To the untrained eye, her father had died a wealthy man, but the shady investments and business dealings he’d been tangled up in before his death had quickly come to the surface, leaving Zoey alone, with absolutely nothing. No money, no siblings, not even any distant relatives. Her father had pushed them all away many years ago in pursuit of the polarizing, and often eclipsing, lure of the almighty dollar.
From the moment he’d made that devastating phone call forward, Tony Romanovsky had been Zoey’s rock. He always reminded her of the promise he’d made to Marcus, the promise that he would look out for Zoey no matter what. That still hadn’t made Tony obligated to take her in at fourteen, raise her as his own, enroll her in the best schools, and put food in her mouth. But he’d done all that. And more. He’d shown her love, real love, the kind that zinged through her bones whenever she said his name, or pictured his face, warming her up from head to toe.
Zoey was determined to prove to Tony that his decision hadn’t been in vain. She would prove to him that she appreciated everything he’d done for her by never taking anything from him, or his sons, that she didn’t absolutely have to. Besides, she knew that if times really did get tough, Tony and her brothers would always be there to pick her up, and dust her off. If she asked them for the moon and the stars, they wouldn’t hesitate, which was exactly why she never did.
She couldn’t help smiling at Gary and Roman. She’d never say it out loud, but they were her favorites. They were the ones who’d really taken her under their wing back in their younger days.
When she’d been new at school, the twins, Val and Leo, went out of their way to ignore her in the halls. Gary and Roman had not only allowed her to follow them around constantly, they’d also let her sit with them at lunch so she wouldn’t be alone, they’d introduced her to their friends. She laughed softly as she recalled the secret calendar that she’d kept in her room back then, marking off the days when she’d follow each brother. One week she would follow Gary around all day. Then, the next week, it would be Roman. She made sure to mix it up, constantly dreading the day when one of them would get sick of her, and demand she make her own friends, get her own life.
They never had. Not once.
“I don’t mean to be an asshole, Zo,” Gary said, jumping in and breaking her thoughts. “But… it’s just so…” He cringed as he looked around her apartment once more, and his love for Zoey finally drove him to bite his tongue. “I’ll buy you a nicer place, and we’ll call it a Christmas gift, or a… what holiday’s coming up?” Gary asked, looking to Roman, who only shook his head in response.
“I would rather die than let you buy me an apartment. Can we drop it now?” she asked, looking away from Gary and taking in Roman’s smiling face. She adored the way he looked at her so adoringly. Even more than that, she adored that he never opened his mouth to speak without thinking, the way Gary was often prone to.
She stroked his cheek with her knuckle and, with a shake of her head, began making her way into the kitchen, knowing they would follow her. As she went to her oven, she heard their heavy footsteps behind her, the sound of her dining chairs disagreeing with her wood floors, and the clanking of the plates and silverware she’d set out. They were on their lunch hour, and clearly starving, because they were already digging into the garlic bread she’d set out when she came to the table with a glass dish in her mitted hands.
“I’m glad you guys are hungry, I made you some of my famous lasagna!”
Gary didn’t miss a single beat. “Yum, bring it on.”
He hadn’t even flinched. Zoey almost threw that entire dish in his face, but managed to contain herself. He could tell her how much he hated her apartment, but didn’t have the balls to admit he hated her cooking? She didn’t miss the way he winced, ever so slightly, when she sliced him an enormous piece.
She slid the giant piece to Gary before turning to Roman, who wasn’t as skilled an actor as Gary, and was still visibly collecting himself. He was horrified at the thought of eating her lasagna. It was honestly all over him. How had she never seen it?
Zoey pointed at the dish with her spatula. “Would you like some, Rome?”
Roman took a huge breath while eyeing the glass dish, as if mentally preparing. “I’ll have some, just a little bit though…”
She went to cut him a piece.
He threw out a hand. “A little less, please. I just ate. So full,” he instantly explained, running his hands across his stomach, where she knew a forest of rock hard abs lived under his black button down.
