I also have a newfound appreciation for my body too, and what it’s capable of doing. I had no idea I could bend in those ways – or how good it could feel…
When we finally fell asleep, it was like every single muscle in my body had been given the workout of its life – but the ache is a very good one. It holds the memory of what we did, and even if it was truly painful, I think I would love it. As it is, I can only think about getting the chance to do it again.
I’m still pillowed on Nico’s chest, probably the most comfortable place I have ever fallen asleep. His chest rises and falls gently under me as he breathes, and I can hear his calm and measured heartbeat. It occurs to me that it’s already some time into the new morning, and I wonder if he’s still asleep – but when I shift slightly to try and find out, he answers me quietly.
“Good morning, Lili,” he says, his voice a deep rumble through his chest under my head.
I turn around to look up at him, twisting in the sheets. Somehow, I don’t at all feel awkward about my nakedness under them, or the way this movement exposes my chest. I feel comfortable with him. I wonder how that happened so quickly.
“Good morning,” I say. “Have you been awake long?”
He smiles, switching off the screen of his cell phone and setting it on the bedside table. “Not for long. I didn’t want to wake you.”
I kiss him in answer to that, even though it’s only immediately afterward I realize I must have morning breath. But then again, I suppose he does too, and I didn’t notice it anyway, so I push that to the back of my mind. Just another one of those things that don’t seem to matter in the here and now. It’s like something in me instinctively knows Nico is nowhere near shallow enough to be put off by a natural phenomenon that happens to everyone.
“What are you doing today?” I ask.
“You know,” he says, reaching out to tap the end of my nose playfully. “I’m doing you.”
I laugh at that, sitting up and waiting for him to do the same. “This house is so beautiful,” I say, wonderingly, looking around. “It’s so… big.”
“I know,” he says, with no inflection at all that tells me anything.
“Big enough for a family,” I hint again.
He smiles then. “One day, I hope there will be a family here.”
“There hasn’t been before?”
He laughs. “You and your direct honesty. Well, no. Just me on my own.”
“Why?”
Now he winces. “Lili, baby, angel. Why does that sound like an accusation?”
“I just…” I sigh. “Look at you. And look at this place. And you’re telling me you’ve been single? For how long?”
“For a very long time.” Nico’s face and voice are so serious that I don’t doubt it must be true. “Lili, I’ve been waiting for the right person. I almost gave up waiting, to be honest. But it seems good things come to those who wait.”
He reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear, and my heart almost stops.
He’s been waiting for me. That’s what he means.
“You want me to share all of this with you?” I blurt out.
“Everything,” he says, smiling lazily, as he draws me towards him for a kiss. “Call me crazy, but – I’m already sure.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nico
Time goes so fast when you want it to go slow.
I show Liliana everything I can of Monaco in the couple of days we have left. I can’t help but think that we wasted so much time in the beginning. Of course, we didn’t have any choice. Her father was here, and it's not like we could have carried this on right under his nose. He wouldn't have let Liliana go anywhere on her own, let alone allowed me to take her around like this.
Still, that time would have made a difference. When you only have one week together, it's not just every day that counts. It’s every minute.
That’s not to say that we didn’t make the most of our few days. We christened every room in my house, some of them several times over. The boat, too, saw its fair share of action. And when we weren't rolling around together, I made sure to show her the best time I could. I took her to bars and restaurants where I would get the VIP treatment. I took her shopping, for anything she could desire. I spoiled her, just like I said I would.
So, why doesn't it feel like enough?
The bad news is that Liliana is supposed to be flying home soon. I suppose we could make up some kind of ruse. Pretend that her flight got canceled or delayed, or that she lost her passport and couldn't make it. But all of that goes the window, because of the call that she got this morning.
The call from her Dad, telling her that he’s coming back to Monaco in order to spend the last day of his vacation with her. The way he put it, he paid for everything, so he might as well still enjoy it. The original booking for his flight was still in place, as it would have taken more money to cancel it than to fly back here and catch it. The hotel still had them booked until the end of their stay. So, why not come back?
I have to admit it makes sense. That doesn't mean I have to like it.
“What are we going to tell him?” Liliana asks, for what must be the fifteenth time.
I take her hands and kiss them one by one, feeling how she shakes against me. “I told you, Lili. We just tell him the truth. That’s all.”
“There’s no way he’s going to accept it,” she says. She’s been fretting ever since she got the call. We both knew that tomorrow was going to be her last day here, no matter what. Or, at least, we hadn’t discussed any way to make it not her last day. But I think that call really brought it home for her. The fact that tomorrow, her father will take her away from me.
Or, so he thinks. But there’s no way I’m going to let him. She’s mine now. No one, and nothing, can change that. And she belongs at my side.
