by Belle Aurora
“What…?” He couldn’t even finish what he was saying. The question was left open-ended, and when he faced me, I could see the confusion lining his slack features.
“I told you.” I paused, my brows rising as I let out a matter-of-fact, “I go here.”
His stunned silence didn’t last long. “Since when?”
“Since a week before the semester began,” I returned.
The look on his face was priceless. Lord, he was so cute when he was puzzled.
I decided to put him out of his misery. “Look. You still want to run your own business?”
“Yes” was his immediate response, and he meant it. That kind of conviction could not be faked.
Okay. “Then it makes sense that we prepare, right?”
“Right.” He drew the word out, but it was clear he still wasn’t getting it.
I twisted to face him head-on, to silently ask for his full attention. He gave it easily.
“If you’re in, I’m in.” I shrugged. “We’re both going to need to know this stuff. I thought it was probably best that we start on the same level. I don’t want you to waste time having to teach me things I should already know. When the time comes and you need my help—because you will—then I’ll be right there, ready to go. A soldier at your command.”
Vik’s expression went from confused to thoughtful, and when that thick brow of his softened, he said, “You really think I can do this?”
No hesitation. “Yes,” I told him. “I have faith in you.”
“You do, don’t you?” He asked it gently, but there was an intensity to it, a raw emotion behind those icy-blue eyes.
My fingers came up to cup his cheek, and the stubble on his jaw tickled my palm when he nuzzled into it. My response was just as soft. “Forever and always.”
The way he peered at me then, with wonder and awe, admiration and respect… nothing could compare.
Nothing would ever compare.
“Besides,” I tried to lighten the mood, “do you remember what Mrs. Renshaw said about your senior English paper on Native American legacy?”
He closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them again, he mock-glared at me, cleared his throat, and uttered a reluctant, “She called it vaguely offensive.”
She sure did.
I grinned. “No harm helping each other out, right?”
His brow softened. “No.” He looked grateful, and the gentle tone in which he spoke said so much more than he offered. “No harm at all.”
The love radiated off of him in waves, and when they crashed over me, a lifetime of adoration and friendship soaked me to the bone, leaving me warm and fuzzy.
I settled next to him, leaned forward, and hit the button to start the lecture again from the beginning. And as the professor commenced his talking, I found it hard to focus when the man beside me kept his attention on my face.
Mildly annoyed, I turned to him and said, “Listen here, buddy. This is important. We need to do this.” And just because I could, I rolled my eyes and repeated what he said to me only minutes before. “We can play schoolyard sexy-time when we’re off the clock.” A slow smile stretched his lips, and my stomach flip-flopped at how beautiful it was. I couldn’t deal. Taking my hands, I put them to either side of his face and forcefully turned his head, making him watch the screen. “Focus.”
He did, but he did it grinning. And when his arm came around my shoulders, I settled in beside him, resting my head on his.
Soft words from a hardened man.
“I love you.”
It socked me in the gut each time I heard it out loud.
My eyes burned. The bridge of my nose tingled. And when I put my hand to his chest, right over his heart, and nestled into his side, he turned his head and pressed his lips to my temple in an open display of reverence.
Contentment pulsed through me outwardly, like a beating heart.
It was a strange feeling to live in the knowledge that I had the kind of love I always craved. The easy, comfortable kind where kisses were frequent and there was no shame in adoring the other half of yourself. The kind where laughter was plentiful and arguments ended in intense lovemaking. Where we craved each other on a level that bordered manic.
We weren’t perfect, and that was okay.
Perfect, I found, was synonymous with boring.
My family was small and fractured, but broken things could always be fixed.
Yes, the fissures would always be visible, but when the right person loved you enough to shift your focus, you quickly realized that those cracks formed patterns and arrangements that were really quite pretty if you looked hard enough.
Life was good.
No. It was great.
I didn’t think it could get better than this but would gladly be proved wrong, again and again and again, over the course of our hectic lives.
39
Nastasia
Vik was pacing. It should have annoyed me. It normally did annoy me. Today, however, I gave him a pass.
From the way he was muttering to himself, snapping his eyes closed, then opening them only to lose focus, anyone could see he was stressed out.
All the time and preparation. Months of planning. Days filled with anxiety, normally ending with sleepless nights. Thousands of ideas. Hundreds of hours of research.
The pressure was on. It all came down to this.
Maybe we were a little hasty. I blamed myself for that, and if I were completely honest, it made me sick when the gravity hit on what we had done.
Had Vik hesitated?
Yeah.
Did I then rant for a solid hour about him not believing in himself and his brand?
I sure did.
Had I pumped him up enough to buy a building that needed quite a lot of work, instantly regretting all the hype I shot at him?
Uh huh.
One hundred percent.
To lay it down, we put almost everything we had into a spectacular property. It was simply too good to pass up. And because of that, we kind of, sort of, did not have money for just about anything else. Which was why I was watching from the top of the stairs with a gentle hand on my basketball-sized belly as Vik paced in our foyer.