“Hmm… I could’ve sworn you said you hadn’t eaten all day when you called me on the way over here.”
“I, uh…” Roman blushed. “I must have misspoken.”
With a grin, she cut him a smaller slice, sliding the plate to him, as well. White hot jealousy stained Gary’s eyes as he took in Roman’s much smaller piece.
“Dig in,” Zoey demanded, placing a hand on her hip, and watching them intently.
They both hesitated, Roman just a second longer than Gary. Soon, they were both throwing down.
Zoey was amazed as she watched them dig into the dish that she now knew they hated, and she couldn’t help but melt that they loved her this much. Enough to scarf down something they loathed.
In fact, they wolfed it down. They certainly didn’t look like they hated it!
Just as quickly as it was there, the adoring smile on her face was gone. It occurred to her that they were only scarfing it down to get a situation they found torturous over with as quickly as possible.
Roman slid his empty plate across the table, or rather, shoved it with contempt, before patting his belly. “Thank you, Zoey. That was truly delicious.”
“Would you like a little more?”
“No!” He lowered his panicked voice. “No thank you. So full. Thank you though.” He stood from the table, a little too quickly, dabbing his mouth. “I’m out, I have to pick Val up from his doctor’s appointment in twenty minutes. Wrap some up for me, for later?”
Why? So you can throw it down the nearest trash chute on the way out of the building? she thought.
She bit her tongue as antagonism roared out of control inside her, somehow managing a sweet smile as he kissed her cheek. “Sure thing!” she sang. Once Roman left, she focused her attention on Gary, who still had half of his slice left to eat.
He stared at what was left on his plate like it was Mt. Everest.
He was breaking down. She wondered, with amusement, just how long he would last.
“How’s work today?” She circled around the table with her own slice of the lasagna, taking a seat across from him.
Gary chuckled.
“Right,” she said, hearing his laughter. “I always forget that you and Roman are never actually at work. You just allow Val to hand you important titles in his company, reap the rewards, and show up whenever you feel like it.”
Happy to have a distraction from the pasta on his plate, Gary pushed it away. “I resent that. I’ve given Val my blood, sweat and tears since the moment he hired me on at Novsky.”
“Oh really?” she asked.
“Yes, really.”
“Hmm… what did Novsky’s stock look like last quarter? Did we make a profit? Or are we sliding?”
“I resent this line of questioning.”
She brought a leg up to the chair, pulling it to her chest with a grin. “Why don’t you start focusing on something that you actually care about? Remember when we were kids and you dreamed about being a computer animator? What happened to that?”
“I remember being a kid who convinced himself that he could be as brilliant an artist as you. There’s a word for that Zoey, it’s called delusion. I could never do what you do… so I show up to work for Val instead.”
“But you don’t actually show up. You’re never there, Gar.”
“If you were smart, you’d let him give you a better paying gig with Novsky, too. At least then you wouldn’t have to live in this drug haven any
more.”
“You’ve been trying to buy me an apartment in the city for years, and I refuse you every time. If I don’t want handouts from you, my best friend in the world, what the hell makes you think I would take a handout from Val? He and I barely speak. I wouldn’t even call him a friend.” She thought about the exchange she’d had with Val in her living room the other day, and fought the embarrassing tears that instantly stung her eyes.
“Obviously not. You know Val doesn’t have friends.” Gary laughed.
She forked around the lasagna she’d yet to take a bite of. “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”
“Trust me.” Gary waited for her eyes to meet his. “He knows you’re alive.”
Zoey watched Gary, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she took a bite of her lasagna, chewing slowly before swallowing it down.
“More than you know.” His eyes left hers.
With that, he changed the subject, and they finished their lunch with easy conversation and laughter, the kind of comfort the two of them had shared since they were kids.
***
“Doc, are you sure? Can you double check? Is it possible to double check? Can we run the tests again?”
