by Dani Collins
“You made everything happen fast. That was your fault,” she accused him, pointing at him.
“You didn’t slow me down,” he threw back.
“And that made me an object of suspicion? I’m sorry for being attracted to you, okay? I thought you were a better man than you are. I won’t make that mistake again.”
A muscle pulsed in his cheek. “You’re hurt so you’re trying to hurt me. It’s working.” His gaze pierced into her, so naked for a second, she forgot to breathe. So anguished, the backs of her eyes grew hot. “I will accept all those stones you’re hurling because at least you’re here to hurl them.”
Her bottom lip pushed up into her top, and she had to pull it between her teeth and bite to keep from letting a sob of pain escape her thick throat. She looked away, still angry, still hating him, but now hating herself a little, too.
“This is who we are, Freja. I’ve had ample time to reflect on that. We happened too soon, too fast. Too hard. Our timing was off and our feelings were too strong. I’ve walked through every single ‘if only’ and ‘I should have.’ The truth is, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I wanted you in my life, even though you weren’t supposed to be there. There were times you could have made different choices, too, but you didn’t. Because we’re inevitable.”
She rubbed where his words seemed to arrow straight into her heart.
“You go ahead and fight that as long as you need to. I tried, yet I’m still wearing this.” He showed her the band on his finger. “But don’t think any of this was what I wanted or that it came without a cost to me.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Just be fine with all of this?” She waved around a wild hand, tears of betrayal and despair filling her eyes.
“Healing takes time. Not everything goes back to the way it was. I am intimately acquainted with that reality. But we can recover from this, Freja. And we can still have a very good life.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to try.”
He sucked in a breath as though she’d shot him, which gave her zero satisfaction as she walked out.
* * *
Part of him knew he was dreaming, but the flash of her yellow shirt disappearing into the trees was too real. Too terrifying.
In his head, he was thinking he should hit the intercom and tell Kurt to bring her back, but his wheelchair was rolling recklessly down the path at speeds he’d only attempted in races on well-swept trails. Yet not fast enough. She was already gone into the darkened woods.
“Freja!” Out of sheer frustration, he threw himself from his chair—
The ground rushed up to knock his breath from his body. His head glanced off the wheel of his chair where he’d left it by the nightstand. It burned like hell, but not as much as the ignominy of falling out of bed.
He swore roundly as he tried to orient himself, pushing to sit with his back against the side of the mattress, still sweating, heart pounding, trying to catch his breath.
“Giovanni?” Freja burst in and pulled up short in the doorway, backlit by the hall light.
He could only see the top half of her since he was on the floor on the far side of the bed. She wore a slinky nightgown as pale as her limbs. She came in a few more steps.
“Where are you?”
How humiliating. “Here. On the floor.”
“What happened? Are you hurt?” She came around the end of the bed.
“Sir?” Now Kurt was here. Fantastic.
“I’m fine,” Giovanni growled. “Go back to bed.”
“I’ll call you if we need anything,” Freja told Kurt as she shooed him from the door and closed it. “Do you want help?” she asked.
“I don’t need help getting back into bed, Freja.”
“I didn’t ask if you needed help. I asked if you wanted it. You did call me,” she pointed out in a huffy voice.
“And you came?” His scathing tone prompted a profound silence.
“So you don’t want me.”
“That is a loaded question and you know it.” He dropped his head against the mattress. “Do I want you in my bedroom? Yes. A thousand times, yes. Do I want you witnessing my clumsiness? No.”
There was a long silence and he sensed her hovering by the door as though trying to work out how to react.
He hadn’t moved off the floor. The hardwood was unforgiving through his boxer briefs, the bar of the bedframe digging into his back. Nothing about this moment was comfortable, so he made it even less so.
“I dreamed you were running away. I was trying to come after you.”
He heard her swallow. She moved to perch on the chair in the corner.
“I was lying awake thinking about it,” she admitted. “I’m so angry with you, I don’t know what to do with it all. I’ve never been a person who wants revenge, but you’re right. I want to hurt you in every possible way.” She didn’t sound angry. She sounded profoundly sad.
He closed his eyes, defeated by a circumstance that had snowballed so far beyond his ability to control, it was no wonder she’d been flattened by it.
“Do you want me to put on the light?” she offered.
“No.” This was safer. He quit sulking and rolled onto his good leg, able to lever himself up enough he could grab a handful of blankets and drag himself back onto the bed. He adjusted his briefs and sat on the edge of the mattress, trying to read her pale expression in the faint glow from the nightlight in the bathroom.
“You’re never clumsy,” she murmured. “I’m always amazed at your strength and agility. You’re like a gymnast.”
“Will you come here?” He pushed aside the bunched blankets and patted the edge of the bed. “It’s not a trick. I just want to ask you something.”
She rose and drifted toward him like a wraith, unafraid despite the swamp of percolating emotions between them.
“So trusting,” he murmured as she lowered to sit beside him.
“I’ve always felt safe with you. That’s why I’m so angry. I didn’t believe you would hurt me, but you did.”
