Pretty Prize

by Goode, Ella

  “You’re newlyweds,” she proclaimed the other night after Rose had urged her to join us in the library.

  I thanked Nora and had Chris deposit an additional sum of money into an account as a way of showing my appreciation.

  Rose is reading a romance book while I’m supposed to be reviewing a real estate deal for a large estate in the neighborhood. An architect bought a ramshackle castle and has invested several million in renovating it. He’s run out of money and now seeks a buyer. It’s a shitty investment because it needs more work to bring it to its former glory. The interior is decently finished but the three hundred acres of parkland and woods need a significant overhaul. I’d never be able to sell it and make a profit, but Rose’s eyes glowed the moment the car turned down the long tree-covered drive.

  “No, it’s perfect.” I don’t know what I can do to make her love me, but I have enough money to buy anything she likes. Maybe that will convince her I’m worthy. I slap the portfolio closed. “I’m buying the castle.”

  “Oh? The one with the swans in the lake?”

  The estate has two black swans—Tristan and Isolde. Rose murmured that perhaps the two star-crossed lovers were finally getting the happy ending they deserved. “Yes. You liked it, right?”

  “It was beautiful. Will you turn it into a hotel?”

  I pause in the middle of texting Chris. “A hotel?”

  She draws her feet up underneath her. I wonder if she’s cold. I rise and grab the blanket lying over the back of one of the chairs and drape it over her legs.

  “It’s so big. Didn’t you say it has like twenty bedrooms? I suppose that won’t accommodate very many people though. What will you do with it?”

  She means how will I make money on this deal. I settle next to her, picking up her left hand. I rub my thumb over the giant rock that signifies our marriage bond. “What if we lived there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I clear my throat. “What if we make that our permanent residence and raise our family there?”

  Rose isn’t pregnant, but at the rate we’re fucking it will be soon. I want it so bad. If I plant my baby in her belly, she can’t leave me. She’d never leave the father of her child as long as the father was decent. “I’ll be a good father,” I swear to her.

  She draws back slightly, surprised by my vehemence. “That’s a very large place to raise a family. How many children do you plan on having?”

  I bring her hand to my mouth. “How many do you want?” How many will keep you by my side?

  “Four,” she answers immediately. My heart soars. She’s thought about having our children. I start to smile until her next words slash through my balloon of joy. “But not for a while. Not until…” She trails off.

  I close my eyes. Not until I love her. That’s what she wants. No. It’s what she deserves. I wish I had it in me to give it to her.

  “Rose...I...I can’t give you what you need.”

  “What do you mean, Hunter?”

  “I mean...I know you want love. No, you deserve it, but I’m not...I don’t…” Fuck. I’m so fucking terrible at this. I drop her hand so I can bury my stupid face between my palms, hiding my failure.

  A small hand falls on the back of my neck. “Hunter,” she says softly. Her warm body folds against my side. “Hunter, tell me,” she urges.

  I force myself to speak because she deserves to know how broken I am inside. “I don’t know how to love,” I confess. “I only know how to hate. Whatever thing inside of a person that makes them love, I don’t have that. Maybe I did once, but it was eaten away over the years. My mom…” I pause to take a deep breath. “My mom got cancer from working in your brother’s textile mill. She was only thirty. I was eight. She needed treatment but because she was gone so much from work, she got fired. I went to your brother’s office and begged him for help, but he laughed at me. She died a few months later and I got shoved into the system. I vowed that he’d pay. For two decades, that’s all I’ve thought about—making him pay.” I splay my hands out wide to show her how empty I am. “I want to love you, Rose, but I don’t have it inside of me. I can buy you whatever you want. I can protect you. I can shelter your family. I can put a child inside of you. Can that be enough? Because I don’t know what love is.”

  Chapter 18

  Rose

  I push the blanket off me so that I can crawl into Hunter’s lap. The man who has spent every waking moment of this marriage loving me. It was there in everything he did and said to me. It was written between the lines. Actions always speak louder than words. He’s been showing me he loves me from the moment I walked into his office. He might have gone about it in a different way, but he’s been saying it in his own way. The Hunter way. Also known as the stubborn way.

  If I’ve learned anything about my husband these last few weeks it’s that he’s one of a kind. He does things differently than most people I was used to. It’s what makes him who he is. I don't want to change that. I do, however, want him to let go of all that anger he carries around inside of him. It saddens me to think that my brother was the cause of most of that. Garrick’s self-centered cruel ways have not only affected me but other people’s lives. I will never understand how anyone could be so heartless. I have a renewed hate for my brother and this time I find I’m the one wanting payback. He will never know what love is but I won’t let Hunter have the same fate. Our love will be the ultimate revenge.

  “You know what love is, Hunter,” I tell him. He shakes his head no.

  “I wish I could. For you-”

  “You love hard.” I cut him off. “Look how much you love your mother.” His arms that he was holding out wide drop like anchors. He sits still. I think I might have shocked him. I’m going to have to show him. “Now that you control my brother and his companies what have you done with them?” I sit and listen while he spouts off all the changes he already has underway for the factories. They start with better health care, more paid time off, upgrading safety, child care and so on. These things seem well thought out, which means Hunter has been planning them long before he even got his hands on the companies. I feel a surge of pride fill my chest when I think about all of the good that Hunter is doing for others. His actions toward my brother were a necessary evil. They have no bearing on the man that he is. He only made me part of the plan because he wanted me. I’ll never believe he ever meant me harm in any way.

