by Bethany-Kris
Tipping the glass up to her lips, she grinned a bit when Chris tilted his head to the side. “I should enjoy this one more,” she told him, “because I plan for it to be my last for a while.”
His lips split with the sexiest smirk. “Oh?”
She shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”
“True.”
Pushing away from the table, Chris strode across the kitchen floor with determined, purposeful steps. Each one that he took brought him closer and closer for Valeria. She swore her heart felt every single one of them, too.
God.
She loved this man.
He would never know how much.
She didn’t know the words to say.
Valeria managed to empty what little wine was left in her glass before Chris caught it with his own hand. He set it to the countertop behind her while the pad of his thumb came up to stroke her bottom lip with a touch that had shivers racing straight down her spine.
Yes.
It was going to be a damn good night.
She could tell already.
He moved in a little closer, the sway of his body and sensual curve of his lips only adding to his appeal when he murmured, “Do you hear the music?”
“It should be illegal to look like you do in a pair of slacks with a dress shirt rolled up to your elbows.”
Chris chuckled. “But what about the music?”
“Yes, I hear it.”
The current song just happened to be something sexier and fast paced. A popular club song that had people moving close to grind and sway to the beat together.
“Dance with me,” he said, putting his hand out palm up for her to take.
This time, it wasn’t a request.
Val wouldn’t deny him.
Couldn’t.
Why would she when he looked like he did waiting for her? The second her palm met his, Chris’s fingers tightened around hers, and he pulled her away from the counter. Somehow, it seemed like the music became louder when he spun her to him. Her chest molded against his, and her palm came up to rest between them while her fingernails dug just a little into his chest.
She wanted him to feel that heat, too. The same heat he awoke in her every single time he touched her. Every morning he woke her up by being between her thighs. Each husky call of her name.
All of him.
She never thought to ask where Chris learned to dance like he knew exactly how to move his body to each and every song played on the radio, but the man did. The way he could move his hips in time with hers while keeping her close enough that he could feel every one of her racing heartbeats while his mouth was attacking her neck made her weak in the knees every single time.
Then again, everything this man did made her feel that way. From the grins on his face in the mornings to the way he took his time stripping her naked in the kitchen after their dance before lifting her up to the counter and stepping between her thighs.
He stroked her awake.
With a dance.
Then a strip.
A teasing touch.
A promising kiss.
“God, I love you,” he breathed into their kiss.
“I love you more than you will ever know, Chris.”
Because she’d not yet found the right way to tell him. God knew she tried time and time again, yet each time she ended up with the same line: I love you.
That seemed to suit him just fine.
Cool air whispered over her naked skin. Yet, all she seemed to be was hot.
Chris made it so much better when he slid inside her, stretching her wide and filling her full with one thrust that took her straight up to heaven.
All she asked for then was more.
He gave her that, too.
14.
Chris
One month later ...
“NO, we’ll figure something out soon, Haven,” Val said. “Yeah, I promise. What’s happening over there, anyway?”
Chris came to stand in the doorway of his office to find Valeria sitting on the edge of the desk with her elbows resting against her knees while she talked on the phone. She caught sight of him instantly, telling her companion on the other end, “Just a sec, Haven.”
Pushing the phone against her chest, she gave him a smile. “Hey, can you put Maria to bed? She wants like a million stories, I guess. I haven’t talked to Haven all week, and—”
He shot her a grin. “No worries. I got her.”
Val blew him a kiss. “Thanks.”
“Make it up to me later.”
Her teasing laughter chased him out of the office doorway and continued even when he heard her say, “Yeah, I’m back, Haven.”
Heading down the hallway, Chris came to a stop in the doorway of a bedroom that had somehow become a pink disaster zone. And right there in the middle of it was Maria who played with a handful of dolls on her bed. At least, she had managed to tuck herself in.
“Teeth and hair brushed, PJs on, and a drink for bed?” he asked.
Maria looked up from her dolls, grinning. “Done, done and done.”
He really should thank Bene for teaching Maria that, but ... no.
“Where’s Mama?”
“On the phone with Haven. Figured I could read you bedtime stories tonight.”
“Okay!”
Chris smiled to himself while Maria rushed to clean her bed free of any toys except for the small pile of books off to the side. Maybe her mother had overexaggerated just a bit. It wasn’t a million books. But it was at least ten.
Reading was good for the soul, though.
He didn’t mind.
“Tomorrow,” Chris said as he navigated the war zone that had become Maria’s floor with all her dolls, their accessories, and the sleeping kittens that had somehow found places for their bed, “we’re cleaning this room.”
“Aw,” she groaned. “But why?”
“It’s a mess.”
“Except I know where everything is!”
As true as that may be ...