“Is that why you’re angry?” He picked up her hand and threaded his fingers through her slender, twitching ones. “Or is it something else? Tell me what happened, Freja.”
She gasped and tried to jerk back her hand, but he held on even when she rose and tried to pull away.
“Is that why you called me in here?” She gave her hand a firmer tug.
He kept his hold gentle, using two hands to trap hers in a careful cage, but, “I have to know, Freja.”
“You didn’t want to know when it happened,” she choked, roughly trying to shake him off. “I don’t owe you any explanations now.”
“No, you don’t. But I’d like to understand.” His heart was throbbing, the dull ache that had been in him for months pounding like hammers of fire driving icy spikes into his heart. “Sit,” he coaxed. “Take your time.”
She stood with her hand limp in his, face turned to the window, her profile ashen and still. For a long time, there was only the faint sound of their unsteady breaths.
Finally, she said in a voice that echoed with loss, “I went for a scan and they said she wasn’t developing properly.”
“She.” He had to consciously keep himself from crushing the fine bones of her hand, but his hold on her firmed, as though he could keep her from being dragged into the pit of pure agony he heard in her voice. She was pulling him into it with her, though, and he feared they would never emerge because he had to ask, “Was it anything to do with me? Because of—”
“No.” Her voice was shredded with pain. “I asked if it was because I’d been under stress and they said it was no one’s fault. Just bad luck.”
There was no comfort in that. It was still an abysmal sorrow.
“They said I could terminate or let nature take its course. They sent me home to think about
it, but that night it started to happen and I went to hospital until it was over.”
“I’m so sorry, Freja.”
“No, you’re not.” She bitterly tried to shake off his grip again. “I cry every day and you’ve never once—”
“I cry,” he said raggedly. He pressed the back of her hand to his wet cheek, so wrecked he didn’t know how to deal with it except to work out harder, lose himself in books about her as a healthy, curious child. He compiled reports and translated documents and stalked her online. Anything so he didn’t have to think about what they’d lost.
With a sob, she pivoted closer. Her other hand came up, feeling his cheek, finding the damp track running into his beard. She made a choking noise of surprise.
“It was such a miracle that she even happened.” He could barely speak. His lungs were filled with acid. “It’s like I’m being punished for what I’ve done to you, but it shouldn’t have cost her. I keep thinking if I’d been there, maybe I could have done something—”
She pressed his face into her stomach. “I think those things, too. There wasn’t.”
He wrapped his arms around her and she cradled his head, and they shuddered under the grief that rocked them. They keened and shook and shared their anguish. After a time, she crumpled weakly into him.
He rolled her onto the mattress and they fit together like the complementary puzzle pieces they were, the way they always had.
“I don’t want to make love. I just want you to hold me,” she said between sniffles.
“I know. I will.” He pulled the blankets across them and ironed her to his front, her damp face tucked against his aching throat, her sawing breaths cutting him in two.
He told her he was sorry. Sorry he wasn’t there and sorry they’d lost her. She said, “Me, too,” and pressed harder against him. “I could have lived without you if I had that connection, you know? I felt so alone after she was gone. Like you were really gone.”
“Freja,” he breathed, not telling her to shush as she sobbed piteously in his arms. And he didn’t tell her he would be in her life forevermore because she wouldn’t believe him.
But he would be. As he stroked her hair and eased her into sleep, he silently made her that promise. I am here. I am yours. Always.
* * *
Freja became aware of being too warm, yet incredibly comfortable, the way she used to feel when she slept with—
Her eyes were still gritty with last night’s tears as she dragged them open to see Giovanni’s bearded throat.
He was awake, watching her through heavy lashes as his strong arms cradled her protectively. He was rock-hard against her stomach.
She quirked a brow at him. Some things never change.
His mouth dented at one corner with mild self-disgust. Boys will be boys.
The sweetest rush of affection suffused her. Something deeper, even, that she shied from acknowledging because she was still so gutted by hurt and betrayal. By the loss of this. Sometimes, when they’d had nothing between them but skin, she had believed in happily-ever-after. Then he had been gone. He had left. That’s how it had felt, like an abandonment. She had felt so alone in these months without him, she could hardly face each day.
Last night had helped, though. It helped a lot to know she wasn’t alone in her grief.
Last night’s moment of need was over, though. She ought to roll away. Her defenses were still down and if she gave in to the compulsion to set her mouth against his skin and signal other needs, she would be in over her head again in no time.
“I can see you trying to make up your mind,” he said in a voice that held a morning rasp. “We’ll take it slower this time.”
His statement instantly infuriated her. “To where? Just because I’m thinking about sex, doesn’t mean I want to stay married.”
“Is that all you want?” A gruff laugh cut from his throat before his thick arms flexed to shift her against him, the subtle friction enough to bring every cell in her body to life. “Because you know I’m always up for that.”
