At the head of the table, wearing a tie—an actual silk tie—was Baroness Sasha Foxington III.
“What in the hell…?” Sophia placed her things on the table and walked over to the stuffed fox. Whoever had placed it here—she assumed Dion—had set it at the head of the table, with an envelope in front of it which said Sophia Andreou in printed letters.
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, she picked it up and tore at the seal. Inside was a folded stack of paper, a form of some kind. Divorce papers.
Her heart sank. Well, at least she knew where she stood. But then she frowned. That didn’t make sense, since her contract with Dion stated that she would get the company if they divorced. It had been her father’s ill-conceived contingency plan, and she knew how badly Dion wanted to see it destroyed.
And why bring Sasha into the office if he wanted it over and done with?
Sophia had the prickling sensation of being watched, and when she looked up, Dion was standing in the door to the boardroom. Attraction hit her like a punch to the gut. He wore a pale gray suit with a white shirt and a yellow-and-white tie. All those light colors made him darker by contrast—his hair gleaming like night and his sun-tanned skin looking even richer.
“I didn’t even get the chance to submit the name-change forms,” she said benignly. “And I’m assuming you’re going to sue for custody.” She inclined her head toward the fox.
“I want Sasha to be happy, and that means her mother needs to be happy.” He came into the room and let the door close softly behind him.
“How do you know what makes her happy?” she asked. Tears threatened, but she wouldn’t let them flow. She’d wanted this responsibility, and now she had to woman up and deal with it.
“I know what makes her unhappy. It’s a process of elimination.” The closer he came, the less strength she seemed to have in her legs.
Sophia planted a hand on the back of one of the chairs to ground her. “And what makes her unhappy?”
“Being controlled.”
Wow. He didn’t beat around the bush.
“Feeling like she doesn’t get to make important decisions in her own life.”
And he was on the money, too.
“Am I close?” He took another step toward her, closing the distance that she’d been feeling with every beat of her heart for the past week.
“You’re very astute.” She bit down on her lip. “But there’s a slight problem with your plan.”
“What’s that?”
“You lose the company if we divorce.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“The company you paid for. The company that was the whole damn point of this marriage to begin with.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
She shook her head, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. “And you’re willing to throw all that away?”
“For you? Yeah, I am.” Dion was finally standing in front of her without his mask. Without the charming smile that he used to deflect and distract. Instead, he looked so sad that she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hang on for the rest of her life. “And you helped me realize something.”
“What?”
“When we were in the hospital and you were telling me about your grandmother passing away, you said: ‘I’d rather feel the pain than lose the memories.’” He looked at her intently. “After it all blew up, I thought about this. A lot. Destroying my father’s company wasn’t going to change anything—not the pain or the memories. It might feel good for a second, and then I would be looking for the next thing, trying to forget. Trying to…move on.”
“But you won’t forget.”
“No, and maybe that’s a good thing. The pain has made me who I am, and while I always thought that was a weakness, maybe it’s actually a strength.”
“Of course it’s a strength.”
“I never saw it that way. But now that I know, I can learn from what he did. Use the pain to make me a good husband one day. A good father. A good friend.” He raked a hand through his hair. “My birth father is gone, but the truth is…he was never actually my father. He contributed to my DNA, and that’s it. I learned more from Elias than I ever did from him. But all my life I’ve tried to make myself untouchable. I wanted to be the toast of the town, the most successful. I wanted to be liked. And, in doing that, I made myself into someone who puts business deals before people. I built business relationships and made connections all over Europe, but not one of those people knew me. Only Elias. And you.”
He had been as isolated as her. Only he hadn’t realized it for so long.
“When you came here, you saw right through all the gloss to the person I tried so hard to hide away. I didn’t want anyone to see the real me, because the real me would bleed when cut. I would bruise when punched. I would crumple when I lost something I cared about.”
“Anyone would,” she said softly. “It’s called being human.”
“I know that now…thanks to you.”
“And yet you still want a divorce?” She wrung her hands in front of her.
“There was no way this marriage was ever going to work the way we started it. Because we didn’t come in on equal footing.”
She thought that very thing herself, and hearing him voice that concern filled her heart with hope. He understood her.
“I have a chance to make things right with you.” He reached out to touch the soft ends of her hair, rubbing the glossy strands back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. He looked at her like he had the moment she’d walked down the aisle—full of wonder and intensity. Full of possession, but the good kind. “I’m asking for a divorce because I don’t want to force you into something. You wanted your freedom, you wanted control over your life, and this is the way I can give it to you.”
“And where does it leave us?” She wanted there to be an “us” more than anything. Because this Dion was the man she could love. This Dion was the man she could grow old with. The man with whom she could have the kind of marriage she deserved. “If we get divorced.”
