by Falon Gold
“Until it doesn’t work for you, you mean.”
“Yes,” he says seriously, which just makes us both laugh.
“Well, while I have you in a good mood and we’re alone, I have something to confess. You were right about what you said about Blake.”
“I know.”
“Smartass.”
He grins. “I know that, too.”
I sober up. “But he isn’t going to push his attraction. When we both found him in my bed, I thought he just still need to be validated emotionally.”
“He does. Everyone does, but he’d rather be in your life as your brother than risk losing you or your family.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you know that, but I know how he feels. I felt the same way about you.”
“Until you didn’t.”
I nod. “Until I didn’t. Once you’ve crossed that line and your heart steps over it with you and gets a taste of what you can have, it’s hard to find your way back to where you started. I know my heart wouldn’t go, even when I tried to make it.”
He reaches for my hand. “I know what Blake would choose to do because I don’t have blood family backing me. The choice he made to keep all the Owens in his corner is the one I’d make, too. Or he’d have pursued you way before now. I’m glad your heart won’t go back and it won’t let you, because I’m not going back. I’ll do whatever you want to make this work between us, even if that means putting up with Blake… who’s spoiled rotten.”
“And it’s so unfair,” I gripe.
“Trust me, love. You’ve both been spoiled rotten with love. He just appreciates it more because it comes from outside the home that was obligated to provide him with it… and he uses it to his advantage.”
“He does that.”
“That’s what family is for, to take and give more than they should. Speaking of taking, you know Jenna isn’t worth the designer tags on her clothes that she buys with her unearned paycheck.”
Every muscle in my body locks up. “Apollo, why in hell would you mention your secretary right now, of all times? If you tell me that you’ve been sleeping with her, I swear!”
“I haven’t slept with her ever, baby,” he says quickly, but he starts to rub the back of his head, like he does when he’s faced with a difficult decision that he doesn’t want to face.
There aren’t many of those, but firing people is one of them.
I get pissy and stomp my foot. “Oh, come on! You want me to fire her for you, don’t you?”
“Yes, please. She’s not family or deserves to take when she doesn’t give even a tenth back. She’ll probably cry and get another three and a half years as my secretary, if I do it.”
I guess I know him better than I thought. “You’ve tried to fire her before, haven’t you?”
He glances at me, with a guilty look on his face. “Yes, and you can see how well that worked out.”
“You are just full of surprises today,” I grumble.
“Look at this way. Life with me will never be boring.”
“They weren’t good surprises, Apollo. You don’t pay me enough for this.”
“What’s your idea of a raise?”
“I wasn’t fishing for a raise. I already got the one I wanted from your PA to your woman, but I will take less responsibility at your company.”
“How about I give you the company instead?”
“Jesus, no! That defeats the purpose of not working my ass off every day, and I’d really be running the company singlehandedly because I’d fired damn near every one that works there within the week.”
“I have some good people at my company, my Lisa.”
“And they’re overworked and underpaid because of the ones that slack off all day.”
“Okay, so we start to move people out, then up.”
“It’s not that easy, Apollo. You’d have to work out severance packages and make sure the lower level employees are ready to move up. We’d still be working seven days a week for months trying to put them in place, and I’m just your personal assistant that no one will take seriously.”
“They would if you’re my vice president.”
This is just getting worse.
I sigh.
“No, Apollo. I don’t want to live at your company anymore.”
“Obviously, you don’t know what vice presidents do, do you, my Lisa?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“They delegate.”
“That’s what CEO’s do, too. I’m the one you delegate to, remember?”
“Damn straight.”
“It’s true then. The less money you make, the harder you work.”
He grins at me, and that’s so not a good sign. “Yep, so when can I have your name stenciled on the door of my office with vice president above it?”
“You mean to tell me that I can’t even get my own office?”
“No. You’re going to be at my side from here on out, where you belong.”
“Apollo, you don’t think we need some space, to at least miss each other?”
“We’ll miss each other, when one of us goes to the bathroom. When we sleep. When you take trips to Colorado that I can’t follow on when you take them on the jet, which I’m looking at for you right now.”
“A jet!” I start to laugh. “You like giving me reasons to turn you down, don’t you?”
He grins arrogantly down on me. “It’s when you find something to accept from me that the fun begins.”
“I just need your heart, sweetheart… and your body.”
He shifts on the bed until his thighs are pressed to mine then drops his arm across my shoulder and along my back, before pulling me into him. “And I need to take care of you, my Lisa. Whatever is mine is yours.”
“You’re going to make me take it all, aren’t you? The vice presidency? The jet? Is there a castle in the works, too?”
“Yep. Thirty miles away from here. I’m looking at potential spots for a land grab, as well. Castles, princes, and princesses need lots of space… or so you told me.”
“Speaking of little people with crowns on. We haven’t used a condom not one time that we’ve slept together.”
Apollo leans us back until we are laying on the bed then tosses my leg over his. “Do you want me to start using them?”
I snuggle into the crook of his arm. “My clock started ticking when I laid eyes on you. I may be like my mother and can only have one child before my uterus says to hell with that and gives up.”
