by S. Ann Cole
Lovello had finished eating — managing only half of what was on his plate — and had grown quiet and pensive, while I was rummaging around in the refrigerator, searching for something easy to eat. Spying a cantaloupe, I grabbed it up with a knife and began peeling.
“Let Rosa do it, beauts. I don’t want you handling sharp objects,” Lovello said without looking at me.
That made me guffaw. “Are you serious? I’m not a baby, Love. I’m just carrying one.”
In the hopes of easing his qualms about a grown ass woman like me handling a knife, I went to sit next to him on a stool and continued peeling the cantaloupe.
“Well, I guess I better get used to it. Because I want you to start cooking dinner instead of Rosa. I miss your hand,” he said quietly.
“That’s manageable,” I nodded.
Comparing to how good-humored he’d been all morning, his sudden quietness was beginning to scare me. Was he going to relapse into his revengeful mode just like he’d done on that day he promised me he’d take care of me, then suddenly began eschewing me? I tried not to overthink things, but when his quietude became intolerable, I plastered on a smile and nudged him with my shoulder. “Hey, you okay?”
When he glanced at me as if I’d startled him, I knew his mind had been anywhere else but planet Earth. He kept his eyes on me for less than a second, then shifted them past me. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
As I felt my heartbeat growing to loud, erratic thuds, I set down the knife and half-peeled cantaloupe. “What do you mean? W-what’s the matter?”
His gaze dropped to his plate. “I was just wondering —”
I cut him off by leaning over and placing my palms on either side of his face, forcing him to lift his eyes to mine. “Look at me, like you always do, Love, and tell me.”
He brought his hands to cover mine on his face, and staring at me as I requested, he said, “I’m sure you’ve heard what my intentions were on … that night.” He raised his brows for confirmation and I nodded. Yes, he was going to propose. So … ?
“Well, I was wondering what you thought about that.” Smiling hesitantly, he added, “You know, us getting, um, married.”
Lost for words at the moment, I could only stare back at him. Was he serious? Of course I didn’t want to get married … yet. Why would he spring this on me now? I was pregnant and hadn’t even grown comfortable with the idea yet. And now marriage?
When I tried to move my hands from his face, he gripped them tight, refraining me. “No. Please. Just answer me.”
“Love…” I trailed off, unsure how to answer. “Not now. It’s too much. I’m just getting used to the idea of being pregnant. It’s all still new to me and the changes in my life are just happening so fast, it’s overwhelming. You have to understand that now is not the right time.”
As if I’d burned him, Lovello’s hands fell from mine as he turned away from me. I reached out and touched his arm when he made to get up from his stool, but he shrugged me off. “Don’t,” he gritted out. “I don’t know why I continue to make an ass of myself with you, when I know there’s nothing but a huge, dark hole where your heart should be.”
My eyes lifted to his height as he stood. “I never said I didn’t want to marry you. I’m just saying, not right now. I can’t take on so much all at once, Love. You want a baby. You want to cage me up in your home. You want to keep everyone and everything away from me, including my own business. You want marriage … Dios mío, you want too damn much from me. I … maybe in a couple of years or so after I’ve adapted to this whole baby thing.”
“A couple of years? A couple of years?” he said in disbelief. “Do you have any knowledge about love and relationships? Or is that ‘new’ to you, too? And oh, what will I introduce you as to people? My ‘babymomma’?”
Indignation crept into my veins at his reluctance to see things from my point-of-view. Shifting on the stool to face him squarely, I seethed, “So you only want to marry me because it’s the right thing to do? Because it’s decent? Because it’s the Christian way?”
“No!!” he bellowed, his veins bulging beneath his skin, his face reddened. “I want to marry you because I love you!”
Bringing both his hands to his head, he gripped his hair and began pacing the room like an asylum patient. “I love you! I love you! I love you! That’s why I want to marry you, Axia. And I want, so much, for you to want to marry me, too. I want to make you mine. I want to be yours. Officially. I want so much more of you, more than you’re capable of giving. Every bit of you that I can have, I want it. I need it. Please. Please just give me this one thing, Axia.”
“I’m already yours. And I’m already giving you something: a baby … and my heart.” I breathed an exhaustive sigh. “Love, this pregnancy —”
“I prayed for it.” Lovello stopped pacing and came to stand before me, staring down at me with raw eyes. “I prayed for something, anything to bring us back together. I prayed to have you back. Every. Single. Day. This,” he said in a soft tone, as he placed his palm on my stomach, “is not a mistake. It’s not an accident. It’s a miracle. Don’t let anyone tell you that prayers don’t get answered. They do. Please, Axia, don’t take my miracle away from me.”
