We have the same priorities, John and me. I appreciate it more than I expected to. “Okay,” I say, not even sure what I’ve just agreed to. But just that one word lights up his face so much that I know I can’t take it back, even if I find out he’s dragging me to some kind of horrible and boring event.
Although it’s hard to imagine any event being horrible or boring if I’m on John’s arm… Or able to sneak away with John for some private time together. Even the dullest classical concert would be incredible if I could distract myself by sliding into his lap in the darkened concert hall, or feel his hands run up my thighs and slip under my skirt…
As if he’s reading my mind, John catches my me again and pins me against the door, his lips finding mine a second time. I part my lips beneath his, let his tongue slip in, exploring my mouth, claiming me. At the same time, his hands roam further down, gripping my waist, pulling me against him so tightly that I can feel him starting to harden against me, his cock pressed right against my belly, so thick I can feel him even through the fabric of both our pants.
“We can’t,” I whisper when we break apart. “Not here.”
“I know.” His eyes flash, and there’s more in them than just desire and excitement. Something I can’t put my finger on…. “After this weekend,” he murmurs, “everything will change.”
My stomach flips again, though I don’t even know what he means. Are we going to annul this after all? Are we going back to Vegas to fix our mistakes? Or is it something else?
“John…” I don’t know what I want to ask. Where are we really going this weekend? That seems like a question he’ll refuse to answer. Or maybe just What’s on your mind?
Before I can put words to it, though, he silences me again with another kiss, hard and fast, before he almost pushes me away from him, my body tilting back into the door with the force of it.
“Go,” he says. “Get back to work. We need to work overtime if we want to take the whole weekend off.”
I frown, confused by the sudden shift. But I listen to him anyway, backing away slowly, waiting until he’s back at his desk, arms crossed on top of it, before I risk opening the office door again, running a hand through my hair at the same time and hoping it’s not mussed from our kiss, from his hands running through my hair and cupping my body against him.
All I want to do is slam the office door shut and lock it behind me. Slide under his desk of his and go down on him, tracing my tongue along the length of his hard cock over and over, sucking him into my mouth until he gives in and tells me what’s going on. Until he tells me where he’s taking me this weekend and why the idea of it has him so keyed up—acting so hot one second and cold the next.
But I can’t do that. Not here. Not while everyone else we work with is still in the office, and while I have Lea’s warning fresh in my mind—plus that memory of John’s ex with all her things flung everywhere, leaving in a car… I need to be clearing my head of him, not clouding it further.
So I open the office door and slip out without another word, closing it tightly behind me.
I don’t make it more than a few steps from the entrance before I spot Bianca across the office floor. Her eyes catch mine—was she staring? Watching the office, listening to us in there? My stomach clenches all over again, for a different reason this time.
But then she flashes a sweet smile and turns back to her own desk, and I shake my head. I’m just being paranoid. Imagining things. That’s all this is.
The only people in this office thinking constantly about John and me are the two of us. So I smile back and retreat to the workroom, shoulders squared, head up. Whatever’s going on between us, maybe this weekend will bring more clarity.
And if not? Well, then I’ll still have enough time to make the annulment deadline afterward. I try to ignore the heavy knot in my gut at the thought of that. It’s for the best, I tell myself. Lea is right.
I need to be practical about this.
9
John
Today is the day. I stare at myself in the rearview mirror of my car, waiting. I haven’t hit send on the text to let Mara know that I’m parked outside. I needed a minute to myself. A minute to wrap my head around what I’m about to do.
If I do this… if I take her with me today… Everything will change. And who knows how she’ll feel by the end of this, or what she’ll decide to do.
But it has to happen. I need to do this.
So why do I still feel so guilty about it?
Because this is the wrong way to do this, whispers a little voice at the back of my mind. A voice I ignore, as I hit send on the text I’ve already written. I’m outside, Mara. I didn’t tell her anything about this weekend—I didn’t want to scare her off, or worse, make her feel sorry for me. But I did let her know to pack for warm weather, and the moment she steps out of the lobby of her apartment building, I see that she’s done just that.
It takes all of my self-control to stay seated in the car and not jump out to grab her right away. Because she looks incredible. Every step she takes makes the blue flowing skater-dress she’s wearing flow around her calves, each swish flashing just a hint of thigh that only makes me want more.
It’s more dressed up than I’ve ever seen my jeans-and-T-shirts girl, and it makes me want to tear that dress right off of her. She climbs into the passenger seat with a smile and a wave, and before she can get a word out, I catch her around the waist and drag her toward me, kissing her cheek, her jawline, her neck.
“You look incredible,” I murmur against her skin, feathering her with kisses, dipping lower, toward the neckline of the dress, low enough to reveal just a hint of cleavage—enough to let me know I want more.
She laughs and twines her arms around me, her fingers tracing through my hair. “If I’d known this would be your reaction, I’d wear dresses more often.”
“You should,” I tell her, my hands sliding down her hips, marveling at the smoothness of her curves beneath the stretch of cottony fabric. My hands reach the hemline of the dress, touch bare skin, and start to inch higher, along her thighs.
