A Gorgeous Villain

by Saffron A Kent

  And I’m letting him because I know how important this is for him.

  I know that.

  I feel that.

  That’s why he stood in front of Conrad and made him a promise. That’s why he made all these plans. That’s why he put so much thought into them, so much care and so much detail. He must’ve made hundreds of lists to be able to pull this off.

  That’s why I’m letting my brothers take care of everything too.

  Because I know this is how they take control of the situation. This is how Conrad makes sure that nothing falls apart. This is how he copes with things. Like he did when Mom died and he had to take care of everything.

  I know if I take this away from my brothers, this control, it will only make matters worse. I know if I take away his control too, it will only piss him off.

  And I’m grateful, you know?

  God, am I grateful.

  Up until a couple of weeks ago, I thought everything would fall apart. I thought I’d be alone and an outcast. I was so scared. So, so scared.

  But then he came and he saved everything.

  I’m going to school. I have a place to live. I have a doctor. I don’t even have to quit ballet. Not every girl is this lucky. I know. I’m the exception. I have a support system that most pregnant teenage girls only dream about.

  And so I have to speak up.

  I have to step in and stop Reed.

  “I don’t need all this, Reed,” I insist, looking up at him. “I don’t need a grand house and a cook and a private clinic. I know you want to be here and you want to make things easier for me and I’m not arguing about that. But all of this,” I wave my hand at things, “it costs a lot of money, Reed. I know. I’m not an idiot. I don’t need all this, okay? And so I don’t want you working there just because of this. Because you have to provide for everything. You hate that company. You never wanted to work for your father. I know. But you had to because of me, because of what happened and what I did. So I’m not going to let you do something you hate.

  “I mean, you’re not letting me quit my dream. You even got me back into Blue Madonna. And I know soccer really wasn’t your dream but you must have one, Reed. You must want something and I can’t stand by and watch you do something you never wanted to do. Besides, it’s been two years. Can’t your dad see that you hate it? Can’t you explain it to him? I mean, he’s your dad. He must want to see you happy. And if he’s such an asshole that he doesn’t care about anything else but himself then I can talk to him. I can apologize for everything I did. I can explain —”

  He cuts me off when his arm shoots out and his fingers grab onto my bicep. They not only grab onto it, his fingers dig into the meat of my arm.

  I feel them dimpling my flesh as he bends down over me, his eyes fraught with something that I can’t place, that I haven’t really seen on him. “You will never ever talk to my father.”

  “What?”

  “Not ever. You won’t even say his name, you understand?”

  “Reed —”

  “Do you understand, Fae?”

  I nod before I can even think about it. “Yes.”

  His fingers still don’t let up. In fact, he comes down at me even more. “My father has nothing to do with this. With you. He’s not going to touch you. He’s not going to even look at you. I won’t let him. Not again. So you’re going to put this thought out of your head and you’re going to let me handle everything. Say yes if you understand that.”

  The violence in his words, the fierceness, makes me want to say yes. But more than that it’s something else, something far needier than his ferocity.

  Something that begs me to agree with him right now.

  Like if I don’t, it will destroy him.

  “Yes.”

  He nails me with his gaze for a few seconds, as if checking whether my acquiescence is genuine or not. When he’s satisfied with it, he straightens up, letting me go. “Now lock the door after I leave.”

  Back at Bardstown High, I was fascinated with his legs.

  His thighs.

  The strength in them. The way his muscles bulged when he walked or ran. The way his strides were long and languid and authoritative, sexy.

  I’m still fascinated by them, his legs.

  But I’m more fascinated by his hands now. His fingers.

  They are long and thick with rough, knobby, masculine knuckles. He’s also got blunt square-shaped nails. The veins that run on the backs of his hands, going up to his wrists, are thick and bumpy.

  And then there are his forearms. Muscled and moon-kissed skin with a dusting of dark hair that thins out as you go up while his muscles become thick and hilly and strong.

  These are the hands that hold back my hair when I throw up. They rub circles on my back as I’m heaving over the toilet bowl. These are the hands that then bring me saltines and ginger tea.

  He also warms up my dinner every night after school because my tiredness knows no bounds.

  Before, he could pick me up and drop me off and leave, but now things have gotten so bad that he stays.

  He has to.

  He has to come inside the house that he arranged for me to live in.

  He has to stay with me all through dinner, which if I’m very lucky I get to keep inside. Then he has to stay while I do my homework on the couch — he usually does his work from the office that he hates — or try to. Because I always end up falling asleep in the middle of it.

  Then with those same arms, he carries me to the bed.

  And sleeps on the couch.

  To do everything all over again the next day. Because he wouldn’t let anyone else do this for me. He and my brothers had an argument about who’d watch over me. But there was no contest.

  Reed Roman Jackson won that one with one fiercely spoken statement. “She’s carrying my baby in her body. So I’ll be the one taking care of her if her body is giving her a hard time.”

  Anyway, these are the hands that I hold on to when I go for my doctor’s appointments.