“Val, I understand this is difficult news.” Dr. Erin Matthews sighed deeply, clutching her hands in front of her on the desk. “It’s hospital policy to run tests of this nature three different times, with three different samples, performed by three different lab techs. Just to be sure that our findings are accurate. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid our suspicions have been 100% confirmed.”
Valentin Romanovsky’s head fell, causing a lock of dark brown hair to fall into his pained golden eyes. He pushed it back with both hands, and kept his head cradled inside of them, attempting to gather himself. He really didn’t want to cry in front of this smoking hot doctor. He felt distantly dizzy, like he might pass out. He wished he would. Losing consciousness would be a small price to pay, because he really, really, didn’t want to cry in front of this doctor.
She was young, slim, just his type. If the circumstances were different, he’d be laying his best moves on her right that second, asking her what her plans were later, expertly plotting out the fastest, and most efficient way to get her into his bed that night--and out of it by morning. It was what he did best.
“Love ‘em and leave ‘em, huh Val?” was what his younger brother Gary always said.
Val was the notorious ladies man of the family. He loved women, and saw them as a bit of fun, a beautiful distraction from life’s complications, but that was where it ended. His brothers fucked around, too, but they always did it with the very distant goal of an intimate bond, a lasting relationship, maybe even finding their future wife. Val just wanted to nut. That was it. He wanted to cum, as quickly and efficiently as possible. The women he entertained came in all colors, shapes, and sizes. He did have a type, but it wasn’t set in stone. Women were women, all powerful in their own way, all goals to be conquered, and then forgotten.
For the first time in his life, he found himself regretting the years he’d foolishly wasted having so much casual sex, but so little conversation, so many orgasms, but so little genuine connection. Would it have really been so hard to ask a woman what her dreams were, if she had any siblings, or even how old she was? Would it have really been so hard to let her spend the night? To cook her a plate a fucking pancakes the next morning? The Val Romanovsky from a week ago would have sooner died than do any of those things, but the Val Romanovsky of today, the one who’d just received the worst news of his life from the hottest doctor he’d ever seen, would give just about anything to go back, and do everything differently.
The room was spinning again, and he was about to give himself a headache from how long he’d been holding back tears. He’d been fighting them during the long drive up there, and he fought them now, as she looked at him with pity in her eyes. No woman had ever looked at him like that. He hated it so much that he was suddenly terrified. Terrified of going through the rest of his life seeing that look directed at him.
She certainly hadn’t had pity in her eyes when he’d come in for his yearly physical all those weeks ago, before she’d discovered the slightest abnormality during a routine exam.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she’d assured him.
It was far from nothing, and for the better part of the month he’d been in and out of that office, poked, prodded, violated in the worst possible ways, finally discovering that her suspicions had been correct.
He’d known it was going to be bad news when Dr. Matthews called him at work that morning, and insisted he come down to the office.
“So I’m really incompetent?” he asked.
“I don’t like the word incompetent.”
“Was it something I did? Didn’t do?”
“Not at all. Sometimes these things just… happen. Causes can range from abnormal hormones, to genetics, to adverse reactions to antibiotics. In your case I’m certain it’s been caused by a larger than average collection of veins around the testicle. While yours is one of the less severe cases I’ve seen, it can still play a huge part in infertility in young men like yourself. That combined with any of the other causes, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster.”
“So I can’t ever have kids?” The question caused the tears he’d been fighting so valiantly to finally bubble up in his eyes, and tumble over the edge.
The pity in her eyes was back.
It made him want to scream.
“Never?” he reiterated, making no effort to wipe the tears away. He’d asked the one question he’d been too afraid to ask during this entire ordeal. He’d opened that door, and now he knew the tears would never stop.
“I don’t like the word never,” Dr. Matthews said.
“You don’t like a lot of words.”