“It will leave me thinking about you for the rest of my life, whether you’re by my side or not.” He swallowed, his dark eyes boring into hers. “I want to have this amazing life with you, Sophia. I want us to go to bed every night and wake up every morning together. I want us to build your wild cottage among the trees and listen to the birds sing. I want to play stupid games with you, like hiding this fox in ridiculous places. I want us to do puzzles and grow vegetables and live a life full of the important things.”
She laughed, tears making her vision hazy. “I want that, too.”
“You have changed the course of my life, Sophia. You have changed me fundamentally and irrevocably. I cannot ever be the man I was before I went to the airport that day.”
“You’ve changed me, too. I left home, and I’m never going back.” The pain was still sharp, like a fresh wound. But it would heal. She would heal. “I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but I need to take charge of my life. I had hoped to tell you something important today.”
“Tell me now.” His voice was heavy, smooth. It sent a thrill through her.
“I want to be your wife.”
She took the divorce papers and tore them in half. And then in half again. And again. And again. Then she threw the pieces of paper up in the air like confetti. They drifted down to the floor, fluttering this way and that, the fine black print rendered inconsequential.
“You make a messy point.” The cheeky smile was like a warm hug. She’d missed it so much.
“I never do things the right way.”
“Good.” He brought his lips down to hers, the kiss so soft and fleeting she wondered if she might have imagined it. But the second kiss left no such wonder—it was as hard and real and powerful as the man in front of her. “Doing things the right way is for boring people.”
“And we’re certainly not boring, are we?”
He back her up against the wall,
pinning her with his hips. “Not even a little bit.”
“So you think we can make this work?” She tilted her face up to his. “Even with such a rocky start?”
“I think we’ll make it because of the rocky start. We battled the demons up front.” His hands were firm at her hips, and when they slid up her rib cage, she melted. “Now all that’s left is the good stuff.”
“Thank you for believing in me.”
Dion stilled and pressed his forehead to hers. She loved his sexy side, but this unexpected tenderness was even more of a delight. “Thank you for believing in us.”
“Always.” She turned to where the fox still sat at the front of the boardroom table, watching on with its unmoving eyes. “All three of us.”
Epilogue
Three years later
“How is she?” Dion sat on the arm of the couch, hands knotted tightly as his wife padded barefoot out of the bedroom. Sophia had been checking on her mother constantly since her arrival. “Did she finally get off to sleep?”
Sophia sighed, interlacing her fingers underneath the growing bump that pressed against the flowing cotton dress. “Yeah. Took a lot of reassuring her, but she got there.”
Tears glimmered in his wife’s eyes, but her shoulders were back, her chin up. Her lip trembled only for a second before she reigned it all in, strong as a warrior. She’d made that promise to herself before her mother came: she would be the rock Dorothy needed. And Dion had no doubt in his mind that she could do exactly that.
All of this stress couldn’t be good for the baby. He stretched his arms out, and Sophia came straight to him, without hesitation, like she did every day. There was nothing between them now, no holding back. No reluctance to being vulnerable.
He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. They stayed like that for a while, finding comfort in each other. The day wasn’t over yet, but it already felt like they’d crammed a year’s worth of worry into it.
That was why they’d come to the cottage. It had been Dion’s first wedding anniversary gift to Sophia—perhaps a little bigger than she’d envisaged, with its sprawling open-plan living space and multiple bedrooms. But it had all the things she wanted: trees for miles around; space for a vegetable garden, which was now teaming with ripe, red strawberries and zucchini and beans. Birds chirped, and sunlight slanted in at the perfect angle, dappled and shifting. It was the place they came to get away from it all—from Precision Investments and Sophia’s growing virtual-assistant business, which now had staff and more clients than she’d ever dreamed possible.
This was their haven. Their safe place. Their private place.
Now, they’d brought Sophia’s mother here in the hopes it might help her heal the way this place had helped to heal them.
“Apparently, Dad told her that if she came to see me, she wouldn’t have a marriage to come home to.” Sophia looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed. “He threatened to change the locks. He even tossed some of her clothes out of the bedroom window. She’s devastated, Dion. I didn’t know what to say to her.”
Dion had to fight the instinct to roar. Cyrus Andreou was a bully the likes of which he’d never seen, and it had only gotten worse once he lost his control over Sophia. But his anger wouldn’t help her or her mother now. There was no point in being angry over the past—that was the lesson Sophia had taught Dion. “Maybe this is exactly what needed to happen. Maybe now she’ll see.”
“You think?” Her hope sliced right through his chest.
“I do. And when our little girl arrives, your mother will have even more joy to help her through the pain.” Dion tucked her hair behind her ears. “There’s so much love in this house, she’ll want to be part of it.”
“I hope so.” She rested her cheek against his chest. “Thank you for letting me take her in.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that. She’s family. There will be a bed for her here as long as she wants it, and one back at the house, too.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Are you nervous about the baby coming?”