  Hunter plays the evil part well but that’s not who he is in his core. God, I love him so much. Each day I fall more and more in love with my husband. Every word that comes from his beautiful mouth gives me hope that we will get our happily ever after.

  “You did all of this not only because you love your mother and want to give her justice.” I wave my hand. “Or, as you call it, revenge.” Name it what you want but it’s still sweet. I don’t care how brooding and cold of a package Hunter tries to wrap it in. I’ll never see it as cruel on his part. My brother deserves the licks he has coming. I’m sure every other person who stood in Hunter’s way had them coming too. If he’s cut someone down I know he had reason. It’s why his staff is so loyal and treat him with such respect. They believe in him.

  “But because you are a good man too.” I tap his chest where his heart is. “You make love to me every night. Make sure my orange juice is freshly squeezed because I like it that way. You listen to me ramble on about what I’m reading. You bring me a blanket because you think I might be cold.” I reach for the blanket he put over my legs when he came over to me. The man is always coming over to me. He is always checking on me. I am soaking up all of the affection. I will never get enough of him.

  “You treat my Aunt-” I stop for a second, my eyes filling with tears as I try and pull it together. “You treat her with the best of care. Even with how my brother—” A tear escapes me, thinking about a small Hunter losing his mother. How good he’s been to my aunt and me. He leans forward, kissing my cheek to stop the tear in its tracks. My heart aches for the loss tha
t he had to endure due to my brother.

  He does all this and asks for nothing. That’s not true. He’s asking for my love. For me. I’ll give it to him.

  “Don’t cry, my sweet girl.” His warm breath feathers across my skin. I start to tell him that I love him because I should have said it already, but he beats me to it. “I love you.”

  I close my eyes, savoring his words. I feel them in my soul. The heaviness I felt a few moments ago is lifted as if his words have erased it. I hope mine do the same for him.

  “I love you too.” A small hiccup leaves me as I try and keep it together. I know he loves me but hearing it was something else altogether. I open my eyes to stare into his as he soaks my words in.

  “Say it again,” Hunter insists.

  “I love yo—" My words are cut off when his lips crash down on mine. His mouth possesses mine as it always does. My hands reach for his hair to hold him to me. Neither one of us able to get close enough to the other. Each of us relish the love we’ve found in one another. We break apart, both of us breathless. The mood has shifted in the room. Hunter seems light, happier. The weight has left him too.

  “Your turn.” I smile at him, wanting to hear him say those special words one more time. His mouth lifts in a smirk. I narrow my eyes at him.

  “My turn for what?” His smile gets bigger. He’s teasing. I love when I get a glimpse of playful Hunter. Each day they are coming more and more.

  “You know exactly what I’m asking for. Don’t make me beg.” The happiness immediately falls from his face at my words.

  “My sweet Rose, you will never have to beg for my love. I will shower you with it for the rest of our lives.”

  “Then tell your wife you love her.” I smile at him. I don’t hide anything from him. I let everything I feel for him pour from me. No more mask. No more games.

  “I love you, wife.”

  “I love you too, husband.” He stands with me in his arms. “Now make love to me.”

  “I’m going to do that and so much more,” he says as he carries me to our room. We’ve made love before but this time it’s filled with the words and I know Hunter is my forever.

  Epilogue

  “April Rose, get down from there,” I yell. My oldest daughter ignores me and continues to climb up the ladder of the treehouse that is being built in the fairy forest we’re installing. I’m not so worried about her getting to the top since the place is being built for her as I am about the fact that the treehouse isn’t done and there are tools around that could hurt her.

  “You better go get the little monkey,” says her mother, who is settled into the corner of a bed swing with our youngest son napping on her lap. Rose’s left hand is curled around Harry’s two-year-old back while her right hand rests on the rise of her belly. Baby number four will be here in a couple of months.

  I take a brief moment to appreciate Rose’s beauty. During pregnancy, she glows as if she’s lit from within. Maybe she is. Pregnancy astounds me, as does the miracle of birth.

  “Daddy!” bellows my eldest son. “April won’t let me in the tweehouse!”

  “He’s not old enough,” his sister screams. “It’s five and up!”

  “I’m the same age as you!” he yells back.

  “You’re younger than me so you have to listen!” August Foster Keal is three inches taller than his older sister but she won’t ever let him forget that she was born five minutes before him.

  “You really better go,” Rose nudges me.

  Reluctantly I step down from the stone terrace and make the long trek to the part of the garden our landscaper has dubbed the fairy forest. It’s been built on a smaller scale with dwarf trees and bushes and miniature landscape ornaments—all designed to be child scale. We did the landscaping last year but the kids demanded a treehouse so we’re building the best damn treehouse Italy has ever seen.

  When I reach the edge of the forest, August has managed to climb to the top of the ladder but April has her hand on his head.

