her bones were like jelly, then lifted her out of the tub and carried her back to bed.
After drying her off and tucking her in beside me under the covers, I decided that this—the wild, wicked sex that made her come so hard she couldn’t object or argue—would be exactly how I’d get to carry her upstairs to bed every night throughout the pregnancy.
And judging by the content curve of her full lips as she drifted off to sleep, I had a sneaking suspicion my clever wife knew I’d land on this very conclusion.
“That’s my girl,” I murmured, cuddling her into me as I fell asleep, the smile on my face a perfect match with hers.
— The End —
CAPTURING HER CURVES
Shane & Velda’s Story
Velda Pace never cared that Shane had struggled to make ends meet back then, and the billionaire he's become since is practically a stranger now. The last thing she wants is for him see her as a charity case, but for the victims who're counting on her for help, she'll beg and borrow--even barter her heart if she has to.
* * *
Shane Wehr had thought he needed to have it all to hold onto Velda back then, but he ended up losing far more than he gained. And now that she needs him for the one thing that drove them apart, he gets a do-over. This time, he knows money doesn't mean happiness. So he's not going to try and buy a second chance.
* * *
He's going to rent it. One day at a time.
* * *
Previously published as The Billionaire’s Big Regret (c) 2019 with edits throughout.
Chapter 1
Wrestling with a drain trap, Velda Pace felt a finger tap twice against her foot. She jerked hard, launching an elbow on a collision course with the sink's basin. Her fingers flew open. The pipe wrench bounced off her nose then landed flat in the middle of a long, inventive string of obscenities.
A child's gasp tugged Velda out from under the sink. Pressing a hand against her swelling nose, she looked at the girl. Eight years old and thin as a rail, Honey Grier stood frozen. Tension from a tight braid made the big, electric blue eyes look even wider, their shocked appearance magnifying Velda's guilt over the language she had spewed in the child's presence.
"I'm sorry I said those words, Honey." Pulling her hand away, Velda noticed a few red smears. More blood pooled inside her nose. "I promise I wasn't saying them at you."
The girl's head bobbed.
Velda got to her feet in search of paper towels. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
Honey offered another bob.
The silent gesture added a few more pounds to the weight permanently lodged in Velda's chest. Like all children at the shelter, Honey came from an abusive household. One of her father's triggers had been noise. Not yelling, not banging on pans. Faint whispers elicited fury with their reminders of the mouths he had to feed, the bodies he had to clothe.
Getting on her knees, Velda curled her hand around the girl's elbow and gave it a light caress.
"I'm sorry I made you bleed, Miss Pace," Honey whispered, the words bordering on inaudible.
"You didn't, sweetie. I was clumsy, that's all. Accidents happen." She offered another faint stroke against the girl's arm then pulled away. "What did you need to tell me?"
Honey pointed at the door, her gaze locked on the cracked and faded linoleum beneath her feet. "Man in a suit looking for you."
Ah, the dreaded "suits," Velda thought. For shelter kids, such men were harbingers of doom. Prosecutors, police detectives, bail bondsmen, process servers, and bankers, among the most common.
The last option stuck in her head. Eleven days into the month, she was behind on the mortgage. But it was too soon for an in-person reminder. Unless Glenn Collier at the bank had stumbled across Velda's fundraiser to repair storm damage to the roof. A failure-to-maintain clause in the contract meant he could start repossession proceedings immediately.
Or maybe it was a city safety inspector. Repossession by the bank would take months, but a failed inspection would have everyone out on the streets within hours.
Hours…
The small drip of blood from her nose turned into a fire hose.
"You need 9-1-1?" Honey tightly whispered.
Velda shook her head, went to pat Honey's shoulder then snatched her hand back because of the fresh blood coating her fingers.
"You go see what Billie is doing."
Billie was the baby sister Honey doted over.
Another string of obscenities ricocheted inside Velda's head as Honey moved with a ninja's stealthy speed to leave the room. Of all the kids, Honey's story hurt her the most. The little girl showered love and quiet attention on Billie because she knew from her own broken bones how much a giggle or muted cry could cost.
“Velda?”
A deep baritone sounded from where double doors connected the building’s gymnasium to the industrial-sized kitchen. She didn’t look to identify the man, didn’t need to. She had thrilled to the rumbling voice through four years of college.
Hearing it now made her already aching head spin.
“Velda!”
Her ass hit the floor before Shane Wehr could erase the distance between them. Her skull was on a matching collision course, but then he was there, his broad chest supporting her back, his strong arms laced under Velda's to keep her upright.
Feet pounded down the hall. Two teens burst into the kitchen, weapons raised above their heads. A month past his thirteenth birthday, Reggie Snapp brandished the hardcover edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Stefan Adams, two years older, wielded a flip-flop.
"What'd he do, Miss Pace?" Reggie asked, his body still poised to deploy all fifteen-hundred-plus pages of erudition on her behalf. "We need to call the police on him?"
Unable to trust herself with words, she tried to wave the boys away.
Reggie ignored the vague command. He took a step forward, his sharp gaze honing in on where Shane's chest pressed intimately against Velda's back.