When the front door suddenly opened and Mina rushed inside holding a large square of cardboard in her hands, Vik rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, wifey. You really cut it down to the wire.”
Mina, knowing exactly why Vik was being more abrupt than usual, offered him a kind smile and said, “Look at you, wearing a suit and looking all professional and stuff. You look handsome.” She dragged in what she was holding and let out a strained, “And for your information, you can’t rush perfection.”
Vik was not impressed. “Perfection, huh?”
I began to walk down the stairs just as Mina shot him a look that said he was being ungrateful. Her hand came to her hip, and she jerked her chin toward the mock-up. With unbridled confidence, she uttered a cool, “See for yourself.”
When Vik simply stared at it and did not move, Mina clicked her tongue and waltzed over to the huge square, now leaning against the wall. Without preamble, she removed the protective sheet of cardstock and stepped away, revealing the poster for what would be our business.
From behind the two of them, my light gasp had Mina turning back to face me, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the piece of art she created.
Mina was right.
“It’s perfect,” I said in complete awe of this woman who had come so far. I moved in closer to Vik. “Utterly flawless.”
But Mina said nothing. It wasn’t my praise she was after.
Vik stared at the poster. He stared at it a long while. And from beside me, I could almost feel Mina holding her breath.
When Vik finally spoke, it came out strained. “It’s uh…” He cleared his throat, then began to nod solemnly. “It’s perfect.”
Mina’s face transformed with her sunny smile. The exhale she released was long and noticeable. “Good.” Relief line
d her features as she muttered weakly, “Good.” As if snapping out of her stupor, she shook her head and stated, “I have to go.” She was already walking toward the door before she turned back, stalled a moment, then said to Vik, “Stop stressing out. You’ve got this.” When he didn’t respond, her brow bunched, and her firm, “Okay?” sounded near threatening.
Vik made a face and shrugged, bored-like. “Okay.”
“Good.” Her smile returned with enthusiasm. “Get that money.”
The exact moment she closed the door behind her, Vik shook his head. “We’re not ready for this.” He reached into his pocket for his cellphone. “I’m gonna cancel.”
And my stomach twisted.
My sigh was purely internal, and as I approached my fiancé, who sometimes doubled as a big, fat baby, I placed my hand over his, stopping him from making the call. His eyes snapped to me, and his brow bunched in irritation, but I knew better.
Vik wasn’t angry at me.
He was angry at himself for being insecure. He hated that he was nervous. Those nerves made him cynical.
My fingers closed over his. My tone was butter-soft. “I have never met a man who put so much of himself into his work. I’ve been around business my whole life. First with my dad, then again with my brothers, and it was all very clinical. If it took off, it took off. If it bombed, the idea was abandoned. Start over, rinse, and repeat.” My gaze softened on him. “You, however, put your heart and soul into this project. Every detail has your personal touch. You cut a vein and bled your ideas onto paper.” My chest ached to see the doubt in his eyes. “That’s how I know you’re going to succeed. You haven’t given yourself the option to fail.”
Vik closed his eyes, squeezed them tight, then lifted his hands to rub the heels of his palms into his sockets, revealing just how much this was affecting him.
“You’ve worked so hard. You’re so close.” I stepped into him, and he focused on me as I placed my hand comfortingly at the side of his neck, looking into his blue eyes, beseeching, “Don’t give up now.”
“What if…?”
“No” was my instant reply.
“But….”
Jesus. This guy.
“No,” I reiterated bluntly. “You’re not going down that road, and neither am I. You aren’t the quitting kind, Vik. If today doesn’t work out, we’ll try again. If that time doesn’t work out, we’ll try once more. You know why? Because eventually, someone is bound to see what I see in you, and once they do, they’ll know you’re a success wrapped in a bad attitude.”
He snuffled out a soft laugh at my poor attempt to lighten the mood, and, like a miracle, I watched a small spark of determination alight in his eyes. My responding smile was soft. The longer I looked at him—really looked at him—the harder my chest squeezed.
God.
I loved this man.
I loved him so damn much.
He never hid his emotions from me, no matter how trifling they were. His pleasure was so readily shared. His doubt, his sadness, his pain, however, I wore as my own, a personal affront to the person I was.
And as he took in a deep breath, shifting his focus to my swollen belly, I watched his expression turn tender and warm. He’d done that a lot lately. What normally followed was Vik taking my hand and dragging me to the bedroom, undressing me, then laying me down and placing his body flush against my own as he spoke softly to the child growing inside me.
He talked about anything. Everything.
His day. Why he preferred two percent over whole milk. The state of the economy. How important it was to focus on your health, both physical and mental.
The longer he spoke, the more I became aware of what he was doing.
It was a “dear diary” of sorts. Letters to his former self. Things he wished he knew as a kid. Things he learned on his way to manhood.
I listened in soundlessly, feeling a little like an interloper, but the way he pressed into me spoke of the safety and refuge he felt by my side. Of all the doubts I had, there was no denying that when we embraced, our bodies entwined, we were home.
