“She demanded to see the new dress when we got back from Vegas. Even she had to admit that she liked it, albeit very begrudgingly.” We all laughed. “She said it was more of a party dress, and that if I really wanted to, I could change into it for the reception.”
“A win is a win,” Gus drawled. “She’s trying.”
“I think it has more to do with how much fancier this wedding will be if the bride shows off two wedding dresses,” Lucy corrected.
“Either way,” he shrugged.
“Three more weeks,” Lucy sighed. “Then we can return to life as normal.” She gave us a playful side-eye glare, “Or in your case, have a family of five and retire to Florida.”
Both Devlin and I laughed. Yes, we had moved quickly, but I hadn’t regretted a single moment, even with all that it cost me. “Where else can you raise a llama?” I teased.
“But seriously, though,” Lucy said as she placed her glass on the table. “What’s next?”
Another look passed between Dev and me. Finally I shrugged. “We don’t know. Father has decided, in his infinite wisdom, to have my new husband thoroughly vetted before he can be welcomed into the family with open arms. So we’re basically in a holding pattern when it comes to family, the business and probably even where we’ll live.”
I could tell by Lucy’s arched eyebrow that she was as worried about how this investigation would shake out as I was. Aside from me, she was the only one who knew about Dev’s scandalous past. “And what happens if your dad doesn’t come around?”
“His loss,” I stated. “Dev and I are married, and we’re going to stay that way.”
He reached across the table to take my hand. I squeezed it with a smile.
We finished our dinner and then cut into our ‘wedding’ cake. Underneath the butter cream frosting was a deep, red velvet cake filled with decadent cream cheese. Lucy insisted that Devlin and I feed each other, which we did. It was amazing how erotic any humdrum activity could become as long as I was looking into those seductive green eyes of his. The way his gaze lingered on my mouth sent me into sensory overload. Even after a marathon week of sex, I still wanted more.
I knew I would always want more.
I wanted more of the cake, too. It was so scrumptious that my eyes practically rolled back in my head. “Total homerun,” I mumbled to Lucy as I tried to manage another big bite.
Devlin popped open another bottle of champagne, vintage 1999. I knew from experience that the bottle was worth well over a hundred dollars, and Devlin had at least four of them.
Despite his meager upbringing, my husband had learned to live well. We toasted our good fortunes again before we took our champagne and cake onto the balcony overlooking downtown Los Angeles. We scattered to separate corners once we got there because Lucy couldn’t wait to get me alone.
“So what’s the scoop, girl?” she asked before digging into her own slice of cake.
“You know most of it. I’m married. Dad is pissed. Oliver’s a douche. And here we are,” I said as I gestured to our opulent surroundings.
“Yeah, you are here all right,” Lucy said as she looked around our spacious balcony, fifteen stories up, towering among all the other buildings that made up the L.A. skyline. “Doesn’t it bother you knowing that this is the pad that a gigolo built?”
“Of course it does,” I said. “I can’t look at anything in this place, from his baby grand piano to the entertainment center worth about ten thousand dollars, without seeing him fucking another girl.”
“You need to move,” she agreed with a slight nod of her head.
“Tell me about it,” I mumbled. “He won’t even consider it, though. Every time I bring it up, he changes the subject.”
“Tell him how you feel. Surely he’ll understand.”
“How can I make a big deal of it now, Lucy? I knew all this going in, and I married him anyway. That’s not fair.”
“Any fairer than his asking you to sleep in a bedroom with a revolving door?”
I winced a little. “He says he never brought clients here.”
“As if that makes it better,” she said. “Look, Ceece. I love you. I love him too, believe it or not. So I’m super stoked you’re together. But don’t lose yourself in him, even if he is your husband.”
The subject quickly dropped after that. We ended up playing cards until midnight, when my effervescent bestie finally ran out of gas. Lucy’s weekends were jam-packed for the next three weeks, while she prepared for her mother’s wedding, so she could barely keep her eyes open, though she held out as long as she could before they finally headed for home.
I took the top tier of our cake into the kitchen to wrap it up and freeze it, per instructions I found on the Internet. Devlin walked up behind me while I was busy at my task, wrapping his arms around my waist as he nuzzled my neck. “I really do love your friends,” he said.
“They’re your friends, too,” I informed him. “Byproduct of marriage. In the contract, Section Twelve, article 23.”
He laughed. “Fine. I love our friends. And I love them most when they leave,” he teased with that smirk that twisted my nerves into a knot. He used his fingers to break off a piece of the bottom layer of cake, which he fed to me. He watched me until I swallowed the bite, leaning forward to lick away any stray frosting. The kiss deepened, tasting of rich red velvet, and my task was forgotten as I linked my arms around his neck and pulled him down for more.
He picked me up, carried me to bed, and we made love for hours. It was our anniversary after all. I tried my best not to think about anything else, since nothing else mattered beyond that, but Lucy’s comment about the revolving door to his bedroom simmered at the base of my brain.
Even waking up the next morning to breakfast in bed, and learning that Dev had frozen the cake for me, didn’t do much to quiet that deafening whisper. I was relieved when he suggested we get out of the house for the day.