"We ain't afraid of him," Reggie insisted. "You don't need to protect us."
"Really?" Shane laughed. "Does your friend plan on taking me out with his shower shoe or will you go for the kill by unleashing an impressive vocabulary?"
Velda answered for the boys with a hard elbow jab that landed an inch below Shane's ribcage.
"I need ice," she gurgled. "And a clean towel."
Eyeing Shane with distrust, Reggie tilted his head at Stefan. Stefan nodded, dropped the shoe to the floor and quickly stepped into it before grabbing a plastic bucket and two hand towels. He gave the towels to Velda then took the bucket into the gymnasium, returning in less than a minute with crushed ice.
She used the time to ease away from Shane. Still lightheaded, she stayed on the ground, her back against the nearest of the kitchen's three commercial stoves.
"Which one of you knows where there's a first aid kit?" Shane asked, his already rumbly voice turning into a frustrated growl.
Velda cut him a sharp glance.
"And if you could be so kind as to fetch it," he tacked on with a softer tone.
"I know!"
Stefan rushed over to the supply cabinet alongside the fire extinguisher, his flip-flops slapping heel-to-ground-to-heel.
"Me," she gurgled before Stefan could hand Shane the kit.
The teen hesitated, his gaze darting between them. Bruised flesh protesting the gesture, Velda raised one demanding brow until Stefan yielded the kit to her.
She flashed a thumbs-up then made a shooing motion at both boys. Reggie was slow to leave, his suspicious gaze lingering over Shane until Stefan reached through the door and pulled Reggie into the hall.
"Inspiring loyalty."
Shane snatched an antiseptic wipe from the kit. He tore the package open, handed her the wipe. She dabbed gently at her nose as he loaded ice into one of the cheap linen towels.
"Not that sink," she warbled as he s
tood to run cold water over the compress.
He grunted, moved to the next sink, twisted its handle. Velda wiped the blood from her face.
"Can you stand?"
"Just hand me the damn ice," she growled.
Ignoring the demand, he grabbed a chair, placed it within arm's reach of Velda, and sat down. The compress dangled from his hand like bait.
Face tilted upward, she studied him through slitted eyes and considered all the ways fame and fortune had changed Shane Wehr since they were lovers.
What she saw hurt like hell.
Chapter 2
Every glance from Velda’s emerald gaze cast another dagger at Shane. If he was churlish, so was she. He had come to help her—to help her shelter. He rescued her from the very real likelihood of a cracked skull. Yet she glared like he carried a can of kerosene and a lit blowtorch.
Watching a purplish bruise spread across her creamy cheek, Shane surrendered the compress. She snatched it up, gingerly pressed the ice against her flesh. Her eyes drifted shut, a relieved sigh escaping at the same time.
Free from scrutiny, he contemplated the generous curves that had always made him hard in college. Hell, everything about Velda made him hard when he was young. Her laugh. The way she bit at her lush bottom lip when he tutored her on algebra. Her generosity, her quick wit, her…everything.
"What happened?" he asked, exhaling the memories with a harsh breath.
She looked at him, confusion wrinkling her brow. A pained wince quickly followed the expression. She reached behind her, dragged forward a pipe wrench then lightly tapped it against the sink she had warned against using.
"Huh." His tone dropped to a tease. "I don't remember you being clumsy."
She lowered the compress, fire sparking in her gaze. He felt his own hot spark, not in his eyes, but in his chest. Coming to the shelter had been an impetuous mistake. A courier could have delivered the check, but his ego wanted to watch her count the many zeros.
After all, Velda was the one who abandoned their relationship. In the intervening decade, he steadily built a fortune with sweat and intellect. She returned to the same city she grew up in, to the same decaying neighborhood she had worked so hard to escape.
It was even the same damn shelter she had spent three months in as a high school freshman.
Right, he self-scolded. Stop trying to hold a civil conversation with the woman who left you without warning. Get up, leave the check on the counter, walk your ridiculous ass out.
His hand crept toward the lapel of his jacket.
"My media guy saw your post," he said, his thumb flicking the edge of the envelope hiding in the interior breast pocket. "That was some storm. Peeled off more than one roof, I hear. He said you wrote very eloquently about the impact on your shelter."
She closed her eyes, pressed the ice against her nose and cheek. Even with her gaze shuttered and part of her face obscured, he could still read the set of her mouth. The disapproving line had appeared when Shane implied that he hadn't read her post.
He was happy to foster the misconception. He had no intention of telling Velda that he had read her heartfelt plea more than once, or how he had moved from reading the post to reading her personal timeline and then scouring images on both the shelter's page and her own albums.
"I should have mailed this," he said, pulling the envelope out. "Or sent a courier."
"Yeah." She opened one eye. "You should have."
Shane huffed, his emotions squeezing out in small ways. He hadn't expected her to fall at his feet—which, technically, she had, but for reasons other than what he might have imagined. He did, however, expect her to exhibit all the old courtesies. She had been the one with social graces. He had been the one with his nose a few inches from his computer screen, coding long into the night, working on creating the encryption software that would eventually make him a fortune.