She squirms a little and glances at the windows of the car. It’s broad daylight outside, after all, and we’re parked right in front of her house. But I don’t care.
“Maybe we should cancel,” I tell her, before I lean in to drag my teeth along the edge of her jawline, nipping her skin just roughly enough to make her gasp and arch up against me. “Go back into your apartment and forget the weekend. We’ll stay here, eat in…” I lean back to catch her eye with a feral grin. “I’ve already got plenty to devour right here.” My hands skate across her thighs, along the flat of her stomach.
She shivers beneath me, and it’s the most delicious feeling, knowing how much I affect her. How easily I can turn her on. A breathy little moan escapes her lips as my hand dips lower, grazing along the edge of her panties—I can feel the fabric of them through the dress, and I press a little harder, until her hips arch up against my hand.
But then she stops. Pulls away from me, with what looks like Herculean effort. “We can’t bail,” she says, though the hitch in her breath and the flush in her cheeks tell me she wants to be saying anything but this. “You said it’s important,” she adds. “Whatever it is.”
My stomach clenches, and my throat seals itself up. I clear it with a growl and turn back toward the road, reaching up to grip the wheel with both hands—the only way I can think of to make them stop touching her. “Bailing might be the wiser move,” I murmur under my breath.
After all, if we bail now, she’ll never need to know. She’ll never have to look at me differently—or worse, decide that this is all too much for her. I wouldn’t blame her, of course, after this. Who knows how it’s going to go? But there’s a tiny, crazy part of me that hopes she’ll stay. Even after she realizes what she’s in for.
“John?” Her hand comes to rest on my wrist, soft and delicate.
I turn my hand around to thread my fingers through hers a
nd bring it up to my lips, kissing each finger, one by one. “Let’s go,” I say, dropping her hand, and she pulls it back to her lap, wrapping her fist around the hem of her skirt, her eyes on me, curious.
But I shake it off and put the car in drive, ignoring her stares as best I can. At least she knows better than to try to pry more details from me. I appreciate it. At this stage, I’m not sure I could stand talking about this. Showing her is better. Like leaping into the deep end of a pool. There’s no time to get cold feet or decide the water’s too unfriendly after all and climb back out. This way, once we get started, there’ll be no going back.
I floor the accelerator, and Mara changes the topic. She talks about work, about the latest project we’ve been putting together. I relax a little, settling into the more familiar, easier topic. We bat around set ideas for a particularly important scene of the play we’re staging. Mara, as usual, has brilliant ones. And better yet, whenever I pitch ideas, she questions them. Pushes me to make them clearer, smarter, better.
It’s just one of the many things I adore about her. She makes me a better version of myself.
So why am I dragging her into this mess? I shake off the doubt as we reach the exit. It’s near Palm Springs, though not quite all the way into the desert yet. I take the familiar exit, wind through the all too memory-filled town, taking smaller streets with every turn until I finally turn up one long, winding driveway, through a manicured lawn that speaks to the fact that, despite recent droughts, whoever lives here has the money to keep up appearances.
Mara’s gaze on my face sharpens. But when I glance over at her, I can practically see her biting her tongue, resisting the urge to question this.
We reach the end of the drive, and the house towers ahead of us. House is the wrong word, really. Mansion would be more appropriate.
I should know. I bought it for them.
My parents are already waiting out front, arms hooked around one another. The end of the drive is filled with cars. Extended family, friends of the family, distant relatives. My parents love doing this—hosting events, throwing parties. Showing off the property their son earned them.
It was their idea to make this a surprise. When they learned about Mara—when they learned that I finally, finally settled down, as they’ve been trying to force me to do for years—they insisted. But now, watching her reaction shift from surprise to confusion to worry, I wonder yet again if this was the right move. If I shouldn’t have told her everything, right from the beginning.
“What is this, John?” Mara murmurs as I park right in front of the drive, in the spot of honor. My dad waves, and my mom beams like she’s just won some kind of award.
In her mind, she probably has.
“My parents wanted to meet my new wife,” I tell her, shutting off the engine. “They insisted on throwing a party. It’s not huge; just some friends and family—”
“You didn’t warn me I’d be meeting your parents,” she hisses under her breath. But there’s no time for her to build up steam. The door is already sliding open, and my parents are calling their hellos.
“You must be Mara.” My mom reaches her first, before Mara even has time to fully exit the car. She wraps her in a tight bear hug, and then Dad joins in, shaking her hand like she’s a business partner, not my wife.
Well. I suppose both terms are accurate, technically.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Mom is gushing, although that’s not strictly accurate. They didn’t even know Mara existed until I finally admitted it to them a few days ago. Less than a week.
Mara shoots me a confused look over Mom’s shoulder, but she hugs her back, and deals with my dad’s hand-pumping decently well.
“Mom.” I step over to kiss her cheek. “Give her some breathing room; you’re going to suffocate her.”
“Of course, of course.” Mom backs away, although there’s still a hungry glean in her eye as she assesses Mara. “Come in, darling, have some lunch. You must be famished. Eating for two and all.” Mom winks, and I groan under my breath.
Already?
