by Anna Zaires
I force my paralyzed tongue into action. “What about your criteria? Don’t you want to marry some glamorous, sophisticated socialite? Someone who knows all about the latest fashions and politics and can—”
“No.” There’s utter certainty in his voice. “That’s what I thought I wanted, but I was wrong. There was only one criterion that ever truly mattered to me, only one thing I wanted my future wife to be.”
“And what’s that?”
“My family. Someone I can count on.” He pauses, then adds softly, “A woman unlike my mother.”
My heart squeezes to the size of a pinprick, my lungs stalling as tears prickle at the back of my throat again. Marcus hasn’t talked much about his childhood, only dropping hints here and there, but it doesn’t take much imagination to picture what it was like. His mother had been an alcoholic, he’d told me, a twenty-four-seven drunk. Of course he couldn’t count on her; whatever love she had for her son would’ve been swamped by her addiction to the bottle.
No wonder he’d embraced my grandparents so eagerly. Whereas I’ve always had their love to sustain me, he’s never had anything close to an actual family, to people he could rely on and trust.
Looking at him now, at this gorgeous, powerful man I’ve always viewed as being out of my league, I realize for the first time that I can be what he needs.
I can give him love and family… and the entirety of my heart.
He’s watching me keenly, waiting for my answer, so I drag in a breath and say, “You know I come with cats, right? It’s three of them now, but I may want to adopt more in the future. There are so many in shelters that could use a good home. And I may want to get a dog or two one day as well.”
His eyes flare with banked triumph, but his voice is even. “The more, the merrier. Fill the entire penthouse with pets if you want. Hell, I’ll buy you a bigger one—a mansion, a castle, an island… We’ll have an entire zoo if you’re so inclined.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. I was half-joking about more pets, but I’m glad to hear he’s on board. “What about kids?” I ask. “I think I want three.”
“Done.” His gaze turns scorching hot. “Let’s start on the first one right away.”
“Wait,” I yelp as he pulls me to him, his strength undiminished by his injuries. “Marcus, wait, you’re hurt, and the doctors—they’ll be here at any moment. Also”—I brace my hand on his pillow, keeping our lips from joining—“I need to tell you something.”
He stills, wariness stealing into his eyes. “What is it?”
I push on the pillow, forcing him to let me sit up straight. Laying my palm on his knee, I say steadily, “I love you, Marcus. I have since before Florida. When you left me that Sunday, it felt like you ripped out a piece of my heart, and I’ve been afraid of getting hurt ever since. But I’m not anymore. I was going to tell you that when you came home after your presentation—and I’m so, so sorry you couldn’t give it because of me.”
An achingly tender smile blooms on his face. “Kitten, I—”
“No, wait, let me finish.” I take a breath. “I love you, Marcus, and I want to be with you—but I’m not okay with what you’ve done. If we’re to get married, I need you to promise that you’ll never again spy on me or manipulate my life in any way. Can you do that? Can you make me that promise?”
His eyes burn tiger bright. “Yes, my sweet. As long as you promise never to leave me—and marry me before the end of the year.”
“What?” My jaw falls open. “Today is December 17th!”
“I know.” Ruthlessly, he draws me closer.
“The end of the year is two weeks from now!”
His lips brush over mine. “I know.”
“Marcus, we really need to talk about—”
He claims my lips with a deep, mind-stealing kiss, and by the time he lets me come up for air, his heart rate monitor is beeping, bringing the nurses in.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Emma
The princess-cut diamond on my finger glitters as I smooth my palms over the front of my black dress, marveling at how the silky material flatters my postpartum curves. I still have a tiny hint of a belly, but in this perfectly tailored dress, it’s impossible to tell.
“You look gorgeous,” Marcus says huskily, stepping up to the mirror behind me. “Absolutely stunning.” He cups my breasts, which are now a full two sizes larger, thanks to the milk our voracious little monster demands. The dress exposes only a hint of cleavage, but it’s enough to get my husband’s attention.
What am I saying? Existing is enough to get my husband’s attention. I have it always, no matter how I look or what I wear. When I was pregnant, he spent hours each day exploring my changing body, stroking and loving me and making me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. And in the six weeks since I’ve given birth, he’s been climbing walls and counting down the minutes until the doctor clears me to resume our highly active sex life—not that we haven’t found ways around the restrictions.
For a man whose career is all about numbers and facts, Marcus can be quite creative.
This is an exciting week for us. Yesterday, my husband’s investment idea from last year—the biotech stock that was the subject of his ill-fated keynote presentation—took the top prize at this year’s Alpha Zone. Marcus couldn’t pitch it himself because of the accident, so he had his Chief Investment Officer, Jarrod Lee, do it in his stead later that week. As Marcus had hoped, the company got approval for their blood pressure drug, and the price of the stock more than quadrupled over the past year, generating tremendous returns for Marcus’s fund and everyone else who had the wisdom to buy it on his recommendation.
Tonight is another big night, and not just because I got the green light from my ob-gyn this afternoon—something I plan to tell Marcus after the book signing, lest we end up horribly late. And I can’t be late, because this is my book signing, arranged at my request at Smithson Books. My publicist wanted me to do it at Barnes & Noble, but I insisted.