  Like the first time, Reed doesn’t let me hold on to the examination table. He makes me let go of it and wraps his fingers around mine. He lets me dig my nails into his skin when things become uncomfortable for me. He doesn’t even flinch under the force of my grip, simply keeps his eyes on me and lends me all his strength.

  And he always asks for copies of the blurry ultrasound pictures.

  Of her.

  That he then puts into his pocket with those very hands.

  With those hands, he makes lists of questions he wants to ask our doctor. And those same hands curl into fists when her answers remain the same for the next couple of appointments.

  My raging morning sickness will hopefully vanish when I enter my second trimester. It’s normal for me to feel tired and lethargic as my body changes and yes, second trimester should be better than the first.

  And it is.

  God, it is.

  When February comes around and I enter my second trimester, I start to feel normal.

  I start to feel like a human being. The days aren’t blurry and I’m not so tired anymore. I can bear the school days, the homework, the snickering, the looks, which still haven’t faded.

  But it’s fine.

  I’ve got my girls and they’re on my side. So I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks about me. I have so many other things to worry about anyway, and so I’m letting it go.

  I can talk to people when they visit me, like my brothers, especially Conrad. Ledger comes down from New York as much as he can. Shepard and Stellan try to make it too.

  And I’m so glad that I’m feeling more like myself now when a week into my second trimester, one of my favorite people in the whole world visits me: Tempest.

  She comes down from New York for the weekend and I’m so excited about it.

  Because I missed her so much.

  I’ve been talking to her over the phone since I don
’t have any time limits now, or on the number of calls that I can make. But I’m so glad that I get to see her.

  “Oh my God, you’re going to be a mommy,” she squeals as soon as she arrives in her car, carrying what looks like everything from every store in New York City.

  She dumps it all on the driveway and runs over to give me a big hug, her gray eyes cheerful.

  I laugh, squeezing her tightly. “What have you done? What are all these bags for?”

  She squeezes me tightly back. “It’s for the baby. Because hello, I’m going to be an aunt. And trust me, I’m going to be the most fun aunt ever. And for you.”

  “For me?”

  She moves away and tells me all excitedly, “Yarn for your knitting. I still don’t know how you do that stuff. But I know you love it so I brought you tons of it.”

  “You did?” My eyes tear up; that hasn’t gone anywhere, my hypersensitivity. “Aww, thanks. I’ve been dying to knit.”

  Now that I’m healthy again, I have been thinking about making little hats and socks for my baby girl. There is no way I’m going to have her wear store-bought knits.

  When her mommy’s an expert, she doesn’t have to wear subpar stuff.

  Tempest waves my thanks away. “And maternity clothes.”

  “Maternity clothes?”

  “Duh. Look at you.” She looks down at me and her smile knows no bounds. “You’re showing.”

  My hand goes to my teeny tiny baby bump and I smile too. “Very little. I can’t believe you can see it through my baggy clothes.”

  “Oh, you mean through the hoodie that you’re wearing. That belongs to my jerk brother.” She raises her eyebrows. “I can see it.”

  Oh right.

  I don’t wear my own clothes anymore. His hoodies are so comfy.

  And I do have maternity clothes — Reed bought me some and then my brothers bought me some and yes, it was like the cell phone and the groceries, the tug of war between my four overprotective older brothers and the guy whose baby I’m carrying.

  Even my girls bought me stuff. So I have tons of maternity clothes.

  Even so, I usually wear his clothes. Mostly hoodies and t-shirts, and I’ve been doing this for so many weeks now that it has become normal for me.

  It’s not.

  Not for other people.

  I tug on the hem of his hoodie. “It’s only because of his scent. He has this amazing fabric softener and —”

  “Ew.” She shakes her head. “I don’t need to hear about my brother’s scent. Although, I do wanna hear about why you’re blushing right now.”

  “I’m not.”

  Am I?

  Laughing, she hugs me again and then I help her with all her shopping bags and usher her inside.

  We spend the day like we used to back when I was free and lived in Bardstown.

  We talk and gossip and laugh. We watch movies together while we eat popcorn and the Peanut Butter Blossoms she brought for me. She shows me all her purchases too.

  Even though I’m assuming it’s a girl and Reed seems to be on board, we really don’t know what we’re having and we won’t until our fifth ultrasound appointment, which is still six weeks away.

  So Tempest bought everything gender neutral. And it’s all so pretty and cute that I start crying, freaking her out. But I tell her that these days I cry at everything.

  Soon it’s dinnertime and that’s when I hear him.

  I hear his Mustang arrive in the driveway and my heart starts racing.

  He’d texted me earlier in the day that he had a meeting at the office but he’d be home for dinner. And I have to admit that throughout the day, while hanging out with Tempest, I was thinking about her brother.

  I was waiting for him.

  And he’s here now.

  My stomach flutters and I have to press a hand on it to calm it down, her down. She always does this.

  Every day when he comes to pick me up from school or brings groceries over the weekend or asks me how I’m doing, she goes crazy inside my belly.

  And yes, I still know that it’s scientifically impossible for those flutters to be her. But I’m a mom-to-be, I’m allowed my quirks.

  So every day she wakes up at the sight of him, all happy and cheerful. Excited.