“True, but I really don’t like that one. Never. Yikes, it makes my teeth itch just saying it.” She was relieved to see him smile. “Very few things in this world are that finite, and though it absolutely will be more challenging for you to have a child, it is by no means impossible.”
Val finally wiped his eyes. “What can I do? Should I… I don’t know… can’t you freeze them or something?”
“In your case, freezing the sperm wouldn’t be a possibility. They have such low mobility, and are so minute in number, that very few would survive such harsh conditions. In your case, motility rates are highest in warmer temperatures. At this point, I’d say you still stand a fighting chance of impregnating a woman the good old fashion route, if you understand my drift.”
Val thought about the many women in his life that he kept in rotation for when he was alone and horny. He wondered which of those women would allow him to impregnate her, and quickly concluded that most of them would. Then he thought about how those women would perform as mothers, and laughed out loud.
Dr. Matthews watched him laugh to himself, realizing he was going through a rollercoaster of emotions. “And Val, it’s important that you know… the likelihood of you conceiving a child will only get lower as you age. So, if I may, I’d suggest you get started on that old fashion route.”
“How long do you think I have?” God, he sounded like he was dying!
She took a deep breath. “Thirty.”
His eyebrows rose. “Thirty?”
She nodded. “By the time you are thirty, Val, I can say, without hesitation, that you will never be able to conceive a child.”
“I thought you hated the word never.”
“I retract.”
He watched her, mouth propped open.
“So I suggest you get started, Val. Quickly. Do you have a significant other in your life, at the moment, that could possibly be ready to conceive?”
He laughed again, before answering, “No.”
He thought about all the late night trysts, the one night stands, the strip clubs. His personal list of sex, sin, and degradation was extensive--it truly went on and on. There was no one in h
is life that he called his girlfriend, or who he’d even consider giving such a title. He’d been too busy living his life, spending his hard-earned money, and partying until dawn, to give a shit about having kids. About finding a nice girl. Nice girls were for old men who were long passed their peak, men who were broke, or men couldn’t pull anything better. Nice girls weren’t for young, wealthy, attractive guys like him. He laughed at his thoughts, once more, covering his eyes with his hands. “I’m an idiot.”
Dr. Matthews pulled open a drawer. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. We all had our fun in our younger days.”
Val took his head out of his hand, and leveled her with his eyes. So the good doctor knew all about his less-than-sparkling reputation. Great. He wondered if she had any copies of the gossip rags that’d been putting his face on their covers lately, hidden away in her desk. If she didn’t, she’d be the only one. From the moment he’d officially become a millionaire it seemed every single woman in the country, and some married ones too, wanted to know all about Val. He’d even been featured in some insipid Forbes list of New York’s Most Eligible Millionaire Bachelors. He'd never seen Leo laugh so hard as he did when that gem dropped. Val was a lot of things, but eligible bachelor was definitely not one of them. If a woman wanted to get hit, then quit, that was where Val excelled. He was pretty sure Forbes Magazine didn’t have a hit-then-quit list, which was sad, because he would certainly be their #1.
He chuckled to himself. Why the country cared so much about some tech geek who struck gold, and his sexual escapades, was completely beyond him.
“And you’ve never engaged in unprotected sex, correct?”
“No, never.”
“The fact that you haven’t had unprotected sex is a great thing, because we can’t completely rule out your inability to have children the natural way. If all else fails, there are many treatments that the woman can also undergo, IUI, IVF, etcetera, but those can be painful, uncomfortable, very invasive…” When Val went on spinning in his own head, having all but forgotten the Dr. was even in the room, she slid a couple of pamphlets his way. “These are just a few of the resources at your disposal, Val. This doesn’t have to be the end of your world. There are plenty of options for men in your position. While I personally find it a better, and healthier option, to pursue having a child with someone you know and trust, that doesn’t always have to be the case. Take the pamphlets,” she said, shaking them in his direction when all he did was stare.
Taming Val Page 3