I might’ve left my full-time job when my romantic thriller—the second book I self-published—landed on the New York Times list of bestsellers, but Mr. Smithson’s bookshop still feels like my second home.
“We better go before he wakes up,” I say, my own voice huskier than usual as I meet Marcus’s gaze in the mirror. The sight of his big hands possessively splayed over my breasts is beyond erotic, as is the warmth coming off his palms. I can feel it even through my dress and bra, and my underwear grows damp as I picture what’s going to happen in a few hours, when I tell him that I’ve been officially cleared.
Oh yeah, it’s going to be a big night—assuming our little milk monster cooperates. Joshua Reed Carelli does not like to be kept waiting, and he much prefers getting his nourishment directly from the breast. If we don’t leave soon, he’s going to let us know—loudly—that he’s hungry, and if I’m anywhere in the penthouse, he won’t rest until I’ve fed him myself. If I’m away, however, he’ll be perfectly content with the nanny feeding him the milk I’ve pre-pumped.
It’s scary how manipulative, and downright psychic, our six-week-old baby can be.
Must’ve gotten it from his daddy.
“All right,” Marcus says, reluctantly releasing my breasts. “But let’s just peek in on him for a second, okay?”
“Okay. But if he wakes up, it’s on you,” I say with a tender grin as I follow him to the baby’s room. There are dedicated fathers, and then there’s Marcus. My husband is as obsessed with our infant son as he is with me, so much so that our nanny complains that whenever he’s home, she has nothing to do.
My neat freak billionaire may avoid scooping cat litter, but he changes diapers like a pro.
To my relief, when we step into the nursery, we find little Reed—for some reason, we have trouble calling him Josh or Joshua—sleeping soundly, surrounded by his usual companions: our cats.
Mr. Puffs is his current favorite, and sure enough, our son is sleeping with the
cat’s fluffy tail clutched in his tiny fist. I was worried when he started grabbing it at two weeks of age; Puffs is not exactly known for his patience. But for whatever reason, my biggest, meanest cat has decided that the baby is allowed to torment him however he pleases, and instead of running away or swatting the infant with his paw, he stays put and suffers in silence.
“He’s appointed himself your son’s guardian,” Geoffrey told us, and I’m pretty sure the butler’s right. The same must be true for my other cats as well, because they now spend most of their day with the baby. At this very moment, Cottonball is warming his feet, Queen Elizabeth is guarding the top of his head, and Mouse—the nine-month-old calico who’s the newest addition to our family—is curled up at his side.
Marcus is the one who found her and brought her home. He had a business meeting in Greenwich, Connecticut, four months ago, and as he was waiting for the train back to the city, Mouse trotted up to him, meowing at full volume. She was painfully thin, clearly malnourished, so Marcus fed her some tuna from his sandwich, and a love affair was born.
“She followed me onto the train,” he explained apologetically when he brought the kitten home from the vet. “I couldn’t chase her off, now could I? And the vet said the shelters are full…”
“You did the right thing,” I said firmly, though I was somewhat worried about introducing the kitten to my cats. Next to them, she was tiny, like a mouse, and I was afraid they’d treat her like one. But after a couple of hours of wary looks and arched backs, Queen Elizabeth embraced the newcomer, and her siblings followed suit, welcoming the kitten—now officially named Mouse—into our household, where she’s been thriving, and loving Marcus, ever since.
Yes, my once-anti-pet husband now has two cats—Cottonball and Mouse—madly in love with him, and he doesn’t mind it one bit.
“Just look at that. I think my heart is melting,” Marcus whispers, staring at the baby-and-cats tableau, and I nod, too choked up to speak. I feel like that all the time these days, and I think it’s only partially the postpartum hormones.
We didn’t get married last December—a victory I achieved by arguing that I didn’t want Marcus to wear a cast at our wedding. Instead, we said our vows at the end of January, some six weeks after his hospital proposal, on the pier in Flagler Beach. It was a small, intimate ceremony, with just my grandparents and our closest friends, whom Marcus flew to Florida in his private plane. Afterward, we honeymooned in Fiji, where my husband pulled out all the stops, renting us a luxurious over-the-water bungalow on a private island. For three weeks straight, we swam in the crystal-clear waters, feasted on tropical fruit, and lazed around—or our version of lazing around, which involved our laptops and a fair amount of work. It was during those weeks that I wrote the majority of my first book, also a romantic thriller, which I quietly self-published two months later under a pen name and with zero expectations of commercial success.
To my surprise, it sold. A few dozen copies the first week, a few hundred the second as favorable retailer algorithms kicked in. Then some prominent bloggers picked it up, and a week later, I took Marcus out to his favorite single-berry restaurant and fessed up about my secret project and how well it’s done. He was proud of me, if more than a little hurt that I hadn’t told him earlier, and I promised never to hide anything from him again.
Now he’s my most avid fan, reading each scene as I write it and offering suggestions, and talking up my books to everyone we meet. He also funded the advertising campaign for my second novel, helping it hit all the bestseller lists. Or rather, we funded it, since shortly after we got married, I agreed to combine our accounts.