“Even if we have no children, my Lisa, I have the most important person in my world right beside me.”
“Then it’s official then, no condom.”
“Deal, vice president.”
I slide up Apollo’s body and plant my mouth on his before he thinks of something else in his office to give me, besides his heart.
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
I take a sip of my iced tea, just plain ice cubes and chamomile. If my family or husband-to-be suspected me of drinking anything alcoholic before my wedding, I’d have to run away to avoid the uproar, while eight months pregnant with triplet boys. God knows I haven’t been able to run in the last three months. I can barely walk now, and it’s almost impossible to get in and out of any mode of transportation lately.
Just getting from my mother’s house to my uncle Luke’s ranch where the ceremony is going to be held was a major production this morning. I had more hands in my back making sure I didn’t fall between the front porch and Apollo’s pearl-white Navigator than I have inside me. And God knows my back is wide at this stage of my pregnancy too, but Apollo was parked across the front lawn for the ease of me stepping from the bottom porch step to the running board of the truck.
What was I going to do? Trip over the step up and fall into my seat?
Everyone is still completely overbearing here, I tell you. Apollo has picked up the tendency, as well. Uncle Luke’s wife Natalia, a part-time botanist, full-blooded
Comanche Indian, and mother to Luke Jr. is no better. As soon as we arrived here, she made me take a seat in my uncle’s favorite recliner and forbade me to leave it. I’m sure he didn’t appreciate that, if the grimace that appeared on his face at the time is any indication of his feelings. I am grateful though. The constant swelling in my feet gets out of control quickly if I stand too long, which makes it feel like I’m walking on balloons.
However, I’d love to be outside on one of the last warm days of autumn, helping my family decorate the gardens that Natalia has been creating for the last two years. She still has another year, and about two acres to landscape and add fountains and wooden benches to, before she can rent the grounds out for events. I’d have waited until then, just to avoid the bloated wedding photos. Apollo nixed that idea when I told him I was two months pregnant. He proposed in Aspen our first night there. He wanted his kids to be born legitimately as Fords, and I do, too.
Yep, he finally got me to ski slopes. I still don’t know how to ski like he wanted me to learn, but he’s more concerned with getting married in a few hours before I pop. Feels more like a shotgun wedding the more I think about it, even if I fantasized about getting married here one day. As a child, I found infinite things to do here with my imagination, including being a bride. Hopefully, my children will get to play at Blake’s and my second favorite childhood place to be, too.
I have another sip of tea, wanting to blow up at least one balloon and attach it to a chair at the reception. Then I can say I had some part in the hard work that’s going into my dream wedding. How hard can it be to push down on the level of a helium tank and wait for the latex to blow up? It must be pretty damn difficult because an argument broke out about it this morning. I didn’t even get the suggestion of me doing it out of my mouth before Apollo and my mother shot me down because I stupidly raised my hand first to get everyone’s attention.
Major mistake. I should’ve just spit the words out. All I’ve contributed to my wedding is picking out the colors, font for the invitations, the wedding party’s attire, and the venue. Now, I’m stuck in the house, watching a theater screen in my uncle’s man cave, with my feet up, and being served by whoever ventures in the back door for whatever reason. I make sure to grumble about being unable to participate. Then I go right back to doing nothing… happily. Trust me when I promise that I’ll get to blow up that damn balloon though, but I’m not upset about missing my mother ordering everyone around, including the wedding planner and her staff.
Poor people! Better them than me though.
The doorbell for the front door sounds off. It has to be a guest that knows better than to try and find their way alone around the ranch, looking for the gardens that are a half a mile away. They’d probably find the stinky, riding horses first, which is on the other side of the ranch thankfully.
Jesus, how many businesses does one family need, I ask myself, since no one else is around to ask or answer the door. I’d be a little irritated with having no one to pull my tank-sized ass out of the chair, if they all weren’t working with my mother supervising. They’re stressed enough, without me calling them to come eight acres over to help me up, even if they’re using a golf cart to get back and forth.
I fight to get out of the chair, with the boys riding my bladder and spine, and consider calling Apollo anyway… or whoever answers their phone first. You can do this by yourself, Malisa. After that pitiful pep talk, I get a poke in the ribs before I get to my feet, which takes my breath. I stand up, rearrange the robe that I’m wearing until time to ditch it for my peasant wedding dress. It’s made of white satin in a baby doll style for maximum comfort, with thick shoulder straps and round diamonds around the bust, and could pass for a tent.
I waddle around Luke Jr’s play pen. I’m only a room away from the front door, but when I reach it, it feels like I’ve walked a mile. I grab the doorknob to prop on it instead of turning it, while trying to peek through the frosted panes in the door. I get a distorted image of whoever’s on the other side, with no idea if it’s a man or woman or more than one person.
“Who is it?” I ask before the back door opens in the kitchen.
Oh now, someone shows up. Typical.
“It’s Sienna, Malisa,” Apollo’s mother answers back.
“My Lisa, what are you doing?” he asks worriedly from behind me before his presence swamps the room.
