He chuckled deep in his throat as he caressed my face. “Ah, my poor little rich girl. You may think you know, but you don’t. Not really. You don’t know what it’s like to hunger for something so badly it tears at your gut, an itch you can’t scratch. An ache you can’t satisfy. And that sucks for you,” he said as his eyes met mine. “Because you’ll never experience the true joy of truly getting what you’ve wanted. What you’ve always wanted. The highest highs are made possible by the lowest lows.” His voice dropped. “I’m on top of the world when I’m with you, Coralie. That’s why I asked you to marry me even when we had no fucking clue that we knew what we were doing. And yet there you were. Everything I’ve always wanted. I wasn’t going to give you up. I’m never going to give you up,” he repeated as he held me tighter. I felt him tremble in my arms. “Never push me away again.”
“Devlin,” I started softly, but he silenced me with a kiss.
“Never,” he repeated. “Promise me.”
His soft, supple lips toyed with mine mere seconds before I found myself obeying his urgent command issued between hungry kisses. “There’s only one truth that matters anymore. I’d lose myself without you. We’re all we have, Coralie,” he murmured against my neck.
I nodded and held him close, though I couldn’t fall asleep for hours.
He woke me with tender kisses as he prowled down the length of my body, almost as if he was testing my promise never to push him away. And of course I didn’t, because no one could ever make me feel the way Devlin Masters did. I was at his mercy every single time we touched, which was so much better than being mad all week.
By the time we left the apartment Saturday morning, to make good on Devlin’s excuse to go hiking, I was in a much better frame of mind. It was amazing how a string of mind-blowing orgasms could shift perspective. It even left me ready to tackle the hilly trails at Griffith Park.
There was barely any snark at all in my comment when I asked, “So is this part of the plan?” while we trudged up the incline on the first hill. “Because I hate to tell you, but I’ll never mirror the other perfect bridesmaids in six days, no matter how many hills I climb.”
“Your mistake is thinking I want you to mirror them,” he said as he set our brisk pace.
“So what’s the objective?”
He turned to face me. “You’re going to outshine everyone in that wedding party. Lucy included.”
I chortled. “Not in that puce monstrosity I won’t.”
He shook his head as he chuckled as well. “For a girl with such privileges, your thinking is so limited. Why is that, Coralie?”
I couldn’t deny it even if I wanted to. I shrugged. “After Mother died, it seemed pointless to expect anything but the other shoe to drop. Yes, I have money and clothes and a car and a nice home. But I’ll never have her again. And I may not know what it’s like to go without, or to make things stretch, or face the sheer spinning Russian roulette chamber with everything that happens in everyday life, but I do know what it’s like to want something you can’t have. And I know what it’s like to think that is what you deserve.”
He stopped us on the trail, standing right in front of me and taking my hands in his. “So now you know what your life looks like living by those rules.” He thumbed my wedding rings. “And you also know what your life looks like breaking them. Tell me which makes you happier.”
“You know the answer to that,” I said softly.
He began walking backwards, pulling me by my hands, leading me up the hill. “Then fuck what they think. We’re not doing this to shrink you, Coralie. We’re doing this to make you so fucking big no one can ever ignore you again.” He started to jog, pulling me along with him, picking up the pace, practically running backwards up a hill he couldn’t see. “I trust you to stop me from going off this cliff. Trust me to get you to the top of it.”
“Devlin,” I started, but he shook his head.
“Trust me.”
My eyes locked with his. Finally I took a deep breath and nodded. He ran backwards almost all the way up the hill, and I kept him from going off the trail. In return he brought me to the first minor summit, where I could look out into the L.A. basin, so vast under a blazing summer sun.
He wrapped his arms around my waist as he held me from behind, burying his face in my glistening neck. “Worth it?” he asked.
I turned slightly to face him, perpetually lost in those incandescent green eyes. My husband… my dream come true. I could only nod in answer to his question.
Yes, it was worth it.
He was worth it all.
It was even worth the minor fight we got into on the way home, when Caz texted Devlin to meet him for drinks that evening.
“You’re going to go meet him? Why?”
“To see what he wants,” Devlin shrugged.
“Invite him to the apartment,” I suggested. “Then he can see that he doesn’t exactly possess the ace up his sleeve that he thinks he does.”
Devlin shook his head. “He doesn’t need to know that you know.”
“Why not? If he thinks that his information is useless…,” I started but Dev was quick to cut me off.
“Then he’ll sell that information to the highest bidder. Like your aunt. Or your father.” His eyes flashed as he turned back to the road. “We’re not going to show him our hand yet. We’re going to give him enough rope and see if he hangs himself with it first.”
I supposed he had a point. “Maybe I should take these classes with him, then,” I suggested, which made Dev’s head whip around like a boomerang. “Like you said, maybe if he thinks he can manipulate me, he won’t bother with Father or Aunt Margot.”
Devlin shook his head. “I don’t want you near him, Coralie. You don’t know what kind of man he is.”
