by Selena Kitt
“Oh? I thought it was yours,” Keyonna retorted. “Let me clear the air about one thing at least. About Mark; if you must know, I really liked him. Loved him even. But not in the way he wanted. And now, all I can do is pity him if it’s someone like you he ever ends up saddled with.”
“Save your pity for yourself,” Trisha spat, but Keyonna was already turning and walking back down to where her car was parked, legs shaky but heart feeling strangely light. Now all she had to worry about was the next move to take…
* * * *
Keyonna stepped out of the elevator and unto Nick’s floor, where his secretary Brenda was working on her computer.
“Hello, is Nick in?” Keyonna asked and to her surprise, the bespectacled brunette looked up with a guilty start.
“Mrs. Vitale! Ah, yes…he’s in but he’s um…”
As the secretary blubbered on, Keyonna became suspicious. She’d only ever shown up at Nick’s office twice; both times on his invitation to meet for lunch. Those visits had been planned – this was not. But what could be making Brenda’s face flush so deeply?
Without another word, Keyonna walked to the door of Nick’s office, ignoring the secretary’s, “Mrs. Vitale, please…”
* * * *
Inside, Nick was trying to get Lena to leave. He was done talking.
“Get out,” he said in a quietly menacing voice. “Get the hell out of here; out of my life. You’ve had your fun.”
Lena’s eyes sparked defiance. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” And then her expression softened to genuine hurt. “We’re family, Nick. And we’re supposed to stick together. I’m sorry if I caused you pain. I’m willing to make it up to you. Anything you want.”
She moved closer to him, resting her hands on his suited shoulders.
Nick had reached beyond the limits of his self-control. At that moment he could gladly wring Len’s neck, but instead settled for grabbing hold of her arms. Fuck security. He was looking forward to throwing her out himself.
“Nick,” Lena said, aghast. He could tell she was surprised by his uncharacteristic lack of cool. He’d never, ever laid hands on a woman the way he wanted to do to Lena right then. She’d manipulated his life far too long. He could feel her fingers clutch tightly to his lapels, as if intent to forestall the embarrassment of being flung out of his office. Too late, Nick fumed, readying to do just that.
Just then, the door sprang open.
Keyonna stood there, looking on the scene with widened eyes. Nick cursed beneath his breath as he met her shocked gaze. He could only imagine how this must look. Dios! Him and Lena, caught tightly in each other’s arms. Great, just great. Fate was intent on raining shit on him.
But before he could explain to the frozen Keyonna, she turned from them with a sob and stumbled quickly back, heading straight for the elevator.
Nick shoved the clinging Lena abruptly from him, and went right after Keyonna, who’d just sped past his wide-eyed secretary. Nick saw Keyonna enter the elevator doors which already started to close after her just as he reached them.
“Keyonna, wait!” Nick said, just as the twin doors slid to a close. On an oath, he made for the stairs, intent on one thing: getting her to listen to his explanation.
“Dammit, Keyonna, stop!” he said under his breath when, on reaching the ground floor parking lot, he saw her already driving off. There was no way he could go after her now, not with his own car in his private garage.
“Great!” he let out in frustration. He could just imagine what she must have concluded with him locked in another woman’s grip, but…
He stopped short as he recalled the expression on Keyonna’s face as she’d stood there.
Maybe he was just being fanciful…but it sure seemed as if she’d known. Remembered everything. Her eyes had held the look that said she’d seen this before.
The thought made him go crazy.
It was bad enough being caught in a compromising situation with another woman, but did Keyonna recognize Lena from the wedding reception? Was that it? Could that be the reason for the look of betrayal on her face, like he’d let her down somehow? Again?
Fuck! Nick smashed his fist into the nearby concrete wall, not even flinching at the pain. He would have to find her, he swore. And prayed it wasn’t too late to set the records straight.
* * * *
The evening gloom had long settled by the time Keyonna pulled to a stop in front of their home.
