by Jianne Carlo
“You're just going to let her get away with it? Doesn't sound like my Destiny.” Lincoln tucked a wavy lock behind her ears. “There's gotta be something we can do. I spoke to Satan, and he's consulting with a couple of his lawyer buddies. Lucifer's researching copyright.”
“Really? That's nice of them.” She folded her arms on his chest and propped her chin on the backs of her hands.
“The squad and I are family, Destiny. They've got your back from now on. We'll tackle Juanita and her theft like we do any job. Develop a strategy and execute it.”
She shot up into a cross-legged position, and Lincoln near ’bout swallowed his tongue at the sight of her naked pink folds winking at him.
“I know what I can do. I can serve St. Paul's with an injunction claiming copyright infringement. They'll have no choice but to terminate her contract for Fated Destiny. Jess will back me.” Destiny rested her palms on the mattress, leaned closer, and her breasts bunched together. Linc fixed his stare on her face and forced his concentration to her words.
“It'll take years to sort out. But at least she won't be able to publish it. And St. Paul's won't want any negative publicity. They'll insist on her silence if she wants to publish anything else with them.”
“But you won't be able to publish your own work for years?”
“I'll write something else.” Her eyes narrowed. “I finished one book. I can damned well finish another.”
“That's my woman. Got any ideas?”
“I woke up dreaming about a thriller based on a woman who captains a supertanker. Terrorists take over the ship, and they intend to ram it into one of the busiest ports in the world.”
“Sounds terrific.” He grinned. “Great plot line. I expect my name in the dedication.”
“Lucifer was the one who told me about everything. You”—she pinched his forearm—“never uttered a word.”
“I inspired you, admit it.”
She glanced at the ceiling. “You are so full of it.”
After a slight pause, her top lip tucked in, and she worried the plump flesh. “What do you think? It's a different take on a thriller. Of course, it's going to be a romance, and the sex will be smoking.”
“Go for it.” He hesitated, yet every instinct compelled him to make the proposition. “Why don't you take a leave of absence? Concentrate on the book full time?”
Emotions chased across her face. She frowned, pursed her mouth, and a faraway look glazed her eyes. The lip she'd been chewing on took on a scarlet hue, and Linc's dick reared. He wanted her home full time, wanted her available 24-7, and he could taste victory. “Do you really want to continue editing, or do you want to write full time?”
She propped an elbow on the mattress and cupped her cheek. “I like editing. I really, really loved writing Fated Destiny. But there's no guarantee that I'll be a successful writer. And I do have to make a living.”
Linc sat up. “Destiny—”
“I don't want to be financially dependent on you,” she interrupted.
“On any man. You learned that from your father's betrayal.”
“Did I? Maybe.” A wary bottom lip plumped into a sexy pout. “Ever since I left my father's home, I've always supported myself. I bank as much as I can. I've fifty thousand in a CD. Ten ready to go into another. I use my bonus for government bonds, and I buy the stocks of companies whose products I use. Like Martha Stewart.”
“Sounds like you have a pretty significant nest egg there, Destiny Chapman. We're legally married now.” He picked up her left hand and sighed. “I guess the rock's gonna have to do for now. If Mom sees the wedding band, she'll hit the roof.”
It seriously bothered him, having a wife and not being able to claim her. Her not wearing his wedding ring made his stomach bank and list and do acrobatic flips. That gold band staked his property, marked her as his.
He dogged on. “Take a few months off. Let me support you. Write. We'll start house hunting full time and decide on a place before Christmas. What do you think?”
“We'll spend Christmas in our own house?” Her black eyes glowed and drew him in like the sirens on the rocks who forced Hercules’ shipwreck. “Have a big tree? Maybe lights on the bushes outside? A kitchen garden. I could grow herbs, summer tomatoes.”
“Tomatoes grow as big as watermelons on Long Island,” he commented, his tone carefully neutral.