“We gotta clean it up,” Chris muttered, finally making his way to the bed. In no time at all, he’d made a decent place to sit beside a resting Maria with his back against the headboard of her bed. He reached for a book, but she was already handing him one. “Merci.”
“That one first.”
Chris peeked at the cover. “We read it fifteen times this week.”
The girl shrugged. “And it’s still my favorite.”
“What’s fifteen more times, then?”
She beamed.
He grinned right back.
Honestly, this was his favorite part of the day. Or really, doing anything with Maria always made everything better. He loved his girl. Messy room and all. But they would still be cleaning the damn thing tomorrow one way or another.
Chris made it through three books before Maria handed him the next in her pile. The title? My New Little Sister. It made him pause because he hadn’t seen the book on her shelves before, and this was the first time she’d ever asked for him to read it. But a quick turn of the page explained exactly where the book came from. The school’s library stamp on the title page and the little card on the slot inside said everything.
“Missy has a new baby sister,” Maria said, although more to herself than to Chris, he thought. “She said the book was good, so I got it next.”
“Oh?”
“Mmhmm. Will I have one, too?”
Okay, that made him quiet.
For all of three seconds because kids were smarter than a lot of adults gave them credit for and even when one didn’t think they were listening, they probably were. They heard a lot more than anyone thought, and knew more than people assumed.
Especially his kid.
Nearly a month after Valeria’s appointment with her doctor where she didn’t get her birth control switched, and the two of them had more conversations than he could count about adding to their family. Despite trying to have those chats away from young ears, there w
as a good chance Maria had heard them talking about it once or twice nonetheless.
Unless she asked, however, he wasn’t going to bring it up. Adult conversations were meant to stay between adults unless there was no other choice but to bring it to a child’s attention. If Maria didn’t outright say she heard her mom and dad talking, then Chris wasn’t going to pry the information out of her.
“Would you be happy,” he started to ask, “if you had a baby brother or sister?”
Maria shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”
He chuckled. “Only think?”
“Well, my room would still be my room, right?”
“But you might have to keep it picked up. There’s a lot of little things in here that babies don’t understand they can’t put into their mouth. We wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“Right,” Maria said, nodding once. “I could keep my room clean.”
“And share toys.”
She sighed. “Well ...”
“We can come back to it,” he said, attempting to hide his laughter.
“Maybe we should,” she agreed, “but I still think I want one.”
“We’ll see.”
• • •
Chris had just closed the door to Maria’s bedroom when a throat clearing down the hall had him looking up to find the source of the sound leaning against the wall. There stood Valeria with a frown on her pretty face and an item in her hand that he hadn’t expected to see.
A pregnancy test.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She shrugged as he came closer, and then took the test from her once he was close enough to grab it. It only took a quick look down at the white and pink strip of plastic for him to understand the source of her sadness.
Not Pregnant, the digital screen spelled out clearly.
“My period hasn’t started yet,” Val said quietly, “but it’s been a month, and so I figured I should at least take one and see, right? Maybe we’d be lucky, and—”
“It’s only been a month,” he was quick to say, dropping the pregnancy test into the pocket of his slacks so that she wouldn’t have to keep staring at it. Because clearly she looked at that test and only saw failure. Chris was not the same. “Do you know how rare it is to get pregnant the first month of trying, Val?”
“Well—”
“Hey.”
In a breath, Chris closed the distance between the two of them so that he could wrap Valeria in his embrace. There, he hid her away from the world and nothing was wrong. No one could touch her or hurt her. She was too perfect for that nonsense, anyway; too sweet to be sad or anything of the sort.
Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he murmured, “Just give it some time.”
“How long do we give it before—”
“No befores; no buts. None of that, mia cara.”
She let out a slow, steady stream of air. “You always know the right things to say, don’t you?”
Chris smirked and then leaned in to let her kiss him on the mouth. “Kind of my job. It’s what I do.”
And he didn’t mind a bit.
15.
Valeria
Four months later ...
“MRS. Guzzi,” the man drawled from his seat behind his desk, “if you’re not one-hundred percent invested in entering a program at this school, then—”
Valeria’s gaze narrowed at the bored tone of the admissions officer of the university. “Excuse me?”
“Well, you didn’t let me finish.”
“Why would I?” Valeria shot back. “You began this conversation with that statement. Assuming I’m not invested in an education, or rather, getting one. Is that how you greet every potential student that comes into this office?”
The man said nothing.
Not right away.
Valeria didn’t mind.
Ignorant asshole.
It wasn’t entirely the admissions officer’s fault for Valeria’s bad mood, but she figured if he was going to be terrible, then who better to put her mood on? Add in the fact she was four months in to trying for a baby and had yet to get pregnant despite actively tracking her cycle—after it returned to normal two months after having the IUD removed—and everything else the doctors and the internet told her she should do, and yet ... no baby.