We decided to picnic at the beach, so he drove me down to Marina del Rey. There he had another ace up his sleeve, namely a 20-foot sailboat he had named Aileen, after his mom. “We’ll name the next one Coralie,” he promised as he expertly navigated the vessel out onto open water.
It was yet another layer to pull back.
“Where did you learn to sail?” I asked.
“San Francisco,” he answered simply, as if that was explanation enough. I continued to stare at him until he finally said, “Tourist stuff, mostly. Taking folks out to Alcatraz and around the bay, that sort of thing.”
“So you were an adult by the time you made it to San Francisco,” I deduced.
He nodded. “Barely. I was eighteen. Stayed there until I was about your age, I guess.”
“Why’d you leave?”
I could tell by his answer that his patience with my inquisition was wearing thin. “You already know that story, Coralie.”
“Oh,” I said softly. I knew that meant he had left San Francisco to return to Vegas, after his mother was injured. He was my age when all that happened. I hadn’t put that together before. Talk about your life-changing events.
He said nothing more as he fetched the picnic basket so that we could eat, anything to keep us from talking. I ate quietly as a result, staring at the vastness of the Pacific that stretched on around us. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, and the water gently rocked us like a cradle. It was perfect, like everything else had been perfect.
And yet I could only wonder about how many women he had brought here, particularly the cozy galley down below. I didn’t dare bring it up, though. I already knew better than that.
Finally he sighed as he finished his glass of wine and placed his plate and uneaten food back in the basket. “What’s on your mind, Coralie? Let me have it.”
I shook my head. “It’s like you said. It doesn’t matter.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then why do you look so sad?” I didn’t have an answer for that. “Don’t I make you happy, Coralie?”
My response
was quick and sure. “Happier than I’ve ever been.”
“Then what is it?” he persisted. “All this week it has felt like you wanted to say something but you keep stopping yourself short.”
I shrugged. “You don’t want to talk about the past.”
“That’s right. You want to know why?” I turned to him expectantly. His eyes darkened even more. “Because you’re not there. You’re here in my present, and my future. And that’s where I want to be.”
It was all lovely to hear, but it wasn’t enough. “It matters more than you think, Devlin.”
“Why? Because of what I used to do?” I didn’t say anything yay or nay, but the look on my face clearly gave it away. His face hardened instantly. “Okay, you want to talk about the past. Let’s talk about Oliver.”
I shook my head. “Devlin.”
“Come on,” he cajoled. “You want to talk about old lovers, let’s start with one of yours.” He scooted closer. “Tell me about the first time you made love with Oliver. Where did you do it? Were you at his place? Or yours?” His breath was hot against my face as he bent towards me. “Did you make love to Oliver on the very same bed where we first made love, Coralie?”
I shivered hard, and not just from the moist sea air. It was, in fact, the very same place. And I knew answering that question was a potential landmine. “Devlin,” I tried again as I turned away.
He grasped my chin with his hand and forced me to look at him. “Tell me,” he commanded in that low voice that fluctuated somewhere between rage and frustration. “How did his kiss taste on your mouth? How did his hands feel on your body? Did he worship your tits, or ignore them entirely? Did he eat you out, Coralie,” he said in a hushed voice just a hair above a whisper.
“Stop it!” I snapped as I tried to wiggle away, but he held me tight.
“Come on,” he urged. “If you don’t tell me, I’m always going to wonder. And fair is fair, right? You’re wondering about the women I’ve fucked on this boat, or the women who I fucked in my bed, in my shower, on my sofa, at my piano,” he added with a malicious glint in his eye as he read my darkest fears. “You can’t stop thinking about it. It’s driving you crazy. And yet, I’m supposed to take it on the chin every single time you go to work, where that asshole Oliver has made it clear he will never respect our relationship. He’s even going to touch you,” he growled as his grip tightened, “as if you still belong to him.”
My eyes widened as I stared into his face. He was angry… so angry. Though it was understandable that he didn’t want another man coming onto his wife, something told me it was so much deeper than that.
“Tell me,” he commanded again. “So that every single time you head to the office I can dwell about the past, getting worked up over shit that doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter, Coralie, because you’re here with me now.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “No, Mrs. Masters. You’re not the first woman I fucked. You’re not the first woman I took to my apartment downtown. You’re not the first woman I brought out on this boat. But you are the last woman that gets all those things, and that means something.” Finally he softened. “It means everything.”
I realized then how unfair I was, to expect him to just accept my past with Oliver, when I couldn’t accept his past as an escort. “Devlin,” I whispered.
“We’re the only ones who can destroy what we have, baby. Can’t you see that? It’s you and me against the world. And we can make it. We can show them all. I just need to know that you’re with me.”
“Of course I’m with you,” I said immediately. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He sighed deeply as he caressed my face. “You are my greatest gift, Coralie. One I don’t deserve. Worse, I know I don’t deserve it. That’s why I can’t waste time looking back behind me. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll wake up one day in the present and you will be gone.”