  “April, you need to come down from there. We talked about this. No climbing up on the treehouse until all the work is done.”

  Her chin pops up defiantly. “I’ve got to see if they’re building this right. You always say that you don’t know if something’s done right until you check it out for yourself.”

  “Yeah, you got to i’spect ewerything,” chimes in her brother.

  The two throw identical mulish glares in my direction. I sigh. Just yesterday I had grown men cowering in a boardroom but here are my tiny sprites throwing my words back in my face. “So I did, but when I go to a site, I wear all the safety equipment and I listen to the instructions of the foreperson so I don’t injure myself or anyone else.”

  “But it’s taking so long,” April wails.

  “Because it needs to be safe and perfect and that takes time.”

  The twins consider this for a moment and then, after some secret, telepathic communication, April lifts her hand and August hops down. Soon after, April climbs down to join us.

  “Was the view good up there?” I ask as we walk back toward the terrace.

  “Yeah. It was good, Daddy.” She slips her hand in mine.

  August takes my other one. “Is Mommy having two babies again like me and Apwil?”

  “Just one as far as we know.”

  “Nanny McVay says that you like it when Mommy’s got the baby in her belly. That you look at her like the moon rose up.”

  “It’s the sun, dummy,” August corrects.

  April tries to reach around to slap her brother. I block the blow with my knee and give her a warning look. August sticks his tongue out and I have to give him a glare. The two make faces at each other, but settle down.

  “Do you, Daddy?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you look at Mommy like she’s the moon—I mean sun?” April revises quickly so she doesn’t get another smart remark from her brother.

  “I suppose I do.”

  “But she’s not really the sun, you know. She’s a person,” April says.

  “If Daddy says she’s the sun, she’s the sun!” August declares, squeezing my hand in emphasis.

  “She’s the sun in my world. When she enters the room, it’s immediately brighter. When she’s sad, it feels like the whole world should wipe its eyes.” I gaze up at my dear wife who has one foot on the stone terrace floor, pushing the swing gently. She looks like a goddess, presiding over a heavenly garden. I can hardly believe that she’s mine. What I said to my children is absolutely the truth. My world was dark and lonely before she entered. My head was full of revenge and hate and I thought love was something people made up to excuse their worst actions. She shined a light into all my dark places and loved me anyway.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” April shouts, letting go of my hand and racing toward her mother. “Daddy says you’re the sun!”

  I’m close enough I can see the corners of her mouth curve up. “He does, does he?” she says, her soft voice carrying on the breeze.

  “Yeah.” April clambers onto the swinging bed and nudges herself under her mother’s arm. “He says you light up his world. Was it dark there before?”

  “No, not dark. Just not as bright as it could be,” Rose answers. She presses a kiss onto her daughter’s head.

  “That’s a delicate way of putting it,” I say when I reach her. August lets go of my hand immediately and takes up the space on the other side of his mother.

  I lean back against a stone pillar and take in the beauty of the scenery in front of me. The sun is making its slow descent into the horizon. Behind me is nearly two acres of manicured lawn, sharply trimmed hedges, a natural pool that looks like it was carved from the ground a hundred years ago, and a stable of four horses. The land itself has undergone a huge transformation and I’ve spent more money than I thought was prudent on making this estate into something truly to be proud of but no garden, no house, no piece of artwork is more breathtaking than the picture in front of me.
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  Rose isn’t merely the sun. She’s the center of my whole world. Our children and I orbit around her, seeking out her touch, her gaze, her love. Without her, I’d have turned into her brother—a man who with all the money in the world happened to be the poorest.

  One by one, the children fall into a sun-induced slumber. I signal for Nanny McVay to take over and draw Rose up off the bed.

  “Need something?” she teases as I sweep her into my arms.

  “Yes,” I answer honestly. “It’s been approximately three hours since I was last inside of you and that’s about two hours and fifty-nine minutes too long. Unless you want to scar your children for life, I propose we retire to the private gardens where I can devour you in peace.”

  She glances over her shoulder. “You likely only have an hour before the kids are awake again.”

  “Then let’s not wait one more second.” I extend my hand. She places her fingers on mine. There’s a gazebo in the garden—a fairy thing where Rose sits and surveys her garden kingdom. I lead her there, brushing away the pillows on the huge lounge we had built to accommodate her and our growing brood of children. They clamor for her attention, like a litter of puppies in need of her touch at all times. I can relate.

  I lay her down on the cushions before tearing my shirt off and shucking my pants. My cock springs free, heavy and throbbing. I palm it, giving the shaft a quick short jerk. Her eyes glitter with excitement. “Like what you see?”

  “Very much.” She reaches out and wraps her fingers around mine.

  I let go and allow her to stroke me. Her ass rises in the air, waving itself at me. She leans over to take me into her mouth, brushing her heavy breasts against the seat. The friction makes her moan around my cock. “Sensitive, aren’t you, flower?”

  Pregnancy makes every nerve of hers sit up. I roll one covered nipple between my fingers and then pinch it. She lets out a cry and the sound reverberates all the way into my spine. My hour’s ticking down and I need to be inside her before the kids wake up.