“Stop beating around the bush.” She swatted his shoulder. “I know you'd prefer to live on Long Island. If I quit, then I'd prefer to live someplace rural, where we'd still have access to the city, for plays and art exhibits. Stuff like that. Long Island it is.”
She smirked. “Got that?”
Recognizing words he would be required to eat, Lincoln nodded. “And kids? Have you considered that?”
She ducked her chin and mumbled something he couldn't decipher.
“What did you say, Destiny?”
“I want at least two children. I'm twenty-six, strictly speaking, almost ten years past my biological prime. But then again biological prime is when Vikings and Saxons got married. In early adolescence. I went to the doctor while you were away. He took out the birth-control implant.”
She could be pregnant. With his child. His baby girl could be growing already. Or his wide receiver. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. His sisters had barfed their entire pregnancies. He shot upright, every muscle bunched into knots. “When? You said you felt sick in the taxi on the way back from the book launch. Shit.”
He splayed both hands over her sweet, flat belly. A wave of dizziness spun his focus for one heartbeat. His lungs stammered to a halt. Two of his sisters had suffered devastating miscarriages their first pregnancies.
“No more pole-dancing lessons.” Visions of his battered sisters in the hospital wedged a gridlock in his mind. “Until after. Absolutely no running. At least I won't have to worry about you sprinting for the subway anymore.”
“First of all, I can't be pregnant because I had the implant taken out while you were gone. Second, I felt sick in the taxi because I was worried about you.” She glowered at him, pupils stark pinpricks in the onyx of her eyes, and gritted. “You are not going to go into some caveman overprotective mode. Maybe it would be better if I didn't breathe a word until I'm showing.”
“No. Not a chance,” he barked. “You can't…can't do that to me. I'll walk around on eggshells for the rest of our lives wondering if you're pregnant and not telling me. You have to promise to tell me, Destiny. You have to.”
She cradled his jaw. “I promise. But you have to promise too. You can't go into overdrive once I tell you I'm pregnant.”
Linc plowed his fingers through his too-long hair. “I'll try. Hell, I think those nine months are going to be more tortuous than anything that happened in Thailand.”
“What happened in Thailand?” She reared, sitting on her haunches, her black brows gathering thunderclouds. “You mentioned before that Satan had been in a fragile place. Were you?”
“Before Satan retired, he was captured, held prisoner, and tortured for three days. Lucifer and I went in to rescue him. We screwed up and ended up imprisoned with him for a couple of days before the rest of the squad freed us.”
“Omigod. Did they torture you, too?” She cupped a hand over her mouth.
“No. Don't look like that, Baby Doll.”
It took him twenty minutes to gentle her. Twenty minutes of slow, unhurried loving. Twenty minutes of sheathing himself in her warmth, of luxuriating as her pussy contracted, spasmed, and clenched velvet fists around his dick. He held back for as long he could, stretching her from one climax to another, mesmerized by the passion flushing her complexion, by the way her eyelids half-masted, by the slight glazing of her onyx eyes when the explosions hit her.
Destiny resigned the next day, and he knew she apologized to Jess about playing hooky the day before. If you couldn't play hooky on your wedding day, then what the fuck? But she'd felt bad, although her taking an unscheduled day off hadn't taken much
persuasion on his part.
•●•
He treated Thanksgiving as a squad raid. Analyze, develop a hard-and-fast strategy, strike, rescue, and retreat.
Phase one: he had his mother schedule lunch for the four of them—his father, his mother, his wife, and him—at Le Cirque the following week. Mom loved food almost as much as Destiny. She cooked and cooked. Her pride and joy was her GE Monogram stove. Both devout Catholics, Mom and one of the initial investors of Le Cirque served on several parish boards together.
Linc's nerves went haywire on the day of the lunch, His stomach hollowed when Destiny wrung her hands and asked, her voice quavering, “What if she hates me?”
Fuck her stepmother and the asshole father who'd screwed her self-confidence to a level he didn't want to contemplate. “She's gonna love you, Destiny. I promise.”
“Should I show her the ring first? Cripes—my name. She's going to think I'm a slut right away.”