Trying to make him understand, I spoke in a gentler tone, “Love, I’m pregnant, and we’ve only been together for what, six months? That’s not enough time for two people to know —”
“I know!” he cried out, dropping to his knees and gripping my thighs. “I’ve known since the very first time I woke up in your house and came downstairs to a well-prepared breakfast. I’ve known when, for the first time in my life, I wanted to make love. I’ve known since I realized that when it comes to you, I’m straight up stupid as shit. I’ve always known. I knew that no one else would do, but you. There’s no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with. No one else can cater to a slob like me in such an altruistic manner, without complaints. No one else can please me. No one else can make my heart beat in that erratic way it does whenever I see you, feel you, taste you. I’ve always known you are the one, beauts. I don’t need time to confirm anything. My love for you has no expiration date. This is it. You are it. Please, Axia, give me you. Marry me.”
A lone tear rolled down his cheek and he immediately buried his face in my lap, no doubt ashamed of displaying such weakness.
Stroking my fingers through his silky, dark hair, I took a few minutes to think of how I could give him what he needed, without giving away more than I could afford. Trying to sound as unselfish as possible, I finally spoke. “Love?”
He lifted his head to look up at me, his eyes slightly glazed. I hated it that I was hurting him. “I’ll accept your proposal on one condition: You have to promise me that you won’t push me for a date until a year at least. So, you can introduce me to others as your fiancé. It’s better than ‘babymomma’, right? But a wedding date will have to wait. Let’s see how things flow after the baby.”
I felt his pain and disappointment as they pushed a rush of tears to brim his eye sockets. But he quickly lowered his head and rubbed his eyes before the tears escaped and embarrassed him further. “You tricked me.”
“What?”
“Last night. You tricked me. You made me think you’d submitted. But you haven’t. Not in the slightest. You told me you’d ‘forever’ be mine, yet now you sound like you have no faith at all in us. Why do you need time to ‘see how things flow’? Do you really think I’m ever going to leave you?”
Before I could answer, he said, “You know what, don’t answer that. You’re Axia Victoria Blacksille, and that’s who I’ve fallen in love with. A sweet sin. What can I do but accept you as you are and take you however way I can get you? It’s not like I have a choice. Loving you is what I excel at, it’s what I’m addicted to. It’s what I can’t not do. So all I can do for now is hope that one day you’ll submit wholly to me.”
Lovello slowly stood and asked me to give him a minute, then disappeared down the hall. I
sat there feeling awful that I was unable to give him what he desired. I loved him to bits and pieces, but I also loved me, too. I couldn’t put my hat where I won’t be able to reach it until I bought a ladder and learned how to climb it. Sometimes a woman had to look out for herself, her well-being, refusing to take more than she can manage, because, without knowing it, men were inherently selfish. And sometimes we give so much of ourselves to them that we lose our own identity. We end up living in their spotlight.
I could only give so much of myself and no more. There’s nothing left that I could do to prove to him that I loved him.
I wasn’t heartless. I was just realistic. One step at a time was the smartest way to journey. That way, we wouldn’t pull stress on ourselves and end up taking it out on each other when shit became unbearable. But he was unable to see that right now because he was too blinded by love. He would thank me, though. When the craziness of this pregnancy started, by gad, he was going to thank me.
Lovello returned a few minutes later and sank back down on his knees in front of me. Then he opened a black ring box that revealed an elegant diamond ring with, yes, black stones encircling the huge oval-shaped diamond on the platinum band. “I’ve no words left. I’ve poured my heart out. I’ve stripped bare and exposed myself to you. And yet, it wasn’t enough. I accept you as you are, because I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Pointing to the stones he said, “These black stones, they represent the color of your heart, your soul. And this diamond, is my heart. So now you see, you have my heart held captive in your darkness. But believe me, I’m not crying for freedom. I love being held captive, by you. So will you take me? Keep my heart in your possession? Marry me … whenever you think ‘the time is right’?’’
He bit down on his lower lip, holding back a laugh, but I couldn’t hold mine in. This stinking asshole. But he was my asshole.
Laughing, I rolled my eyes and held out my hand. “Yes, Love, I will.”
Still biting down on his lip, he removed the ring from the box and slid it onto my finger then stood up to kiss me, dragging me to my feet. “In a marriage, one plus one equals one. I can’t wait to become one with you. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered in his kiss. “Can we go and make love now? Please.”