That was the takeaway.
Sometimes, home wasn’t a place. Sometimes, it was person.
And I found home within Vik’s loving arms.
To anyone else, Vik’s little talks to my belly might have seemed like incessant rambling. To me though, it was insight. And right now, he had that look. The same one he wore every time he needed a moment with his child.
It was funny how a simple glance could make you feel so loved, so cherished, that you thought you might burst from it.
Any other day, he could drag me back upstairs. Any other day. But not today.
The need for him to stay goal oriented was imperative. With gentle fingers to his neatly trimmed beard, I scratched lightly, bringing him back down to earth as I reminded him, “But none of this can work without capital. We need money, and you’re going to secure it. Right?”
Zero hesitation. “Right.”
And as I watched him watch me, a somber moment passed as I realized he would never truly understand what he meant to me.
Pride filled me. It washed over me, leaving me heady. I was in awe of the man he’d become. All I wanted to do was lose myself in him. So, I did. I stood on my tiptoes, slipped my arms around his neck, and touched my lips to his. When his muscular arms circled my body, those big hands splayed across my lower back, he returned my gentle kiss greedily, and even after all this time, I fell a little more.
That was important.
Most people thought once you fell in love, that was it. The highest of the high. And for some, it was, but it didn’t have to be.
The goal was to fall in love with someone who kept you falling.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had that. And I was grateful.
He had no idea. Or maybe he did.
I was so proud to call this indomitable man my own.
Right then, as we lost ourselves in each other’s lips, the doorbell rang. But Vik didn’t pull away from me, not immediately. He slowed the kiss until the action had ceased, and he simply ran his lips over my own. We gently parted, and when we both moved to back away, he wasn’t ready to lose the connection, moving to rest his forehead against mine in a highly intimate move that made my stomach shimmy.
When the doorbell rang the second time, it was time. I cupped his stubbled cheeks and smacked an eager kiss to his lips before retreating with a small smile. As I walked toward the door, Vik peered down at my swaying ass and bit the inside of his cheek before reaching down to cup himself through his slacks while shaking his head slowly, his hooded eyes holding a promise of more to come later.
And my core clenched, sure to hold him to that promise.
Lord. The way he looked at me… he did wonders for my self-esteem.
I gave him a second before I opened the door, and when Sasha stepped inside, looking flawless in a light-gray suit and pastel blue shirt, I smiled, moving forward to press a kiss to his cheek.
He glanced down at me, frowning. “You look… good.”
These men. I swear.
“And that makes you—” My brows rose at his sour expression, holding back laughter. “—mad?”
My brother’s face softened marginally. “Of course not.” He glanced down at my belly. “How’s he treating you?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know it’s a girl. I told you it’s a girl. She’s a girl, Sash. You’re getting another niece. Deal with it.”
He forced back a smile, knowing he was goading me. “We’ll see.”
As he began to move into the living room, which had been set up for this meeting, I called out to him. He stalled and turned back to face me. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Expression subdued, I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Go easy on him. Please.”
My brother gave nothing away, just turned and entered the living room, sliding the doors closed behind him. And my chest ached viciously.
I wanted to be in there. I wanted
to hear what was going on. But I also knew Vik needed to do this alone.
So, I did what any self-respecting woman would do.
I eavesdropped.
I put my ear to the door. And immediately wished I hadn’t when Sasha let out a heated, “Let me get this straight. You bought the building next to my club. You want to set up a rival bar next to my place of business, my bread and butter. And you want me to invest in it?” A pause. “Tell me why I shouldn’t pop you one right now, Vik. ’Cause I gotta tell ya, I’m tempted.”
Vik’s responding, “Well, of course, it sounds bad when you put it like that,” was all I could take.
Okay, so this started well.
Yeah. Nope. I can’t.
It physically hurt, but I turned and forced myself to walk away.
For fifty minutes, I sat in the kitchen by myself as my future husband worked on convincing my brother that this was not an investment opportunity he wanted to pass on.
For fifty minutes, I remained strong.
But by minute fifty-one, my body felt hot as anxiety took hold. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to see how it was going.
So, I did what any self-respecting woman would do. I snuck into the dining room and took the long way around so I could hide in the shadows of the curtains and eavesdrop. And when I got there, I moved the drapes just enough so I could see Vik, and the moment I saw him, my stomach plummeted.
He looked mildly irritated. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I’m not even done yet. You don’t even have the stats.”
“I don’t need them” was Sasha’s cool reply. “I’ve heard enough. You’re done.”
My lips parted in shock.
Was Sasha really so callous that he wouldn’t even hear Vik out?
My chest panged. I expected better.
How disappointing.
But confusion washed over me the moment Vik said, “You don’t have to do this, Sash. Our past has nothing to do with this. This is business. I don’t want your charity.”
Wait. Did that mean what I thought it meant?
I glared at the man who knew how much we needed this money.