It’s bigger than a standard living area, and filled with white contemporary furniture with brown wood trimming. Yet, he manages to fill it up with his essence anyway.
“I’m letting your mother in, babes. What does it look like I’m doing?” I open the door.
He smirks. “You could’ve called me to do it, sweetheart.”
Sienna steps inside, with a garment bag thrown over her arm, and attempts a hug around her grandchildren. I have to bend over before she can get her empty arm around my neck. Hugging my waist isn’t an option, and she isn’t tall enough to reach over the bulge of my belly to get to me. She’s even shorter than me.
Apollo got his height and looks from his father. Sienna is a fragile and pale-looking beauty surrounded by sadness. I sensed it the moment she opened her door to me five months ago, not expecting Apollo to be standing beside me. He was dead serious about giving no warning. I think he was afraid she’d run before he found her, but he won’t admit it.
He shouldn’t have been worried at all. She’s extremely strong and has been living alone since Lazarus’ death. They refused to have any more children after Apollo was taken from their life. She recognized him immediately, broke down crying just as fast, and then hauled him into her arms. After he told her she was going to be a grandmother and she’d shown him all his baby pictures that she had framed all over the house, she cried some more.
I thought I wouldn’t find a mother more dedicated than Lydia. I’m glad to confess that I am dead wrong. A little bit of Sienna’s sadness disappears every time we visit her or she comes to see us wherever we are. She does more coming lately on my jet, since I can’t travel and she flat out refused her own from Apollo. I still haven’t figured out how to stop him from buying me expensive things, like the seven-carat rock on my finger. It’s just as heavy as his children are, and I only drooled over the thing once, after we passed by it in a display window.
Okay, I drooled every time I passed by it in Utah for a month. That still doesn’t mean I wanted it.
It doesn’t hurt that Sienna’s very sweet-natured either, so I’m always glad to see her. Maybe she’ll tell me her secret to getting Apollo to accept no at least sometimes.
I grin and sweep her waist-length brunette hair with strands of gray weaving in and out of her bone-straight locks behind her back. “I couldn’t leave my future favorite mother-in-law standing on the porch, waiting for someone to get here, Apollo. That is not the way to start out the rest of our lives as extended family.”
“She’s your only future mother-in-law, my Lisa, and the only one you’re going to get if I have my way,” he responds dryly, while waiting for his hug.
Sienna giggles before releasing me to circle her son’s waist. She’ll never reach his neck. “I wouldn’t have minded, Malisa. You really should be resting.”
The back door opens, again.
“God, Sienna, you sound like your son,” I complain.
She laughs.
“She’s right, baby girl,” my mother pipes up before crossing the threshold between the kitchen and the living room.
I sigh. “And you sound like Sienna, mama. Three against one. Don’t you all feel good about picking on a pregnant woman?”
Uncle Tommy snickers behind Lydia, before stepping around her. “Be fair, Malisa. You have them outnumbered. The load in front of you count as at least six… maybe seven people. That’s a big stomach, woman.”
“Shut up, Tommy,” my father says out of nowhere, before stepping up on the front porch then through the opened door.
“You count as eight by your damn self, Frank,” Un
cle Tommy responds.
My father shakes his head. “Shut… up… Tommy. Go sit down, baby girl.”
“Daddy!” He’s supposed to be on my side.
My mother giggles. “Finally, you’re of some use with these kids, Frank.”
He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her into his side. “As long as she’s pregnant, Lydia, you got my support… but you’re on your own again when she gives birth.”
She snorts and shakes her head. “Nobody’s perfect.”
Blake walks through the opened front door. “I got your back, Mama O. Go sit, Lisa Poo. You look unstable… seriously.”
“Fine. You all want me to sit? Go bring the helium tank and a balloon.”
Apollo groans. “Not this again. Baby, please. That thing is dangerous and can tip over on you.” He walks behind me, and has no trouble circling my waist with his long arms.
I lean back into his chest then twist to look up at him. “Helium tank and a balloon are all I’m asking for. You can even hold the tank if you want to.”
“I got handcuffs if you need them, Apollo,” Blake adds. “We’ll attach her to the chair one way or the other.”
“Ew, Blake!” Natalia squeals from somewhere in the house, and Luke Jr. mimics her in his adorable toddler tone. “There’s no telling who all you’ve attached those things to!”
“That’s not going to work anyway,” Uncle Luke says, after appearing out of nowhere. “My chair doesn’t have metal rings and I better not find your cuffs attached to nothing and no one in here, Blake. Why are you all standing around anyway? There’s work to be done. Malisa, you really need to sit down, honey. I’ve never seen a belly that big… ever.”
“Aw hell,” Uncle Tommy starts, “The bear is grumpy. Time to go until he’s had his porridge. I’ll warn my sisters and Derek when I get back to the gardens to stay away from the house and head the rest of the guests off at the driveway.” He turns and leaves the way he came.
The room fills with laughter, just as he intended. I realized for the umpteenth time how much I’ve missed making these memories with my family. Having Apollo, and soon our own family, to share them with just makes them that much more precious. Now, if I can just get Blake married off.