Drawing deep breaths, she let herself in quietly. She knew Nick had to be in; she’d seen his car in the driveway. Her chest thumped as she moved towards his study, the only room which was lit in the whole dim, silent house.
The light flooding from the study’s open doorway fell on the darkened corridor as she advanced with noiseless steps.
She found Nick seated at his desk, head buried in his folded arms. The dejected picture he made cut her straight to the chest. He hadn’t noticed her presence, and she couldn’t stop the soft call that spilled from her lips in the hope of catching his attention before she came any closer.
“Nick…”
His head shot up at the sound of her voice and she drew in air at the pain mirrored in his eyes – soon replaced by one of relief at the sight of her.
“Keyonna…Dios. I was so worried you’d run off again,” he rasped, up on his feet and then closing the space between them before she could even blink. Keyonna was engulfed in his warm embrace as he squeezed her tight.
“I’m sorry if I worried you,” she said quietly. “I just needed time to think things over.”
Nick drew back, holding her at arm’s length and quelling her to meet his gaze. “Before you say anymore, you need to know this: I love you. More than I ever thought it possible to love anyone in my life. Forget what you saw or heard that day in the garden at the reception.”
Keyonna stared up at him, stiffening. “How did you know I’ve got my memory back?”
“You still don’t understand it, do you, how attuned I’ve become to your emotions, your expressions?” Nick asked with a gentle smile, combing his fingers through her loose, tousled locks. “I sensed something was different; the way you looked when you stood there earlier today.” He shook his head with a grimace. “Part of me is happy that you’re okay now, but if it’s going to change the way you feel about me.”
At his words, she pulled out of his hold, feeling his reluctance to let her go even as she slipped away to stand by the window, looking out.
“So, how did it happen? How did you remember everything?” he asked with a weary sigh.
Keyonna shrugged, hugging her arms to herself. “Nothing fantastic, I’m afraid. I simply took one look at Trisha and suddenly, it just…clicked.”
“Trisha?”
Keyonna turned to view Nick’s confused frown. “Mark’s cousin – well, adopted cousin. You might have heard that Marilyn Tucker, Mark’s aunt, has an adopted daughter. Well, like you once did, she believed I’d treated Mark unfairly. Anyway, she was the one who fed me stories about your one time involvement with your stepmother.”
And quelling her inner distaste for the topic, Keyonna related everything Trisha had told her, and how she’d followed him and his stepmother and found them alone together.
“It wasn’t just the things you said,” Keyonna said, shoulders hunched as her arms tightened around her shivering frame. “But the way you said them. Like I was nothing to you. Like I didn’t matter at all. Back then, I was stupid enough to think I could love you for both of us. I’d begun to nurse feelings for you despite the fact that you’d blackmailed me into being your wife for a year. I kept telling myself I could make you care. But that day I realized that I couldn’t bear the thought that you married me but loved someone else.”
“Oh God, Keyonna,” Nick groaned, stepping forward as if to come to her, but she backed away, and this made him pause as he flinched.
Sighing raggedly, he pushed fingers back through his ruffled hair. “It’s true that wh
en I was younger, I believed myself infatuated with Lena. We lived in the same house, saw each other every day. She was married to my father but was closer to me in age and I was at that point in my life that I really hated my father and didn’t care about going against him. I was so sure Lena felt the same for me but she was much too good at withholding her feelings. I told her to run off with me but she bluntly refused, claiming not to want to come between my father and me. Devastated, I left home, determined to make it on my own. But a few years ago my father reached out to me, saying he was ill and didn’t have much time. I never knew if he’d guessed what had almost happened between Lena and me, and frankly I didn’t care because my feelings for her had long died. I was ready to put it all behind me if my father would. We were never close, him and I, but we grew to have a grudging respect for each other and when he died, I did feel the loss very strongly for a man who never tried to know his son like a father should.”