They were nose to nose and she could have given him a hard shove, but she kissed him. With aggression. Daring him to reject her. In fact, she threw her leg across him in a way that was pure muscle memory. Straddling him in the morning had been as routine as their shared breakfast and coffee.
He didn’t roll onto his back to drag her atop him, though. He pressed her onto her back and loomed over her, one hand fondling her breast, teasing her nipple through lace as he kissed the hell out of her. His beard was surprisingly silky. An added sensation as he thrust his tongue between her lips so blatantly, she grew weak with yearning. A helpless noise throbbed in her throat.
He lifted his head and asked, “Is this really what you want?” His hand left her breast and gathered the short silk of her nightgown onto her stomach.
When he discovered she wasn’t wearing underwear, he swore and thrust back the blankets.
“You’ve been naked under this all night?” he hissed in outrage.
“I always—Ohh.”
He traced into her damp curls, parting her swollen folds, sending a rush of throbbing need through her whole body. She groaned and tried to close her legs against the intensity.
“Oh, no,” he growled into her neck, using his body and his good thigh to keep her flat on the bed, legs open. “But be quiet or Marie will hear you.”
He closed his mouth over her nipple and used his tongue to rub the rough lace of her nightgown against the swollen bud. At the same time, he eased two thick fingers into her slick channel.
“Giovanni,” she hissed in acute pleasure, combing her fingers through his hair.
She played her hands over his shoulders, found his earlobes, made him bring his mouth to hers so they could kiss again, but as had often been the case, she was way ahead of him. Moments later, she wound up shattering, her cries of ecstasy muffled by his passionate kiss.
His touch grew tender, his kisses gentle. When she blinked open her eyes, his gray eyes were swirling like molten metal, turbulent with unsatisfied desire.
“Thank you. I needed that.” His touch made a final circle of her damp, still sensitized flesh, sending a latent contraction through her. “I always want you, Freja. Always. Never doubt that. But I want more than this.” He removed his hand and drew her nightgown down her thighs. “I want you to trust me with more than your body.”
He had disarmed her so many times this way, leaving her trembling and pliant. This time she had to shake her head and say, “I don’t know how I can.”
“I know. That’s why I thought we should wait for this.” His rueful gaze went down her body and the tick of his cheek told her of the supreme control he was exercising over his urges. He dropped a last kiss on her mouth, one that had her parting her lips the way dry earth opened its pores to take in the rain after a drought.
When he pulled away, they were both breathing in unsteady pants.
“I’m going to shower. You’d best find your own across the hall.” He sat up on the side of the bed, briefs straining to contain his rigid erection.
“Giovanni.” Her hand impulsively went to his spine, where there were old scars from long-ago surgeries. “Thank you for last night. I needed that.”
He caught her hand and twisted so he could press a kiss into her palm. For one second, she glimpsed a grief so profound, she wanted to pull him back into bed with her.
But he pulled away, transferring himself into his chair before he rolled into the bathroom.
She lay there a long time, hugging his pillow so she could breathe in his scent while she wondered if she really could do as he asked and trust him again.
* * *
Giovanni heard the helicopter as he was dressing.
He was still edgy with arousal and annoyed that they had to return to civilization so quickly. The original plan had been for Everett to
quietly escort Freja to the SUV without any drama whatsoever. Giovanni had intended to whisk her quietly from the city and have as much time as they needed to reconcile before they were thrust into the spotlight again.
With Freja, however, one always had to expect the unexpected. That’s why Giovanni had followed his intuition and said to the driver, “Pull around to the alley.”
So Giovanni braced himself for just about anything as he moved into the lounge, finding only Everett at the island, sipping coffee. Marie was cooking. Freja was on the veranda, sitting at the small table that caught an hour of sunlight when beams angled into the valley, low and bright, first thing in the morning.
“Are Mummy and Daddy still fighting? Or have you kissed and made up?”
“You and I have had a good run, Everett. Don’t ruin it by making me kill you.” Giovanni smiled at Marie. “We’ll eat outside with Freja.”
“Freja is on a call with her intended,” Everett supplied. “He wanted proof of life or he was going to provide these coordinates to anyone who would listen.”
Giovanni shot him one dour look, then smoothly headed outside.
“—feel obliged to give it back,” Nels was saying.
“You will not,” Freja said firmly. “The financial side of our agreement stands. You’ll still have a job, too.” She flicked a defiant stare at Giovanni. “I won’t stand for anything less considering the emotional distress you’re enduring with the press right now.”
“My concern is for you. You’re definitely safe?”
“Completely. And I’ll explain better once I’m back in New York. I’m really sorry for drawing you into this.” Moments later, she ended the call and handed the device back to Everett, saying coolly to Giovanni, “I didn’t have the skills to keep all that you’ve built from falling apart. Nels took it on in good faith and I expect you to reward him accordingly.”
“About that. If he behaves himself and doesn’t fight my retaking ownership, then yes, I will happily keep him on. But you and I are staying married until all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. If you want to divorce me after that, and sue me for more than what’s in your prenup, that’s fine, but I didn’t amass this fortune by trusting blindly.”