"Scarlett?” I call as I step inside.
She looks over at me from one of the enormous chairs in the center of the room. She looks exhausted with her hair scraped back from her face and piled on her head, no make-up on, just wearing a robe and some slippers. She usually takes every chance she gets to get dressed up and show off her inimitable fashion sense, but she hasn’t been able to muster the energy for it.
"Hey, Zach," she replies, her voice lackluster.
I make my way over to join her, sitting down in the chair next to her and planting the briefcase with the deeds in it at my feet. "I need to talk to you," I tell her.
She bites her lip and nods. "Yeah, I figured you would," she murmurs, and she looks away from me. "Let’s just get this over with, huh?"
"Get what over with?” I ask, confused.
"I know that you don’t want any of this," she says sadly. She can’t even look me in the eyes. "I know that you didn’t—you never signed up to have a baby. Or to have to deal with me. You did this so you could get your hands on the land and I could get the house, and now it’s this whole... fucking mess and you probably just want out, don’t you?"
"You think I’m here because I want to end things?" I ask incredulously.
Scarlett nods. "So let’s just get this over with and we can stop pretending," she tells me, and she lets her hand rest on her stomach. "I can do this by myself. I know I can."
I take her chin in my fingers and force her to look at me. "Oh, my darling Scarlett. Listen to me. I didn’t come here because I want to break things off with you."
She stares at me, her breath catching. Her eyes filling with hope and yet afraid it is all some twisted joke. "Then what are you doing here?”
Her voice is so tiny and nervous it makes my heart ache. I reach down to the briefcase I have with me and unclip it, then I pull out the papers inside. "Here you go," I murmur as I hand the deeds over to her.
Her eyes skim down the pages in front of her, and it takes her a moment to register what they are. Her eyes widen, and then it seems to hit her. "These are—"
"—the deeds for Wotton Hall, your rightful inheritance," I finish up for her. "Along with the land and the woods around it. Everything. I got it for you, Scarlett."
She stares at me for a long while.
I can’t read the expression on her face. Is she happy? Sad? Confused? I reach out to touch her cheek.
She leans her face into my hand. "H-how did you get these?” she asks. "Is it—was it legal?”
"It’s all legal," I promise. "I’ve been working with this company, a family business, giving them some guidance to get back on their feet after a bad few years. They brought the lands for me and then I purchased it from them. They belong to me now, Scarlett. To us."
She doesn’t say a word, her eyes are still locked on the pages in front of her. When she eventually raises them, she looks at me with confusion. "And what does this mean? For—for us? If we both got what we wanted..." She trails off.
I am surprised that she still has doubts after all this time, but I will do everything I can to make sure I put them to rest. "I want to live there with you," I explain to her. "Raise our baby there with you, if you’ll have me."
"You do?" she gasps. "Oh, God, I can’t believe this! I never thought—I thought you were totally freaked out when the doctor told us I was pregnant. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby."
"I was freaked out," I admit. "But in the nicest way possible. Being with you has changed me, Scarlett. I think you’ve turned me into the kind of man who can actually stand up and take responsibility for what matters. And this is what matters to me. You matter to me. You both do."
“Oh, Zach. This isn’t a dream, is it? I’m not going to wake up and…”
I reach out and cover the hand that is on her stomach and smile. A tear rolls down her cheek, and I brush it away with my thumb. “Hey.”
More tears roll down her cheeks.
"Are you okay?"
"I think so," she murmurs. "This just—it’s more than I expected, that’s all."
"You really thought I was just going to walk out on you, after everything we’ve been through together?" I ask her.
She lowers her gaze and shakes her head. "I was scared. I hoped of course, but I didn’t want to be disappointed. I’ve been so disappointed in my life. So many things I wanted were snatched away from me," she explains. "I knew that I—I knew how I felt about you, but I couldn’t be sure how you felt about me. I kept wondering if I’d made it all up in my head."
"You didn’t make it up, not any of it," I promise her fervently. "Scarlett, I love you." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had reached the point of no return. There would be no coming back from this, not from the reality of knowing that yes, I was truly, deeply and madly in love with her.
Her eyes widen, as she claps her hand over her mouth and then laughs delightedly. "Oh my God, Zach!" she screams.
"I think the generally-accepted reaction is to say it back," I remark with a smile.
Scarlett clasps my face in her hands and looks deep into my eyes. "I love you, too, Zachary Winston Black. I love you so much, I could die with love," she tells me.
“Don’t you dare do that,” I say and kiss her, softly, on the mouth. This is how it started, how it all started. With a kiss. With knowing that as soon as I kiss her, I won’t be able to stop there.
I reach over and pull her on to my lap, wrapping my arms around her. God, I love this woman so much. I want everything with her. And I have known that for a long time, even if I have only just come to terms with it now. The way she tastes, the way she moves, the way she smiles, kisses, fucks, all of it.
I need it all.
She spreads her legs to straddle me.