Mara’s face flushes, and she frowns, confused. “Er… no, just eating for the one, actually,” she says, and it’s embarrassingly obvious how quickly my mother’s expression deflates with disappointment.
Still, at least she doesn’t press the issue, hooking an arm through Mara’s and leading her toward the house. I fall into step beside my father and trail after them.
“Your mother’s beside herself,” he says.
“With happiness or annoyance?” I respond archly.
Dad chuckles. “You know her. Why not both at once?” He shoots me a sideways look. “She’s pleased you’re finally settling down, of course. But she wanted a big wedding, a splashy engagement party…” Dad gestures at the house. “Hence all of this hoopla, naturally.”
“I thought you told me you could tamper her. That this would just be a small get-together.” I side-eye the driveway, unable to stop counting. At least a dozen cars, maybe more.
“This is small,” Dad insists. “You should have seen the original guest list she wanted.”
I roll my eyes with a groan, but it’s quickly drowned by the roar of our relatives as we enter the house. My cousins swarm, followed by aunts, uncles, friends of my parents. Mara has time to catch my eye just once, panic written all over her face, before she’s swallowed in hugs and congratulations.
I watch them watching her. Some of their congratulations are heartfelt, sincere. Others are grasping, reaching. Most of my relatives are decent people, really. But they look at my bank account; they see my name in the newspapers, and they can’t help themselves. After all, decent people or not, everyone’s attitudes shift when they get close to money. Especially the kind of money I have.
The kind of money that let me buy a house like this for my parents. The kind of money that restored this family name to the prominence it once had, way back when.
I care about my family, of course. But you can’t choose your family. And mine, well… they can be more of a handful than most.
I weave through a sea of aunts to reach Mara, and loop an arm around her waist, feeling how tense every muscle in her body is. She tilts her head back to rest against my shoulder, in a move that raises a sea of awws from the surrounding family members. But when she leans in to whisper in my ear, it’s not the sort of sweet-nothing I’m sure they imagine she’s saying.
“What the hell did you just throw me into?” she whispers.
I lean down to kiss her jawline, right where it reaches the lobe of her ear. My tongue darts across her diamond earring, toying with it, making a little sigh escape her lips before I respond. “My parents wanted it to be a surprise,” I murmur, my breath ghosting across her cheek, drawing a little shiver from her. “My mother insisted that I owed her. I believe the words were ‘you robbed me of a wedding.’”
Mara tilts her head back far enough to catch my eye, steel glinting in hers. “Still. You should have at least warned me. There are so many people here—”
“They don’t matter.” I turn her to face me, cupping her face between my palms. “Nobody matters but you and me, Mara.”
Her breath catches in her throat. Her pupils dilate where they fix on mine. “John…”
“John.” My mother’s voice breaks through our conversation, as her hand comes to rest on my shoulder. “Don’t monopolize your beautiful bride,” she says, teeth flashing in a wide smile. “After all, you’ve had her to yourself for weeks. We want to get to know her.”
With an eye roll just for Mara, I shift a little, letting my mother hook an arm through Mara’s.
“Come on, dear, you haven’t even seen the gift table yet. It was tricky to figure out a good gift, of course—John here wouldn’t give us any hints about your tastes. I hope it’s all right—we decided it would be safer to just buy for the future instead…”
I trail after my mother, who’s leading Mara toward an elaborate table set up near the rear wall. There are
a few gift-wrapped boxes on it, some cards, and… Oh God. My stomach sinks.
A bassinet.
Is she crazy?
“Mother,” I say, raising my voice.
Mom doesn’t stop. “We figured you’d need all of this soon,” my mother babbles, pointing at the blatant baby supplies. There are bottles, little onesies, even a car seat.
Mara tugs her arm from my mother’s with force. “Mrs. Walloway, this is all so sweet, but it’s… it’s too much.” Her face is flushed, and I can tell she’s trying not to panic.
I understand. So am I. I knew my parents wanted children, for me to carry on the lineage, but this is too far, even for them.
“Nonsense dear. It’s never too soon to start planning for the eventual future.”
“Eventual…” Mara’s face blanches now. “That’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”
Over Mara’s shoulder, my mother frowns. “What could be presumptuous about carrying on the family? What could be more important than that?”
“My career, for one thing,” Mara counters.
My mother’s frown deepens. We’re attracting attention now—a couple of cousins have noticed us and are exchanging sideways smirks. It makes me want to grab Mara and pull her out of here right now. I knew this party would be leaping into the deep end, but I didn’t think it would end in us drowning. “Career is one thing, but family must come first, dear.”
“Oh really?” Mara arches an eyebrow. “Why, because I’m young and female, I must want to pop out a baby immediately?”
“Nobody said anything about immediately, but don’t be naïve. Our family needs an heir. John needs children, to carry on our name, our legacy.”
“He needs them?” Mara shoots me a glare over her shoulder. “That’s news to me. He hasn’t mentioned wanting anything of the sort.”
“Well, I would have thought that would be implied,” my mother responds, nonplussed. “After all, he keeps you well, doesn’t he? All that money and privilege doesn’t come free, dear.”
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