I knew from the look in his eyes he was telling the truth. It was what scared him most, though I didn’t know why. He was never going to lose me. I unwound myself from his grasp to take him by the hand and lead him towards the galley, where we could forget all about the past and christen our boat, and our future, properly.
CHAPTER FOUR
After we made it back to shore, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, both for home goods and for the groceries for the week. I found a print of one of my mother’s favorite Monet pieces that I could hang in our bedroom, along with decorative candles and pillows to femme up the place a bit. Devlin indulged me generously; he even paid for everything as a belated wedding gift to his new bride.
The best gift of all was that we didn’t fight the rest of the evening. We made dinner together and watched a movie on the sofa, before we lost ourselves in each other yet again, clearly my favorite part of being a newlywed, hands down.
I spent years of my life with questions about sex. Devlin proceeded to answer each and every one. These were the only questions that really mattered now. Learning the dirty details of his chosen profession was a double-edged sword that would only cut the both of us. It wouldn’t make me feel any better to have my worst fears confirmed, and it certainly wouldn’t help him.
When the sun rose on Los Angeles Sunday morning, I had made peace with our particular past. Devlin was absolutely right. The world was going to toss enough shit at us for things we couldn’t control. We didn’t need to be doing it to each other.
I stretched my arm across the empty bed beside me. My brow gathered in a frown as I struggled to sit up, surveying the quiet room. I was just wiping the sleep from my eye when Devlin walked through the door, juggling a bed tray. “Good morning, beautiful,” he grinned.
I returned his smile. “Good morning, handsome,” I replied. He kissed me softly before he fitted the bed tray across my lap. It was a full breakfast with French toast, sausages, juice and fresh fruit. Sausages, I thought. He really does love me. “What’s all this?”
“I don’t need a reason to spoil my wife,” he announced as he sat beside me on the bed. He snatched a sausage with a shit-eating grin.
“Gretch clearly hasn’t schooled you on my passion for sausages,” I teased.
“I already know how much you love sausage,” he teased right back. I laughed.
“Such a naughty boy,” I mused.
“That’s why you love me,” he said with a smile. I could hardly argue. “Face it. You’d never be happy with someone dull and ordinary. You like that you can never know what to expect with me.”
“Someone seems very sure of himself.”
“Always,” he winked.
“So how are you going to surprise me today, Mr. Masters?”
Without further ado, he pulled a real estate guide from his back pocket and plopped it on top of my half-eaten breakfast. “What’s this?”
“It’s a compromise,” he said as he unfolded the magazine. “I figure that it’ll be a little bit easier for you to live with my past if you don’t have to be confronted with it day after day.” His eyes met mine. “You’re right, Coralie. We need a place of our own.”
I shoved the tray aside to throw myself in his arms. “I love you,” I said over and over again as I peppered his face with kisses.
“Don’t get too carried away, Mrs. Masters,” he warned with another smile as he disengaged himself. “There are a lot of open houses we can get to today. You just have to tell me where we need to look.”
I sat back on my heels. My brain spun with the possibilities. I had always lived wherever anyone else had lived before me, from my Father to Devlin. Where would I want to live if I could pick anywhere in the city?
This question ended up being a lot harder than I had anticipated. Several places were attractive for several reasons. Both of us loved the ocean, but we weren’t sure if we wanted to live right next to it. We thought about the Hollywood Hills, something secluded and private. Then of course there was Beverly Hills and all points similar in West Los Angeles, a place close to Cabot’s and my father’s est
ate.
We approached the matter practically, deciding first on a price range, which I still felt necessary for us to split down the middle. “True partners,” I said whenever he bristled. I knew he wanted to support me, particularly in the manner to which I had become accustomed. But none of that mattered as much to me as his providing for his mother and Darcy, who–let’s face it–needed him so much more than I did.
Thanks to my own personal investments, I had a nice monthly stipend I could depend on, even if I ended up losing my six-figure executive position at Cabot’s. Since Father and Oliver were still being such dicks about Devlin working there, I wanted to use my position as leverage should they ever tried to kick him out of the company. I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t willing to lose the position entirely, which by now I totally was.
I figured as long as we maintained our expenses within that window, we’d be fine either way.
The next thing we needed to decide upon was size. I was prepared to get something cozy since it was just the two of us, but Devlin insisted that we be forward-thinking about it. “I want to have a family with you,” he said softly as he stroked my hair.
This was a conversational landmine for me, considering I wasn’t ready to discuss this part of our future yet. It was scary enough that we were fucking like bunnies at least twice a day. That was Russian roulette enough, with enough orgasms to make the risk worthwhile. But there didn’t seem any real way to get around the conversation, particularly in considering practical needs for our future. “How many… how big of a family were you thinking?”
He shrugged. “At least two.”
“A boy and a girl?” I prodded gently, thinking of his relationship with Darcy.
“Whatever combination, it doesn’t matter to me,” he assured.
“It’s a little conventional for a notorious bad boy,” I sighed. “What’s a girl to think?”
He wound his fingers in mine. “She should think that she’s pretty damned special, considering I never even considered starting a family with anyone before.”
Masters for Life Page 4