I pull her robe open and let it slide off her to the floor below. Underneath she is naked, so beautifully naked, and something about her shyness feels as if she is baring herself to me for the very first time, and I am seeing her, truly seeing her for the first time too. I love the way she looks, the way she feels.
This woman is everything to me. The mother of my child. My wife. The love of my life, and more than that, the woman who changed me. She made me into the version of me that I thought I would never be, a version that moves through the world with kindness and decency. The kind of man that a woman could actually imagine raising a child with.
I lower my mouth to her breast and flick my tongue out over her nipple, filling myself with the sweet taste of her, as I slide my hands around her waist. I’m going to allow myself to get lost in her in a way I never have before.
She reaches down and slides her hands over my cock, through my pants. Expertly, she pulls me out and strokes me a few times, even though I am already rock hard for her. She plants one hand on the chair behind me and uses the other to guide me inside of her.
As soon as she does this, I close my eyes and let out a long groan of pleasure. "Fuck, yes," I growl, as I grasp her hips to pull her down onto me harder. I love the way she feels. So soft, so wet, and so inviting. This body belongs to me. I slide my hand over her cheek and caress her skin, watching as the glint of my ring plays off the light around us. She draws my fingers into her mouth, and I watch as she coaxes them in, trailing her tongue around my fingertips.
One of the staff could walk in on us at any moment, but I’m finding it pretty hard to give a damn. How can I care about that, when all that matters is the way she is looking down at me, like I am the most important thing in the world to her?
She closes her eyes, tips her head back. and lets me impale her.
I thrust up and into her, filling her with my whole length at once. Once I have built up a pace, she starts to move and grind her clit against me. I know what she’s asking for. I slide my hand down from her throat to her breasts to her belly and lower, till my fingers are grazing over her clit.
"Oh," she moans, as she moves up my shaft and slams back down a little harder.
"Ah!” she cries out, as she tips her head back and allows her orgasm to take over.
The feeling of her pussy clenching around my bare cock is almost enough to push me over the edge right then and there, but I am not ready yet. I want to commit this moment to memory, the way she feels, the way she looks, the way it makes me feel.
I hold on to her hips and keep her in place, watching the way her breasts sway as she slowly grinds on top of me, over and over again, guiding the last vestiges of pleasure from me before she is good and done.
When I let myself come, it feels like I am letting out a breath I had been holding for decades. It is more than just the orgasm, more than just the simple act of her giving herself to me. It is something more profound. It is passion, pleasure, promise, the reality of what we have shared and what we will share in the future. I tip her head down to face mine and lean up to kiss her as we both come back down to the real world together.
Scarlett unwinds herself from me, grabs her robe and drapes it over my lap so she can settle down comfortably. She lets out a cute little giggle.
"What is it?” I ask, nuzzling her neck. I want to find out every detail about her, about her past, about the way she feels and thinks. I am still fascinated by this woman. I love her so much. I know I will never get enough.
"I was just thinking that we’re already husband and wife," she points out. "I like that. We don’t have to worry about living in sin or having a child out of wedlock or anything like that."
"That doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing you would be much worried about anyway," I remark.
She rests her head on my shoulder. "You’re right," she replies. "I don’t care. As long as you’re here."
I place a gentle kiss on her temple. I know just how she feels. I could have stayed here all night long if she’d wanted me to, just holding her and our baby in my arms. I let my eyes drift shut to savor the sensation… the rest of the world can wait, as I hold the woman I love tight in my arms.
Chapter 35
Scarlett
“Are you sure about this?” Molly asks, fretfully.
I glance over my shoulder at her. "About what?" For a moment, I think she is about to cast doubt on the vow renewal I am about to commit to with the man I love, but I know she isn’t that stupid. If she’d had issues, she would have told me about them before this moment.
But of course, she is just checking out the shoes she is wearing with her sweet blue dress, checking them out in the mirror. "About the shoes, that’s all," she replies, glancing up at me and smiling. "Did you think I was talking about you and your husband-to-be?”
"He’s already my husband," I point out.
She smiles at me. "Yeah, but you know what I mean," she replies. "He’s going to be your husband now. Not just on paper."
"Yeah, I get what you mean," I reply with a smile and nod to her shoes. "I think they look good, don’t stress about them."
"That’s easy for you to say when you look so incredible," she says.
I check myself out in the mirror. I designed this outfit from scratch and I’m happy with how it turned out. More flattering over my baby bump. It has cream panels and deep charcoal accents. It might be a little more traditional than the suit I wore to our first marriage, but this is different. This is real.
It’s the first dress that I’ve put together in a few months; after what happened with Mark, I was nervous about moving forward with any of my ideas. No matter how much Zach encouraged me, I was just frightened about the same thing happening again. I remember how desperate I was for that job. I was so desperate I even fooled myself into not believing Zach.
"You can’t let what that asshole did to you get in the way of you living your life," he told me, more times than I could count. "You’ve got real talent. You should get out there and show the world just how good you are."