We’re family, and there’s no longer his or mine, only ours.
So yes, I’m now a full-time author, though I still edit on the side for some of my old clients—mostly because I enjoy it. The flexibility of my new career suits me, especially since Marcus and I decided not to wait to have children, and our little milk muncher was conceived almost right away.
I was right about Marcus’s swimmers; they are as ruthless and determined as the man himself.
Standing next to him now, seeing the love and tenderness on his strong, handsome face, I feel a surge of happiness so intense my chest feels too small to contain it. “I love you,” I whisper, lacing our fingers together, and as his gaze shifts to me, his cool blue eyes kindling with that dark, fierce hunger, I know that for him, I’ll always be a prize worth fighting for—worth crossing any line for.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
THE END
Thank you for reading! If you would consider leaving a review, it would be greatly appreciated.
Marcus and Emma’s story may be over, but I have more steamy romance coming your way! To be notified when my next book is out, please sign up for my newsletter at annazaires.com.
Ready for my other sizzling stories and don’t mind a bit of darkness? Check out:
The Twist Me Trilogy – Nora & Julian’s dark, twisted love story
The Capture Me Trilogy – Lucas & Yulia’s breathtaking enemies-to-lovers romance
The Tormentor Mine Series – Peter & Sara’s intense captive romance
Darker Than Love – an addictive standalone dark romance between Yan and Mink, co-written with Charmaine Pauls
The Mia & Korum Trilogy – an epic sci-fi romance with the ultimate alpha male
The Krinar Captive – Emily & Zaron’s captive romance, set just before the Krinar Invasion
The Krinar Exposé – my scorching hot collaboration with Hettie Ivers, featuring Amy & Vair—and their sex club games
The Krinar World stories – Sci-fi romance stories by other authors, set in the Krinar world
Prefer action, fantasy, and sci-fi? Check out these collaborations with my hubby, Dima Zales:
The Girl Who Sees – the thrilling tale of Sasha Urban, a stage illusionist who discovers unexpected secret powers
Mind Dimensions – the action-packed urban fantasy adventures of Darren, who can stop time and read minds
Upgrade – the mind-blowing technothriller featuring venture capitalist Mike Cohen, whose Brainocyte technology will forever change the world
The Last Humans – the futuristic sci-fi/dystopian story of Theo, who lives in a world where nothing is as it seems
The Sorcery Code – the epic fantasy adventures of sorcerer Blaise and his creation, the beautiful and powerful Gala
If you like audiobooks, please visit annazaires.com to check out this series and our other books in audio.
And now, please turn the page for a little taste of Tormentor Mine and The Girl Who Sees.
Excerpt from Tormentor Mine
He came to me in the night, a cruel, darkly handsome stranger from the most dangerous corners of Russia. He tormented me and destroyed me, ripping apart my world in his quest for vengeance.
Now he’s back, but he’s no longer after my secrets.
The man who stars in my nightmares wants me.
“Are you going to kill me?”
She’s trying—and failing—to keep her voice steady. Still, I admire her attempt at composure. I approached her in public to make her feel safer, but she’s too smart to fall for that. If they’ve told her anything about my background, she must realize I can snap her neck faster than she can scream for help.
“No,” I answer, leaning closer as a louder song comes on. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
She’s shaking in my hold, and something about that both intrigues and disturbs me. I don’t want her to be afraid of me, but at the same time, I like having her at my mercy. Her fear calls to the predator within me, turning my desire for her into something darker.
She’s captured prey, soft and sweet and mine to devour.
Bending my head, I bury my nose in her fragrant hair and murmur into her ear, “Meet me at the Starbucks near your house at noon tomorrow, and we’ll talk there. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.�
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I pull back, and she stares at me, her eyes huge in her pale face. I know what she’s thinking, so I lean in again, dipping my head so my mouth is next to her ear.
“If you contact the FBI, they’ll try to hide you from me. Just like they tried to hide your husband and the others on my list. They’ll uproot you, take you away from your parents and your career, and it will all be for nothing. I’ll find you, no matter where you go, Sara… no matter what they do to keep you from me.” My lips brush against the rim of her ear, and I feel her breath hitch. “Alternatively, they might want to use you as bait. If that’s the case—if they set a trap for me—I’ll know, and our next meeting won’t be over coffee.”
She shudders, and I drag in a deep breath, inhaling her delicate scent one last time before releasing her.
Stepping back, I melt into the crowd and message Anton to get the crew into positions.
I have to make sure she gets home safe and sound, unmolested by anyone but me.
Get your copy of Tormentor Mine today!
Excerpt from The Girl Who Sees by Dima Zales
I’m an illusionist, not a psychic.
Going on TV is supposed to advance my career, but things go wrong.
Like vampires and zombies kind of wrong.
My name is Sasha Urban, and this is how I learned what I am.
“I’m not a psychic,” I say to the makeup girl. “What I’m about to do is mentalism.”
“Like that dreamy guy on the TV show?” The makeup girl adds another dash of foundation to my cheekbones. “I always wanted to do his makeup. Can you also hypnotize and read people?”