Technically the same could be said of Devlin, but I didn’t dare point that out.
“You keep asking me to trust you, Devlin. Don’t you think it’s time you trust me? We’re all we’ve got, remember? So let me help.”
His eyes met mine again. After another long sigh he turned his attention back to the road. “Fine. I’ll trust you. But whatever you do, you cannot trust him. Whatever he says, you mustn’t believe him, Coralie. Even when he speaks the truth, he does it for a dishonest reason. You understand?”
I nodded and he reached for my hand. We didn’t say much more than that on the way back to our apartment. He was out the door within ten minutes of our arrival, to meet Caz at a nearby bar where they could ‘chat.’
I practically pounced on him when Devlin returned, alone, a few hours later. “What did he want?”
“Money,” he sneered as he took off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “Like I suspected.” I followed him into the living room where he poured a shot of bourbon at his bar. “Says if I pay him quickly and quietly, then he won’t tell my blushing bride about my scandalous past.” He toasted me with the crystal tumbler before he guzzled it in one shot.
“Are we going to pay him off?”
“Fuck no, we’re not going to pay him off,” he barked as he refilled his glass.
“So what can we do?”
He drained the drink before he placed the glass back on the bar. He turned to me. “We’re going to go to the wedding next week, just like he will. And at the reception, he’s going to ask you to dance. He’s going to hold you inappropriately, just to get to me, to make me lose my temper. Meanwhile he’s going to pitch these phony tennis lessons to you, just so he can get you all alone. He’ll flirt. He’ll test your boundaries. And at the end of the night, you’re going to hire him as your personal trainer.”
That was a far cry from taking a few bogus tennis lessons. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes,” he stated simply. “If he thinks he’s got something over on me, he’ll preoccupy himself with that, rather than sabotage us with your father. That’s never been his true objective anyway. He’s going to try to get close to you and you’re going to let him, if
only to keep him distracted until we can figure out a way to handle Caz Bixby once and for all.”
There was an ominous threat in his voice, which scared me. I tried to laugh it off. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
His stormy eyes met mine. “Only if he fucks you.”
It was such a definitive statement that it made my blood run cold. I wanted to believe that he was employing hyperbole, but the look in his eyes was as cold and ruthless a look as I had ever seen. My stomach recoiled immediately, so I did my best to defuse the situation. “Nobody fucks me but you,” I assured him quietly.
He killed his drink, put the glass on the counter, and joined me where I stood. “You’re goddamned right about that,” he said before he crushed me to his body.
That night we didn’t make it past the front room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The week leading up to Lucy’s grand wedding was understandably chaotic, but for some reason I just wasn’t equipped to deal with it. Frankly I was exhausted. It was hard work keeping up with Sylvia Lyon on a good day, much less the dozens of last minute plans left to finalize, particularly with the bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Thanks to the tightly packed itinerary, Devlin and I were apart more that week than we were together. My weakly charged battery was my own to manage. As much as I needed to talk one-on-one with Lucy that week, we were likewise preoccupied with all the events Sylvia Lyon had planned for the large bridal party.
So I kept the disturbing development with Caz Bixby to myself, because the time simply wasn’t right to discuss it. Only Lucy would understand my predicament, but I’d have to wait at least a few more weeks before I could seek her wizened counsel. After the wedding they were flying right to Hawaii for a two week honeymoon. By the time she came back, there would only be a couple of weeks before I flew to France to spend the month of August, the first of such annual trips I would be taking with my husband.
I hadn’t planned on taking it at all, given all the time I’d missed with work. But Father surprised us with the tickets that Tuesday evening, when we joined him for dinner at his estate, just the three of us. It was another command performance that Devlin didn’t think we should miss, even though the week already promised to take a huge toll on me. I juggled the stress of meeting Father’s expectations, the stress of playing the good little maid of honor for the micromanaging Sylvia. Not to mention all the new stress that Caz Bixby had introduced into my life. It all left me ready to puke at any given moment of every given day, especially when I thought about trying to trap Caz at the reception like Dev had planned.
I felt physically sick every single time I thought about being alone with him, especially because I knew that it would become the first, and possibly the most defining, trust exercise between Dev and me.
That dinner with father further demonstrated when it came to earning any trust, the lion’s share of the work belonged to me. Devlin, as always, was playing his own game.
Devlin had politely declined Father’s vacation at first, citing all the work we would have to do as reason enough to stay stateside.
“Consider it a belated honeymoon,” Father had suggested as he rolled around his desk to talk to us more directly.
Of course I couldn’t let that slide. “I thought you said I wasn’t married,” I pointed out, ignoring the warning glare that Devlin sent me.
“Yes, well, we’ll deal with that by the time you come back. I think we’re all a little wedding fatigued at the moment.”
He had no idea. Lucy’s wedding on Friday was the third one I had attended, or been a part of, in the past month. Quite frankly I was over it.