Since the Hades Squad had signed a contract with Le Cirque to do the security for any future papal visits, Linc knew between his mother's friendship with the restaurant’s investor and the new agreement with his company, the food and the service would be phenomenal. And he knew the choice of venue would distract her, which was another strategic move on his part.
“Both Mom and Dad are going to love you to death.” He hailed a cab with a wave and a piercing whistle.
“Le Cirque,” she yelled when he gave the driver the name and address of the restaurant. “I can't think there. The food makes me giddy. Do I have to meet your family now? Can't we just wait until I have a baby?” She groaned and buried her face in her palms.
Of course Mom and Destiny took to each other like ducks to water. Linc couldn't stop grinning through the entire meal. His mother and his wife discussed herbs as if they were tantamount to national security. The two women traded lamb recipes in the hushed tones reserved for fervent worshippers.
Linc lapped it up, enjoying superb food, legendary service, and his mother and wife succumbing to each other's charm.
“I always knew you were the smart one,” his mother intoned as she admired the two-carat ring decorating Destiny's left finger. “Perfect.” She shifted in her chair and assumed that too-innocent look that always preceded a massacre.
Linc tensed, his deltoids clenching and jerking when Mom did that familiar pause.
“So, dear, have you thought of a venue for the wedding?”
“Not really.” Destiny hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Lincoln saw defeat thundering over him; so much for phases two and three.
“St. Martin's, dear, our local parish. Father Ryan is a doll. Lincoln, I do believe I can persuade the New York Philharmonic to do a dress rehearsal of Handel's Messiah in our church prior to the service.”
“Really? Isn't Linc performing the official concert at the Riverside Church?” Destiny asked.
“Yes, dear, but the orchestra does have to rehearse, and a rehearsal can be held anywhere.”
Christ. Linc choked down his chardonnay. The New York Philharmonic would play his wedding music? And he'd be singing. He just knew it.
“Handel's Messiah, dear.” His mother mopped a nonexistent stain at the corner of her mouth with a starched napkin. “Perfect prelude to a Christmas nuptial mass.”
His mother's words didn't make him flinch. He already knew a nuptial mass was in order if his sisters and his mother had any say in the matter. Destiny'd never mentioned any religion, any church. He hadn't even asked her about that.
“It's a beautiful piece of music,” his wife remarked, her voice low, deepening with the conviction she felt.
“You've heard it?” he asked, unable to mask the surprise in his voice.
“I bought a couple of iTunes songs.” She sounded shaky, unsure of herself.
He hated not being able to claim her as his wife. His mother would kill him if she found out about the civil ceremony, but it had been necessary, no, essential for his peace of mind.
“Mom,” he announced, “you and Destiny are going to set the date. But I'm putting my foot down. I want to be married before Christmas. And yes, we're living in sin. Not that the rest of your children have done any differently. I want that ring on her finger, and I'm waking up on Christmas Day with my wife, in my own house.”
“On Long Island,” Destiny blurted. “Long Island.”
Mom beamed. “It'll be so wonderful to have you near, dear. I hope you're planning to give me grandchildren as soon as possible.”
Destiny colored a deep scarlet.
They parted after dessert, his folks taking the train back to Long Island, while he and Destiny took a yellow cab to her place. As soon as they were settled in the backseat, Lincoln remembered the email he'd received from Lucifer that morning.
“Before I forget, Destiny, are there any hard feelings between you and your janitor?” He draped an arm over her shoulder and tugged her close.
“Building engineer,” Destiny answered, wrinkling her nose. “He doesn't like being called a janitor. No, not really, I guess. Actually I try to avoid him. He's creepy. Always staring at my breasts and hiding in the alcoves in the hallway. I can't tell you how many times he's scared the daylights out of me. Why?”
“Lucifer questioned him yesterday, and he admitted to letting your—quote, unquote—boyfriend into the loft on a couple of occasions. Since I've never met the man, we're thinking he let Kenny in.”
Whoa.