“Just breathe,” I tell her, seeing the panic in her face. She breathes deeply, but it quickly comes out shaking, and she bites her lip as she squeezes her eyes shut. I pull her against me until her face hits my chest and then hold her tightly there until she’s at least not shaking quite so badly.
“Tell me we’re going to figure this out,” she says.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I promise her. In fact, I already have an idea.
When I look around my house now, I can’t imagine it without Liliana in it.
She's brought so much life to this place. She’s made my house a home. How can I go back to living without her?
I'm not letting her go. It's as simple as that. A man of my means has options. And I haven't got to where I am in business without having a few tricks up my sleeve.
I’m in the process of helping Liliana pack. Over the course of the week, she has more or less moved in. Everything that was hers at the hotel gradually came over here, as she needed it. And all of her new belongings are here, too. I let her go to continue gathering things from the bedroom, but when she doesn’t come back down for a while, I end up going after her.
“Lili?” I ask, finding her standing and staring at the rack of dresses and skirts and blouses that I bought for her over the last couple of days. There were so many excuses. A new dress so that she wouldn’t feel out of place at this upscale restaurant. A new blouse and skirt because we spent the morning on the boat and she had no clean clothes left at the house. It seemed easier to get new ones than to go all the way back across the border to the hotel.
“I can’t take them,” she says, and there’s a catch in her voice that makes my heart ache.
“What can’t you take?”
“The clothes,” she says, turning to face me. “How can I? I can’t just hang them up in my closet. Dad will notice. He’ll ask how I got them. And even if he doesn’t – my friends – people at home – they’ll wonder why I suddenly have these fancy clothes. They won’t even get any use over there. There’s no point in taking them.”
“They’re yours,” I tell her sadly. “You should have them.”
“Bu
t, I can’t,” Lili says, desperation in her voice and her face.
I take her by the shoulders, making sure that she’s paying attention to me. “Lili, there is another option, you know.”
“What?”
“You stay. And the clothes, too.”
She swallows. “I don’t think my Dad will let me.”
“And how old are you?” I ask gently.
She shakes her head. “That’s not the point. He’s still my father. I can’t do this if he’s against it. I… I love my family. And my Mom, she won’t even get the chance to meet you.”
“We can fly her over,” I say, bending to kiss her forehead. “And your aunts and your uncles and your grandparents and your friends. Anyone you need. I’ll charter a jet.”
“Be serious,” she says, staring up at me as I trail kisses across her cheek. “He’s never going to agree to it.”
“Well,” I say, pausing to nip at her neck. “Is your father not a fan of you being happy?”
“What? Of course, he wants me to be happy.”
“And you are happy here?”
She pauses. “Yes, very happy. But…”
“So, we make him see that,” I tell her, feeling her shudder as I kiss the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. “We show him how happy you are here. And then he can’t object to allowing you to be happy.”
“It’s not that simple,” she says, a little whine creeping into her voice. It’s followed by a moan as I kiss her collarbone, bending down the fabric at the very neck of her dress to do so.
“It’s this simple,” I tell her. “I love you, Liliana.”
There’s a long pause, and I look up to see that her eyes are shining. Not with awkwardness or embarrassment but with intermingled happiness and sadness, like she’s overjoyed and grieving at the same time.
“I love you, too,” she says. “I can’t imagine going back. Starting again. Being without you.”
“So, don’t,” I say. My fingers peel down the front of her dress a little more as I bend my head to lightly kiss and nibble her sensitive skin. “And if it has to come to it, then I’ll return home with you to Philly. Until you can come back, I’ll stay with you.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course.” I free her breasts from her dress, earning a moan of surprise and also of pleasure. “I will always be by your side.”
“Nico,” she says, half-heartedly pushing at my shoulders as if to make me stop. But when I pause, fingers just moments away from encircling her nipples, she can only groan and then push her chest out and into my waiting hands.
I have her dress down around her waist and her panties on the ground when her phone rings, making her fly away from me and grab it.
“It’s him,” she whispers, with a horrified look, tugging her dress up over her chest as if he would be able to see her when she answers.
I give her a teasing look and run my finger lightly over the mound of hair between her legs, intending to make her squirm – but at the look on her face, my blood runs cold instead.
“Oh, you got an earlier flight,” she says out loud, into the phone. “That’s great. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Liliana
The sheer panic that I felt when my father told me he’s already here is everything I need to know. I can’t do this. I feel like I was just given everything I could ever have wanted, and now it’s being taken away.
He came at the worst possible time. Not only have I not finished packing yet, but I’m not even at the hotel. Because we chose to stay over the border to save money, it's a fairly long drive to get back there. The distance itself is short, but we do have to go through customs checks, show our passports, and all of that. And if there is a line, like there is today, it can take some time to get through.
I'm drumming my hand on the side of the car door, nervously wishing that we could speed up. But it's no use. Dad said he would only be twenty minutes - and it's been twenty minutes already. He's going to be back at the hotel any moment now, and then he will realize that I'm not there.