Father poured another glass of brandy. “In the meantime this time away in France will give you best education one can offer about being a Cabot,” he said to Devlin, never once considering that Devlin might not want to be a Cabot at all. Such a thing was unthinkable to Father, who was proud and protective of his heritage. “Chateau du Cabot is a scrapbook of our past as well as a blueprint for our future. Speaking of future,” Father segued, “what is your five-year plan?”
Father was a meticulous planner. I was certain he planned everything down to the letter, to avoid any nasty surprises. The only thing he hadn’t planned upon was meeting my mother and falling in love. And of course, he never could have planned to bury his much younger wife long before he himself started courting the grave.
Maybe that was why he felt the need to control my life, I thought. It was a powerful insight that was stomped right under foot of Devlin’s unexpected, and definitive, reply.
“I plan to be heading up this new clothing line at Cabot’s while Coralie tends to our two children at home.”
I practically choked on my brandy. I knew better than to correct him in front of Father, but he was definitely going to explain that one when we got home.
Father simply nodded, satisfied with the answer. “Good. I’m glad you’re thinking ahead to children. They are the only things that matter. This company is nothing but brick and mortar without the family to run it. Our bloodline,” he said, glancing at me, “that is our legacy.”
Devlin wrapped his arm around me. “I feel exactly the same way. Coming from a small, fragmented family, nothing means more to me than providing a stable, loving environment for our future children.” His eyes met mine. “I personally have always dreamed of starting early enough to have a large family. Four at least.”
More new information. It was like living in my own personal game show. What Will I Learn About Devlin Masters Today?
Father simply nodded. He liked the sound of that. “The Cabots, unfortunately, have always wanted more children than they have produced. Coralie is an only child, as was I. My father had only one brother, who died in WWII. All the other members of my grandfather’s family stayed behind in France to run the vineyards.” He glanced around his opulent study. “But this house was built to be shared. Our chateau near Châlons-en-Champagne is a virtual tomb now without a large family to inhabit it. Nothing would make me happier than to welcome a grandchild or two before my time here is done.”
“Don’t talk like that, Dad,” I chastised at once. “You’re going to be around a long, long time.”
He bestowed a benevolent smile. “You are too kind, my dear. But even I can hear the bells from a distant clock. As it should,” he added as he swirled his brandy in the large snifter. “The circle of life and all that. But I will just say that if you come back from France expecting your first child, I would be exceptionally pleased.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor. How had we gone from his threatening to annul my relationship to setting a timer on when I should get knocked up? “I think it’s too soon for that.” I immediately shied away from the topic, ready to slam on the brakes. I had just claimed control of my life. I wasn’t ready to get out of the driver’s side yet.
“You’d think so,” Father mused. “But time is a funny thing. I always thought I’d have time with your mother to have another child like we always wanted.”
My parents had wanted other children? They had never mentioned any such thing to me. Was that the reason Father was always so disappointed in me? He was always wondering what could have been? Suddenly I felt even worse.
Devlin was quick to step in. “What Coralie means is that we’re still technically in our honeymoon phase. We’re talking about children, but we haven’t reached any real timeline as yet. There’s still so much to be done, with this new clothing line especially, but also with buying a house. Our last offer was outbid, so we are still looking for a permanent home built for a family.”
None of that computed for Father. “You have a permanent home right on the estate.”
“We wanted something of our own, Dad.”
He dismissed my comment with the wave of his hand. “Please. Don’t be ridiculous. This is your home, Coralie, and by default yours as well, Devlin. When you have children, they will stay right here in this house, in the west wing. Honestly, I can’t th
ink of anything that would make me happier.”
Devlin grabbed my hand and squeezed, a silent plea for my silence. I gave him a barely imperceptible nod, so he said, “Another generous offer, Charles. But we will have to think about it. It was very important for both of us that we do this on our own.”
“You are family,” Father said. “You are never on your own.”
It gave us a lot to think about on the ride back to our apartment. I turned to face him in the darkened car. “So when were you planning to spring the whole big family thing on me? When my water broke on kid #4?”
“We have plenty of time to work all that out,” he dismissed, which only ticked me off. I was sick and damned tired of being dismissed. It flipped the bitch switch and it was beyond my ability to turn it back off again.
“Don’t be so sure. I only have a finite number of eggs. Every month we go without a baby, another soldier for the Masters army is lost forever.”
“Jesus Christ, Coralie,” Devlin gritted. “Why do you have to turn everything into a battle?”
“You’re the one who wants an army of kids; you should probably strike while the iron is hot. I’m not getting any younger, after all. In a couple of months I’ll be twenty-four,” I sneered. “Doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for makin’ babies.”
With a growl, Devlin pulled into the closest convenience store, threw the car in park and slammed out. I didn’t move a muscle. I was fuming, too. I married Devlin Masters so that I could take charge of my own fate. Now he was trying to plan my life and make my decisions just like my dad. That was not going to fly.
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