Somehow, they had fit perfectly together. Until they didn’t. Until he looked up from the keyboard to find her gone.
He had been alone ever since.
Shaking his head, Shane slid the envelope with its hundred-thousand-dollar check into his pocket. Velda's mouth twitched, but she didn't protest, didn't rush to grovel.
He stood, his movements slow as he lifted the chair and carefully returned it to the side table. With his hands unencumbered, he smoothed the front of his silk jacket, straightened the cuffs.
"Why did you leave?"
Velda's lips parted slightly at his question. And then they quivered. Putting the compress down, she carefully shook her head, the rich brown hair dancing around her shoulders.
"I left," she answered, "because you were already gone."
"No." Shane turned away, one hand reaching for the envelope again. "I was where I always was unless I was with you. I didn't go anywhere. You packed up your things, quit your job, and said nothing about where you were going."
"Shane…I…"
Detecting a fleeting vulnerability in Velda, he shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and turned back, his gaze fixed on her in a hard stare.
"I'm glad you found success," she said. "I understand being driven. But you were never the guy who was going to pay attention to his wife and kids. Your presence was a gift infrequently bestowed. Even then, you were never fully present.”
Ed, his media guy, hadn't said squat about Velda's eloquence. That had been Shane's own impression upon reading the post. It bugged him that he couldn't remember if she had always spoken that way. Maybe he had looked and touched far more than he had listened.
But he had loved her. She had been as essential as air to him. Surely that counted.
"What about you?" he asked.
With a wan smile, she gestured at the walls closing them in.
“No wife, but a lot of kids.”
His hand drifted to the envelope. He pulled it out, handed it to her, a warning on his lips.
"It comes with a condition."
She took the envelope but refrained from opening it.
"What condition?"
Shane watched every micro-expression that shimmered and died on Velda's face in the lead-up and posing of her question. There was a flicker of a pinch to the full mouth, a definite flare of her nostrils that was quickly smoothed out, and a fleetingly narrowed gaze.
"Nothing untoward," he snapped.
"What condition?"
Later, in his rental car and at his hotel suite, he would examine whether his irritation arose from her poor opinion of his character or that any untoward suggestion clearly would not have appealed to Velda. Standing in the kitchen, he launched straight into his terms.
"For the next thirty days, you allow me to work in the shelter and, if there is space available, to sleep on the premises."
Her voluptuous chest bounced with amusement.
"What is so funny? You have round-the-clock staff, I imagine."
"That would be me," she said.
"So you'll have help for thirty days, if I even bother to enforce the full period."
Shane consciously shaped every word before it left his mouth. He needed to evict this woman from his head. Or get her back into his bed. Thirty days in forced proximity would serve one goal or the other.
"I run background on all volunteers," she said, arm outstretched to return the unopened envelope. "Ninety-day probationary period before staying after eight p.m."
His mouth flattened.
Velda smiled. "No amount of money will change these rules."
"Fine. Run your background check. I'll stay at the Ritz-Carlton." He shoved both hands in his pockets. "Is a four-star Marine General a sufficient reference, or do you want whoever is this week's current Secretary of Defense?"
Velda's eyes drifted shut as she drew a deep breath. Her smile tightened.
"Yeah, I get it. The government vetted you. Still, every volunteer gets a background check. My guy will run it today. If he clears you, you can start tomorrow. But that means I can deposit the check tomorrow—and no o
ne at this shelter is signing a non-disclosure agreement."
She waved the envelope at him, still not knowing the enclosed sum he was using as his bargaining chip.
"So what do you say, Mr. Wehr?"
Chapter 3
Fingers trembling, Velda handed the check for one hundred thousand dollars to Glenn Collier, the Jacksonville City Trust manager. Placing the paper on his desk, he stared at her endorsement for what felt like an eternity. Then he flipped it over and stared just as long at Shane's signature. From there, he typed in the routing number and studied his computer monitor.
When he finally looked at Velda, his gaze focused on the fat purple bruise that spread from the right side of her nose onto her cheek. His scrutiny made her skin itch, but she maintained a pleasant expression.
"It's usually five-gallon jugs filled with nickels and dimes, Miss Pace."
"Sometimes quarters."
She managed a half-smile, the earlier shake in her hand infecting her voice. Firmly in his mid-fifties, a permanent frown possessed Collier's face. Her attempted joke did nothing to lift the corners of his dour mouth.
"After the problem with the roof," she continued. "I did as major a social media blitz as I could with no budget and…miraculously…it crossed the desk of someone I went to college with who can help."
"This Mr. Wehr?" he asked, studying the front of the check once more.
Velda nodded.
"Which school was this?"
"We both did undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania," she answered. "Academic scholarships."
She snapped her mouth shut before her shot nerves caused her to ramble. It wasn't Collier making her nervous. The damn deal with Shane had kept her awake all night.
Collier’s gaze returned to her face. Getting ready to leave the shelter, she had debated whether to wear makeup. She decided not to. She tried to teach the families at the shelter that bruises weren’t something to hide. Any shame belonged to the abuser.