And when I do show up, with all my stuff in the trunk and Nico at my side, it's going to be fairly obvious that I haven't been staying where I said I was.
Of course, I knew that we would have to tell him everything if there was ever going to be a chance for this relationship to continue. But I thought we might be able to do it in our own way, in our own time. Instead, right now we're going to begin the conversation by revealing that I've been lying to him. That doesn't feel like the best way of going about things. My nerves are at a fever pitch, and I don't think I can take waiting any longer.
“We’re nearly there,” Nico says. I think he senses my anxiety. He reaches over and squeezes my hand, even while he keeps his eyes on the road.
I start as I feel a buzzing in my other hand – from my phone. It’s dad. He’s calling me. I feel my stomach rolling, and I don’t want to answer. But what else can I do? Feeling absolutely sick, I press answer and put the phone to my ear.
“Where are you? I’ve just arrived at the hotel, and you’re not here.”
“I’m on my way,” I tell him. “I was – I was in Monaco, so I’m just driving back.”
“Where are all of your things?”
I wince, closing my eyes. “I’ll explain when we get there, Dad, alright?”
“What’s going on, Liliana?”
I can’t do it. I just can’t. I end the call, covering my mouth with my hand to keep from throwing up. I don’t know what to do, what to say.
“Just hold on a bit longer,” Nico says, his voice layered with concern. Up ahead, I see the hotel looming. “I’m with you. It’s going to be alright.”
I nod silently, even though I’m not sure about the truth of his words. How can it be alright?
It’s over, isn’t it? This is the last time I will see him. We had a good time, but now reality is calling.
We pull up outside the hotel and get out of the car, hurrying up to our floor with my bags. When I get there and open the door, I see Dad pacing in front of the window in my room, turning to look at us with a frown.
“What was that all about?” he demands, then looks past me. “Nico? You drove her back here?”
“Yes,” he says from behind me, carrying my bags inside and closing the door behind him. It’s not as though he can hide the fact that he has all of my belongings with him. There’s going to be a reckoning. “Lili has been staying at my place since it’s easier than coming over the border every day. I have the space.”
“Then why have I still been paying for a hotel room?” Dad asks, and I can see that this is only his first objection. There are going to be more. He’s angry, and he doesn’t understand what’s going on.
“Dad…” I start but find myself at a loss for words.
Thankfully, Nico steps forward, past me, into the small space of the room. He puts his hand on my arm, letting me know that it’s alright – that he’s going to take care of it. “The thing is, Frank, we’d like you to consider something. You’re still staying for tonight and then tomorrow, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” Dad says, grunting and frowning at Nico. “I already let my room go, but I figured I could sleep on the floor in here tonight and then spend the day in Monaco tomorrow.”
“Then I’d like you to spend that time also considering what I have to say,” Nico says. “Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t know what it is you’re asking,” Dad says, his eyes narrowed. He keeps looking between the two of us. He knows that something isn’t right.
“That will all become clear momentarily,” Nico says. “I just want an assurance from you that you will handle this like an adult. That you’ll think and consider before giving me an answer. Do I have that?”
Dad looks at me, looks at him, looks all around the room. I can see that he’s trying to find the loophole, the way out. Because no one should logically disagree with the idea of behaving l
ike an adult – but then again, he knows right away that he’s not going to like this.
“Fine,” he says. “I agree.”
“Good.” Nico takes a breath. “Because, Frank, your daughter is the one for me. I love her, and I want her to stay here for good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nico
I knew it wasn’t going to down well, but I’m not fully prepared for this.
“I’m going to call the police,” Frank snaps, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and stabbing at the screen.
“What?” Liliana gasps. “Dad, why?”
“Because he’s been grooming you!” Frank retorts, staring at his screen in confusion. “Why isn’t this…?”
“Did you try calling 911?” I ask, trying to remain calm. “That’s not the emergency number here.”
“Seriously, Dad? He hasn’t done anything illegal,” Liliana protests.
“He’s been seducing you…. Some kind of pervert, pedophile…”
“I’m not a child,” Liliana says, then bursts out a half-laugh. “I know you think of me as one, but really? I’m twenty years old. That’s over the age of consent… well, everywhere.”
Frank stares at her and then at me with anger and desperation, and I can see his brain working. She’s right, of course. He just doesn’t want her to be. He throws his phone onto the bed and then marches towards me, his hands waving in the air.
“Fine. If the law can’t help me, then I’ll just have to remove you from here myself!”
“DAD!”
I stay stubbornly still as Frank batters into me, trying to push me towards the door. I’ve kept myself in good shape, worked hard at the gym, trained in the boxing ring for fitness. It doesn’t look, or feel, as though Frank has done the same. Given that I also have a height and breadth advantage over him, I have no worries that he’ll actually be able to push me around.
Meet Me In Monaco: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 8