  I, on the other hand, have tried to stay unaffected.

  I have tried my best to deny the rush, the warmth, the goosebumps from invading my skin. I try to deny that my breaths scatter at the sight of him.

  In fact, all I’ve done in the past weeks, aside from being sick and tired, is deny and remember.

  Remember what he did.

  How he used me and lied to me. How he made me fall in love with him only to cast me aside when it suited him.

  I have tried to hold on to it, to the past and his crimes.

  To the hands that broke my heart.

  But these days when I see those very hands, I remember them holding my hair back, making me tea, rubbing my spine as he soothes me while being tired himself. Because of his work all day and my sickness all night. I remember them driving me to and from school.

  I remember them bringing groceries, underlining things in the pregnancy books even though he thinks that books can go fuck themselves, noting down things when Dr. May talks about handling ballet and pregnancy, fixing a leaking tap in the bathroom so it doesn’t get worse later.

  These days whenever I see his hands, I get tired. A different type of tired and exhausted.

  The kind where holding on to the past has become increasingly difficult.

  The loud sound of the car door shutting breaks my thoughts. That and Tempest’s squeals as she jumps up from the couch and runs to the front door, throwing it open.

  Even though my ballerina heart is spinning in my chest at his arrival, I slowly rise from the couch and approach the door.

  The winter sky has darkened early but it doesn’t matter.

  It never does when it comes to him.

  He burns so brightly that the night can’t hide him.

  Wearing a white dress shirt that’s wrinkled after his day in the office and hair that’s long and messy, he glows as he emerges from his Mustang. Tempest is right there when he does and like two years ago at the party that changed my life forever, I see him envelop her in a big hug.

  I see him chuckle at her as he asks her how her ride in was and if she was speeding. And what has she been doing to her car. Because it looks like shit and he’s going to take a look at it later, see if it needs a tune-up.

  When Tempest answers all of his questions and asks some of her own, he looks up.

  And I have to hold on to the edge of the door at the impact of his gaze on me.

  His dark, dark possessive gaze.

  Like he’s looking at something that belongs to him.

  I mean, technically the hoodie that I’m wearing, white and creamy and cozy, does belong to him, yes. Not to mention, the baby inside my body.

  The body that has grown and swelled — only slightly but still — in the past weeks.

  And all of it has happened under his wolf eyes.

  And so this dark possession has only grown over the past weeks.

  Before it made my skin coarse with goosebumps, but now it burns me.

  It makes me curl my extremities and part my lips.

  Now it makes me, actually makes me, put a hand on my belly. Not that it’s a hardship; I love touching my belly, but still.

  The moment I do, he lets Tempest go and his animal eyes fall on my expanded abdomen. He stares at it for a few beats as if checking that my — our — baby girl is all safe inside of me. As if he can confirm this just by looking at me like that.

  Then he lifts up his eyes and moves toward me.

  With every step he takes toward me, he does his thing.

  Checking to make sure that I’m okay, that nothing bad has happened to me while I was safely ensconced in this cozy house, spending a relaxed
day with his sister.

  His steps echo as he climbs the porch steps and I dig my fingers into my belly.

  When he reaches me, he dips his face and I crane my neck up.

  “Hi,” I say, doing my thing, glancing at the tired lines around his eyes, his mouth.

  The sharpness of his cheekbones, his jaw, the creases on his forehead.

  As if that place where he works chisels him down, brings out his blade-like edges, and I hate that.

  I absolutely hate it.

  “You okay?” he asks instead of greeting me back.

  “Yeah. You? You look tired. Was it a hard day?”

  “I’m fine.” He dismisses my concern over him and it bugs me even more but I keep my mouth shut for now. “You throw up at all?”

  “No, not even once,” I whisper. “Remember what the doctor said? I won’t. Not anymore.”

  At the mention of our doctor, his stubbled jaw clenches. “Well, the doctor can go fuck herself.”

  “Reed,” I warn. “Don’t say that. It’s not her fault that my morning sickness was so bad.”

  “But it was her fucking job to make it better, wasn’t it?”

  I sigh. “You know, you shouldn’t curse so much, Reed.”

  His eyes flash, making me blush.

  Then he asks gruffly, “Pest give you a hard time?”

  “Of course not. She’s my best friend. We had tons of fun. We saw movies. We gossiped. We had pizza and popcorn. And cheesy fries. Also cupcakes.”

  Aside from my nausea being gone, my hunger is back. I still can’t do meat. But God, give me all the fried stuff.

  His lips twitch. “Peanut Butter Blossoms.”

  Gosh, those cupcakes will be the death of me.

  Because every time I eat them, I think about his mouth. I know I’m not supposed to but I do. I do think about his taste. And it doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by his scent, his clothes. Him.

  I bite my lip, nodding. “And she bought me stuff.”

  “Stuff.”

  “Yeah. She got me tons of yarn and…”

  Something flashes through his eyes then and I realize what I said. What it means.

  I made him a sweater once. Took me weeks to work on that intarsia for him. I worked late into the night, trying to get it finished for his championship game.