"I don’t know about that," I replied, turning my face away from him. "When the baby comes—"
"When the baby comes, I’m sure you’re not going to want to sit on your butt all day doing nothing, right? You’re going to want to have a life. You should get some of your designs out there."
"I don’t know where I’d even start..."
"You can do it," he encouraged. "You want to change the industry, right? Make it so that guys like Mark can’t just do what they want whenever they want?”
"I guess so," I admitted. I had been doing some research, and had found that a lot of women had experiences similar to mine. Not just with Mark, either, but with other men in the business. It really grossed me out, but I didn’t know how to change it.
"You have money, you have influence, you have talent," he reminded me. "Get back to designing. See where it takes you, okay?”
"Easy for you to say—"
"Easy for me to say because I believe that you’re totally capable of it," he replied. "You know I don’t invest in people I don’t believe in."
"I don’t think a marriage is the same as an investment," I teased.
"I would disagree," he replied, with a grin. "But don’t worry, I’ve heard the returns are excellent..."
What happened after that was somewhat a blur to me, but he certainly distracted me from the conversation at hand. But he had switched on a thought in my head, one I didn’t want to drop.
I started looking into beginning my own business. I knew it was a big leap, and that my skills didn’t really extend to running a place of my own, but I didn’t need to shoot for the stars on my first time around so I registered a company, with the help of my supportive husband, of course, and started designing. Right now, we are a small operation. Well, it’s just me designing and sewing, as well as a couple of girls who are visiting local stores to scout out potential homes for our designs, but I’ll get there. I know I will.
"You think you’re ready? I mean… to go out there?" Molly asks.
I bite my lip and run my hands over my pregnancy bump. I look so big in the mirror. I think I like the way I look, but it’s hard to tell when I feel so clumsy and ungainly. "I think so," I reply. “Are you sure I don’t look too whale-like in this dress?”
Molly is instantaneous in her opposition to my idea. “Are you mad?” she exclaims. “You’ve never looked more beautiful. And Zach is going to think you look amazing.”
I smile at her in the mirror. Thank God, she is here to keep me sane.
Speaking of keeping me sane, Lori bursts through the door, practically out of breath. She has been so excitable with the marriage and baby announcement that she has been driving me a little crazy. Even so, I get it. This is an expansion to our family, after all this time. So she’s allowed to feel excited about it
"Hey, are you ready to go out there?” she asks excitedly. "I think you should. The place is already full, everyone’s waiting for you..."
"Well, I guess I’ve got no more excuses to hang around here, huh?” I try to sound upbeat about it, but I’m nervous. I am excited of course, to renew my vows with my amazing husband, but this time it’s for real. I was less worried the last time about falling over in front of his whole family or something, as they weren’t even there. This time around? Yeah, you could say I’m pretty freaked about it.
"No more excuses," Lori says, offering me her hand. "Come on, I’m giving you away, right?”
"I think I am," Molly shoots back, and she takes my other hand.
"Ladies, ladies," I joke. "There’s enough of me to go around." I gesture to my tummy.
"Not after he sweeps you off on your honeymoon," Lori mocks. "You have to send me pictures every day, okay? I want to see everything. I wish I could come out to Thailand with you."
"You should, one day," I suggest. "Could be fun."
&
nbsp; "Girl’s trip!” Molly squeals.
I laugh. I am so glad they’re here for me today. I don’t think I would have been able to make it through this day without feeling like I’m going to burst with nerves. "Okay, stop distracting me, you two," I tease. "Let’s get out of here."
With that, we head out of the dressing room and down to the church, where my husband is waiting for me.
Zach was the one who insisted on a proper church wedding. I told him that I really didn’t care if we got remarried again or not, but he told me he wanted to start over properly. I appreciated his commitment to a clean start, so I went with it. And honestly, I have been looking forward to this for months. It’s a chance for us to leave all the bad things that happened behind us and move forward together, as a unit. As a family.
I am only a few months from my due date, and I had insisted that we get this done before the kid made an appearance.
We’ve decided not to find out the gender, keeping it as a surprise for now, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a girl. Either way, I know that we are going to be far too busy when she or he comes along to think about throwing a wedding, and besides, I want us to commit to each other before we commit to this child.
His family is here. Thank goodness, they like me. We decided to mention as little as possible about the truth of how we ended up together in the first place. A few papers reached out to us in the hopes of getting a scoop, but we want to keep it to ourselves. This is just about us, not anyone else. Showing that we love each other, and we want all the important people in our lives to know about it.
Sometimes, I still can’t quite believe I’m with Zach. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and just watch him sleep. Never in a million years had I imagined a man like Zach would ever settle down, let alone with a woman like me. I’d been a virgin when we met, but I don’t care to know anything more of the world of sex and romance than what he can show me. This man is my past, my present, and my future.
Let’s Pretend Page 14