No pregnancy.
She was starting to think something was wrong. Not that she had anything to give her that indication except for a lack of pregnancy, but she couldn’t help the way her mind went. Today, on her way home, she should pick up a pregnancy test and take it because she was, once again, two days late for her period.
Same as last month.
Yet, Valeria had a distinct feeling she wasn’t pregnant. Once again. Maybe the cramping in her midsection didn’t help either, a good signal that her period was going to start very soon.
With the stress of that, and the attitude of this man greeting her the way he had almost to the second she sat down across from him, and Valeria was just over this day. It wasn’t like her to be so short-tempered, but everybody had their days.
This day was clearly hers.
Chris gave her more than enough time—and repeated the sentiment time and time again—to figure out what she wanted to do. He had close to thirty businesses spread across Ontario and Quebec—she could pick one to run if she wanted. Or she could stay home with her daughter. Maybe even go to school.
It was her call.
He said nothing.
Valeria finally decided that she would like to go back to school. Likely for business, or something relating to business. The second she made that decision, she was told to pick a university, and Chris even came home with a stack of pamphlets to help her choose. Any school she wanted, she could go. If they wouldn’t take her then they would pay her way in.
Val almost wanted to laugh at that—she’d not even finished high school, although the papers Chris brought home one day said she did. A private tutor was ready to be at her beck and call as soon as she started a university to help her along the way.
It was a privilege she’d never had.
Yet, Val wanted to try to do this on her own. Take some courses that would look good. Get her GED and work with online courses to add to her list of credits. Would it take longer? Oh, yeah. By a couple of years, but that was the right way.
Chris didn’t argue.
“You know what,” Valeria said, deciding to stand from her chair and leave the meeting altogether, “I don’t think today is the right time for this. I have some other things going on, and perhaps I’m just too sensitive right now to discuss something like furthering my education.”
Across the desk, the officer folded his arms over his chest and eyed Valeria with a bit more respect than he had earlier. “You’re a great candidate for a good many programs at this school, Mrs. Guzzi. The plan laid out in your file to get your transcripts where they need to be is perfect and exactly what you need to do. I hope to see you sitting on the other side of this desk for us to have another conversation when you’re ready.”
Valeria smiled and nodded. “Me, too. Thank you.”
“Have a good day.”
“You, too.”
• • •
Later that day, Valeria opened the bathroom door to find Chris leaning against the wall where she had left him before entering the bathroom to take her pregnancy test. He took one look at her face and sighed.
“Not pregnant?” he asked.
Valeria shrugged and handed over the test. “No. Again.”
“Val—”
“At what point do we move on from it’s just taking some time to there might be something wrong, Chris?”
He tapped the test against his hand. A rhythmic tap-tap-tap that for whatever reason, she found incredibly soothing. He said nothing and she watched him smack that thin strip of plastic against the palm of his hand for too many minutes to count.
“There’s nothing wrong,” he murmured.
“That took you at least two minu
tes to say.”
Their gazes met, but he smiled and shrugged even if she was in no mood to be happy.
“Doesn’t make it any less true, though,” he pointed out.
“But something might be wrong,” she replied.
“Or we haven’t given it enough time. It’s like ... there’s only a couple days in the month where anything can even happen, Val. We’re busy. You run back and forth between here and New York. We have another kid who makes us tired a lot of the time. You want to go to school—I have work all over the city all day. Who is to say we’re not just ... missing the mark?”
Except she tracked her cycles.
And when they had sex.
She knew ...
Valeria opted not to point any of that out to Chris.
“But,” he said quietly, stepping in closer to her with open arms that she took because his embrace always made her feel better when nothing else did, “if it would make you feel better, I could see about an appointment with a fertility specialist.”
She gave him a look.
He sighed, quickly adding, “Not because I think something is wrong, but because I think they could give us some information about what to know, what to look for, and what our options are if it continues like this.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, babe. I’ll do anything you want.”
“But you still don’t think something is wrong?”
“It’s only been a few months, Val. Maybe the universe—or God—is just saying not yet.”
Or maybe something was wrong.
Lots of women had one child, and experienced infertility after the fact. There was a whole name for it and everything. She didn’t want to worry, but that was kind of impossible. And as each month passed with no positive pregnancy test, she realized just how much she actually wanted a second child.
Chris hugged her tighter like he could read her mind. “Whatever you need, Val. I promise.”
16.
Chris
“HOW are things here?” Corrado asked. “Heard you’ve been stepping up a bit more for Papa, huh? Never thought to mention that to me when we talk on the phone. Then again, you don’t call as much as you used to.”