Nick turned away for a moment, shoulders rigid. “One thing I never did put behind me though, was Lena’s rejection. It made me cynical about love and about women. I always believed she’d stayed with my father because of his money and power, and wasn’t going to give that up for any short-lived passion she said was all we’d ever have. Anyway, I had no wish to ever fall in love; romance or a woman’s affection meant nothing to me. That’s why Rachel suited me just fine. She didn’t pretend to love me. We had an understanding; we knew the score. She didn’t care that I could never give her the true intimate passion a man can provide a woman he truly cares for.”
He moved forward once more, and this time didn’t stop until he was right before her. Keyonna edged back against the wall, though her eyes were mesmerized by the dark flames swelling in his gaze.
“That’s why I was such a jerk to you at that party when I overheard you turning Mark down. It was like watching a re-hash of what had happened between me and Lena. To me you were just like those opportunistic females always holding out for something better. Dumb, isn’t it? What made it worse was how attracted I’d been with you from day one. I was so torn that I couldn’t stop myself from sticking my neck in. But I’m glad I did because it gave me the excuse I needed to get close to you.”
He cupped her face, his hold firm so that she had no choice but to look up into his smoldering gaze. “And the things I said to Lena in that garden…the stuff you must have overhead…Cara, that was just big talk, don’t you see? My feelings for you were still too raw to confess to anyone, and certainly not to my stepmother. I didn’t want to risk her laughing in my face for being such a softie. But it was that stupid pride of mine that sent you away from me. When I said those things, I didn’t mean them and I certainly didn’t mean for you to hear me say them.”
He rubbed his thumbs against her cheeks, his eyes soft with a stirring plea. “You believe me, don’t you? Please tell me you believe me.”
Keyonna’s gaze fell. “I don’t know what to believe. It all sounded so real. I felt empty and used. I kept thinking how I never really felt good enough. That you picked me just because I was gullible and easily bent to your will. I just felt…I wanted to die. And when you kissed her.”
Nick let out a dismayed sound. “Keyonna, she kissed me. And short of throwing her off me, I tried to endure it. If you’d waited long enough, you’d have seen me wrench myself away from her. Afterwards she called the kiss a ‘congratulatory gesture’ now that my marriage had earned me my ‘fortune’. Little had I known she’d set up the whole display for your benefit. And when I got back to the reception and you were nowhere to be found, I almost went berserk. I couldn’t believe you could just get up and leave without a word.”
“It was childish of me, I know,” Keyonna breathed, her gaze sinking low. “I guess I’d always been an escapist; preferring to run and hide than stay and fight. But I wish I had stayed. I wish I’d given you the chance to explain. And now…”
“And now what?” he asked, and Keyonna could tell he was striving to keep the anxiety from his tone.
“And now I know you do love me,” Keyonna said at last, gazing up into his eyes at last. “Maybe not at first, but I guess you let yourself grow into the idea that maybe you do care for me after all.”
She smiled impishly, and Nick suddenly hugged her in relief, his grip so hard it made her squeal. “Care for you? You are la vita mia, Keyonna. My life. I knew the potential of what we could share. That’s why I made you think we needed to be married for a year, which wasn’t true. All I required was the marriage certificate to make it valid. But I needed an excuse to make sure you stayed as long as it took until we could discover how deep this could go between us. Now to keep you I’d give up everything, even the stupid billions that got us together.”
“I wouldn’t call the Vitale fortune ‘stupid billions’,” Keyonna murmured teasingly. “At least, it made you desperate enough to marry someone like me.”
Her eyes twinkled up at him, referring to that first night they’d clashed on the balcony and he’d told her exactly what he’d thought of any man falling for ‘someone like her’.
“It made me the luckiest guy alive,” Nick said soberly, and as he bent his head to slant his lips over hers in an open-mouthed kiss, words faded as he let his heart do the talking. “Never leave me again.”
Epilogue
Oh hell no.
Nick did not forget today was their wedding anniversary. Keyonna frowned as she checked the time while stirring furiously on the different pots on the stove.