Lovello pulled back and gave me one of his spiteful smiles. “Or, we could do something to wind down.”
“And isn’t making love the perfect way? Couples always make love after an emotional proposal, don’t they?”
“Nope. Anything but that.”
As he stepped away from me and stuffed his hands in his pockets, I knew then that Mr. Revenge Seeker was planning on playing every spiteful trick in the book until I agreed on a wedding date. And I just might give in. But for now, I was willing to play his little game.
“Okay, you’re right,” I shrugged.
By the wary look he gave me, it’s clear he wasn’t expecting me to catch on to his game. I brushed past him and started out of the kitchen and down to the theater den. “How about a movie?”
“Uh, watch a movie with you?” I heard him say behind me. “I don’t think I can manage another one of your movies. I’d rather make love. You win.”
“Oh, none of that this time. The movie I have in mind is a classic. You’re gonna be in tears just the first ten minutes in … From laughter,” I quickly added when his brows shot up.
I lay sprawled on the zebra-striped carpet at my favorite spot in the corner of the theater den and watched with a satisfied grin as Lovello laughed until he was clutching his stomach at the hilarity of one of my all-time favorite movies. Hangover.
“I just don’t understand,” he barely got out through his fit of laughter. “How-How on earth do you get a tiger up to your room in a five-star hotel?”
“I told you you’d love it,” I grinned back, unwittingly rubbing my stomach.
Dragging his eyes from the screen, Lovello looked over at me, then his eyes drifted down to where I was rubbing my stomach. “No. I love you.”
We stared at each other for a while in appreciation of each other’s love. But then something epic happened again on the screen and I was no longer the center of his attention.
As the movie progressed and Lovello laughed until he was in stitches with laughter-tears dripping from his lashes, I realized that I was smiling and crying, too. But it wasn’t because of the movie that I’d seen over a zillion times. It was because my gaze was fixated on the love of my life. It was because I was happier than any one person deserved to be. It was because I was so in lust and in love. In love with the most beautiful, tender-hearted and wise man I’d ever known. And this man, this man loved me back. Ten times over.
This man, my man, who has Love as a name.
Acknowledgement
THANK YOU:
To you, Vashti, for…everything.
To my God who assured me that if I ask, then I’d receive. That if I seek, then I’d find. That if I knock, then the door would swing open. That if I believe, then ‘it’ will happen. And that he will be with me, always, even until the end of time.
To all my friends and famz who believe in me and never cease their words of encouragement in times when I wanted to throw in the towel. I love you all.
To all of you, readers, who have taken the time to read this book and have gotten as far this acknowledgement, which proves you haven’t DNF’d the beautiful story of Lovello and Axia: Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!
One Love :)
For The Reader
Thank you for purchasing and reading this ebook. If you enjoyed it please leave a short review on book-related sites such as Amazon and Goodreads. Readers rely on reviews, as do authors.
About The Author
S. Ann Cole is a passionate writer and reader, and a lover of anything that distracts her from the real world. Ms. Cole is not your typical girl. She hates chocolate, candle-lit dinners and all that hearts and flowers stuff makes her feel awkward, coffee makes her drowsier than ever, and she tends to talk to herself, a lot.
Having an obsessive and unquenchable affair with the written word, she’s naturally a recluse who dwells inside her imagination and has to suffer continual bashings from her friends for being a neglectful pal who does nothing but sit around the computer all day, writing.
Like a big kid, Ms. Cole loves watching Disney Channel, enjoys a big bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal and prays to our God like it’s nobody’s business — well, it really isn’t. When she isn’t abusing her computer keyboard, you can find her nosing a novel, nursing a glass of red wine, tweeting about every minuteness of her life, or disturbing her neighbors with her rugged voice, trying and failing to hit those notes of Beyonce’s Listen (she really ought to leave the singing department alone!)
Lean in a little closer, here’s a secret she wants to share with you. Yes, you. S. Ann Cole can easily be bought with a really, really good bottle of red wine. Shh, don’t tell anyone, okay? *wink*
Contact Ann
Twitter @AnnColeRomance
or
Website www.AnnCole.net
or
Goodreads S. Ann Cole
or
Facebook www.facebook.com/S.AnnColeRomance
E-Book Design & Format
Ebook conversion by EBookBuilders
the digital division of The Book Connection
Verified ePUBcheck
Table of Contents
Dedication
Appetizer
Preface
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
Acknowledgement
For The Reader
About The Author
Contact Ann