Destiny's cheeks paled. Her mouth pursed. She looked close to snorting flames. “Omigod, Linc. For the last few months when I come home from work, I could've sworn things weren't where they were supposed to be.”
Lincoln clamped his teeth together. He and the guys were going to have a serious “talk” with Ronson. They needed to move fast. Focus. Calm her.
“I'll change the locks today. I don't want you in that building alone—got that?” He locked their eyes together.
Her lips curved. “Got that. I'm beginning to like your overprotectiveness, though I never, ever thought I'd say that.”
“That's a relief. Lunch went well. You and Mom have a lot in common.”
“I think she might have liked me,” Destiny ventured.
“Trust me, she loved you. The whole family is going to eat you up.”
And they did.
•●•
She didn't meet them all until Thanksgiving, which proved both good and strained. The first hour of tactful, diplomatic interrogation had Destiny inventing new crayon hues with her blushes. When his sisters shifted from what they considered polite conversation to tortured teasing, he hovered like a chopper straining for the best angle to spray gunshots.
“You'd better start retraining him right away,” Arabella Mansfield informed Destiny. “Believe me, once you get married, it's a lifelong retraining process.”
“Retraining?” Destiny queried.
“Future sister-in-law, you have a lot to learn.” Doing an about-face, Arabella announced, “Conference time. Mom's study.”
The women all disappeared for a good two hours.
Linc's Dad broke out the Irish whiskey. The squad arrived, and the women crawled out from their retreat looking a little too pink and smiley.
“Crap,” his father grumbled. “I bet they finished that last bottle your mother stashed someplace. It was a single malt from one of her uncle's distilleries. They use only mountain-fed water. Pure manna.”
The pregame quarrel over who would captain took on a dangerous slant. No one could ever figure out afterward how the final decision had been made, but Destiny was named captain of the SEAL/paratrooper team, while Arabella led the Chapman squad.
The Hades Squad won. Final score: forty-five to seventeen.
Seventeen. Linc would gloat for the rest of the year. Seven fucking teen.
Right after Thanksgiving, Lucifer discovered a series of emails between Nadine and Juanita. Apparently, Nadine and Juanita were both co-conspirators in using Destiny to r
e-write their books into best-sellers.
Turned out Juanita had deliberately set out to steal Ken from Destiny. The bitch had concocted a wild scheme to record her and Ken having monkey sex and leak the tape to the press to jump-start sales of her book. No such thing as bad publicity. Her nefarious scheme to use the ’spat’ and possible suing of Destiny to fuel her sales further had Linc furious.
Nadine used Juanita’s info on Destiny’s talent to manipulate Jess into assigning her as her editor, knowing full well that Destiny would do anything to make Nadine’s book succeed. Both females roped Kenny into their scheme. Kenny convinced the only too-willing janitor, Mr. Ronson, to let him into Destiny’s apartment, and he had been the one who stole Fated Destiny.
Linc wanted to pound Kenny and Ronson into the ground and initiate immediate negative email and publicity campaigns against Juanita and Nadine. When he broached his intentions to the squad, Satan nixed both ideas.
When Linc told Destiny about the malicious deviousness of the two women, she fumed and raved for a good twenty-four hours. The following morning, she sat down at her desk, and began writing her new thriller. His chest ached with pride at his wife’s grim determination.
Destiny finished her second book on November twenty-ninth.
By then Linc had Satan casing the New York publishing houses with Destiny's query letter and synopsis. The whole squad read the book and so did his brothers and sisters. His mom gently deferred. He was as proud as a peacock strutting his stuff in peahen heaven.
The wedding ceremony had been set for December thirteenth.
They found a house in East Marion about a seven-minute drive from Satan. Five bedrooms and three baths, so Lincoln knew his kids would be forever arguing whose turn it was. The thought made him smile at least once a day.
Mom insisted he live at home for the twelve days before the wedding. The day he packed and moved into the bedroom he'd shared with his brothers years before, Destiny transferred her belongings to their new house.