She heaved a sigh, glad that the kids were with her best pal Natasha, who had one toddler of her own with her utterly adorable husband Hurley who also happened to be her publisher. Natasha had stopped working with the magazine, and had left celeb gossip to focus on her writing career. Now she wrote fictional novels about the rich and glamorous, and her books were selling out stores and making all the top ten lists. Keyonna was really happy for her.
Not that Keyonna was doing bad herself. Yes she had a billionaire husband but she was proud to have her own career. Thanks to her daring investment moves, in two years she was more or less raking in the millions and now she could pick the design jobs she wanted to do. These days many of her clients were A-list celebrities – and when she could spare a minute off taking care of her three and four year-old sons, she was either creating a home office for a talk show host, a guest bedroom for a supermodel or a nursery for a rock band bass guitarist.
So yeah, her life was pretty much perfect. She had a wonderful career, marvelous kids she adored and a husband she loved but would skin alive if he forgot to come home on time for their anniversary.
Keyonna resisted the urge to ring Nick’s cell, knowing he might probably be on his private plane getting back. She hoped. His business trip had taken longer than either of them had expected – almost two weeks. In the past week she’d restrained from mentioning anything about the anniversary. Part of her wanted to think he was deliberately keeping mum about it too, as a surprise – but another part of her was scared he’d completely forgot.
Which meant she was taking a big risk for not bringing it up this morning to remind him when they’d spoken for a few minutes.
“I miss you, piccino,” he’d said deeply, and Keyonna could remember how she’d squirmed in her covers since she’d still been in bed when he’d called early that morning. She wondered why he continued to call her that pet name ‘tiny one’ when Keyonna felt anything but right then.
Thinking about that, Keyonna suddenly paused in front of the reflective door of the refrigerator and viewed her figure from different angles. Yep, she was as huge as a house, especially with baby number three in the oven.
“And I miss little Nando and Gio. And baby Aida,” Nick had added, and Keyonna had rolled her eyes. Ever since Nick knew they were having a girl, he’d been over the moon, already had the name set and Keyonna just went with it because well okay, it was great to see him so happy.
“We all miss you, Nicky,” Keyonna crooned, hiding a giggle.
If any of his he-men cousins or tough business associates and competitors had a clue what Nick let her get away with calling him…But it felt so sexy that she could get so irreverent with her big, hunky business magnate husband. And hey, she let him get away with calling her ‘tiny’ and ‘flea’ all the time in Italian – though those names sounded nice when he said them in that delightful native tongue.
There’d been a whole lot of soul, sweat and tears she’d put in this marriage but the best part of it was being validated every single day by her loving man. No one ever thought they’d last this long but here they were, five years on and still going strong.
Keyonna stared one more time at her reflection and tried not to cry for the figure she’d lost and might not get back in a hurry. Her tits were humungous and it felt like she was carrying a barrel beneath her jersey wrap dress.
Oh shit, she thought, suddenly panicking. Was she ever going to be sexy again? How could Nick even stand to look at her now? She’d always been dedicated in shedding her pregnancy-gain with her last two babies. But it was almost three years since Gio, and with this pregnancy she seemed to have doubled in size. From the start Nick had been supportive and told her she was still the most beautiful woman in the world especially with carrying his babies. But now, checking herself out Keyonna couldn’t help feeling a pang of glumness.
He always told her she had that glow; that special beauty of imminent childbirth that expectant mothers have.
Keyonna knew enough about the things that came with imminent childbirth. It made you hungry, horny and fat. In the past two weeks since Nick was gone she’d given in to her food cravings as much as she could without pigging out, but when it came to her bedroom needs, nothing could ever do but her devastatingly capable husband giving her the lovin’ her body deserved.
So where was he, Keyonna thought, biting on her thumbnail as she thought of all that food warmingin the oven. The gourmet food plus his favorite Mediterranean salads and their best wine – for him since she couldn’t have alcohol. Everything was set up right to the candlelight for the dinner and the rose petals on the sheets in the bedroom.