“Yes.” Sometimes when she asked him these important questions, he still found there was a shadow inside him that wanted to shy away. Like muscle memory that kicked in whenever he was asked to open up. But he never gave in to it. “I’m nervous about not sleeping again for the next eighteen years.”
She laughed. “Me, too.”
“But it will be worth every second of sleep deprivation. I can’t wait to see what a wonderful mother you’ll be.” He knew she needed to hear it—over and over and over. There were parts of his wife that still doubted herself, doubted that she’d know how to be a good mother, since her own was so imperfect. She loved Dorothy with all her heart, but she didn’t want to repeat her mistakes. “I have so much confidence in you, and our little girl is going to be fierce and loyal and powerful, like her mother.”
“We need to settle on a name soon.” Sophia placed a hand over her bump.
“I know.” It was such a big decision. They’d gone back and forth, crossing off names as quickly as they wrote them down. But he’d been toying with one that felt right. “Elia is a pretty name.”
He hadn’t wanted to push the idea on Sophia, but the more he thought about it, the better it felt. It had been three years without his mentor, now. But Dion still thought of him daily. And now that he was about to have a child of his own, he missed the man even more.
“That’s beautiful.” Sophia’s face broke into a serene smile as she looked up at him. “And I think the baby likes it, too. She’s kicking up a storm.”
She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her belly. Sure enough, the flutter of strong, tiny feet vibrated against his palm.
“Elia,” she said. “We can’t wait to meet you.”
“Everybody who loves you is going to be there.” He pressed a kiss to her belly. “You’re going to have a whole room of people so excited for you to join our family.”
“Our family.” Sophia pulled her husband close and pushed up onto her toes to try and kiss him, which was difficult with her belly in the way. “I never thought I’d love that word so much.”
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Chapter One
Just when Caleb Stuckey thought it couldn’t get any worse, his mom walked in.
Now, some people might think getting an ass-chewing by the Ice Knights’ coach, Winston Peppers, and the team’s oh-my-God-our-players-fucked-up-again public relations guru, Lucy Kavanagh, was about as bad as it could get. They would be wrong. Having his mom join the ass-chewing party in Lucy’s office on the fifty-sixth floor of Harbor City’s Carlyle Building brought the entire shitstorm to a whole new level of misery.
Britany Stuckey—AKA Brit the Ballbuster, according to some of her players—wasn’t just a state champion high school boys’ hockey coach and one of the handful of female boys’ hockey coaches in the country, she was also the Stuckey family titleholder for taking absolutely, 100 percent no shit from anyone. The anyone, in this case, being him. And the fact that he was a grown man and a professional hockey player with the Harbor City Ice Knights meant nothing. He would, as she often told him, forever be her little Caleb Cutie—a nickname that proved a mother’s love blinded her to her offspring’s physical flaws—and she would probably treat him as such until the day one of them got hit by the number six crosstown bus.
He turned to Peppers, a man he thought would have his back despite the video-recorded smack talk that had been blown all out of proportion. “You called my mom?”
“Yes,” Peppers asserted, not bothering to slow his pace as he marched from one end of the room to the other as if he were still in the locker room giving his team a what-for in between periods. “Because she is a crucial part of this rehabilitation plan to fix your fuckup.”
Caleb slouched down
in his chair. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Really?” Lucy asked from her seat behind her desk, snark dripping from her voice. “Do I need to play the video again? I can, because every media site on the face of the earth has posted it. Bad Lip Reading even did a mockery of it.”
Yeah, and he would have laughed his ass off at anyone else who’d been caught running his mouth like an idiot. Objectively, it was funny. It wasn’t every day almost the entire first line of a hockey team got caught bitching and moaning about the team, their playing, the coaches, and the quality of puck bunnies they banged. They’d sounded like spoiled assholes, which he totally admitted wasn’t 100 percent not the truth.
Fuck, the next words out of his mouth were going to hurt.
“Okay,” he said, avoiding eye contact with every person in the room. “It was dumb. I should have shut it down sooner.”
“Dumb?” his mom said, how-in-the-hell-did-I-birth-this-idiot thick in her voice. “You were the most senior player in that car, and you let the younger guys trash their own team!”
He flinched. Yeah, that was not a good look. Still… “I’d had some beers, and they were letting off steam. And it should be noted that I did the right thing by taking an Uber instead of driving.”
His mom rolled her eyes. “That’s called doing the bare minimum to adult properly.”
The room went silent except for the mental buzz saw revving in his ears so realistically that he could smell the diesel fumes. He clenched his teeth hard enough that his jaw ached so he wouldn’t snap off a nasty retort at his mom. That wouldn’t get him anywhere. She hadn’t gotten where she was because she backed down from fights. He’d inherited the trait, but he’d learned that sometimes the best way to win was to appear like he wasn’t fighting at all. Guerrilla warfare. Psyops. Subterfuge. When it came to winning a war with his mom, those were the only ways to go.
How to Lose a Fiance Page 20