“That sounds amazing.” She clapped her hands together. “Thanks for cooking all of this for us.”
“Good to have someone to cook for, Miss. We don’t get a lot of guests here at Stoker Estate.” Edwin was proper and matter of fact as he pulled the small golden roasted game hens out of the oven. There were four of them all glistening and slick on the pan.
“Stoker Estate? Your house has a name?”
“When you have this much house, it has to have a name, my dear.” I winked at her. “Ed, this is Kylie.” I made introductions.
Kylie reached out her hand to him as he wiped his hand on the apron. “You’re all over the news my dear, congratulations on your engagement, Ms. Morgan.” A tickle of molten lava shot up my spine.
It was one thing to be playing at marrying Kylie, but when people such as my staff were swallowing the bait, it was hard not to blow our cover. Kylie, being very well-versed in living a false life, smiled and batted her beautiful eyes.
“Thank you.” She turned to me with face all aglow. “We are really excited.”
I did all I could not to stumble on my words. I was one hundred percent into this until I heard a member of my inner sanctum refer to Kylie and me getting married. This was all going to take some getting used to. Though I wanted to just bowl right into this, I suddenly had my reservations.
Chapter 25
Kylie
I had to admit the lake was beautiful, and Alec’s mansion, ostentatious and excessive. It spoke volumes about the kind of man he was. He lived in the city in a stark apartment but hid a lakeside mansion rife with expensive artwork, simple modern furniture, and thick shaggy rugs. Though the walls sported a fine mist of mint crème green, it was still balanced against white. It was obvious to me that he didn’t really like to live. He must have gone through the motions not really experiencing the joys. At that moment, I was grateful for my posse. We lived life; we were crazy lunatics who just embraced whatever came at us. And I was notorious for dripping chocolate ice cream and pasta sauce on stuff when I ate, so all the white gave me the heebs.
Alec’s face looked very greenish-yellow, a color variant of the walls. Apparently, he hadn’t told anyone about his plan to marry me; that was rich. I enjoyed watching him squirm a little; at least he knew what it felt like. He looked seriously off-kilter, though, perhaps he really was hungry.
“Dinner is almost ready,” Edwin said. “Would you like to eat in the main dining room or in the solarium?”
I didn’t say it, but the solarium sounded fun. The main dining room in a place like that made me think of those stuffy dinners where rich people sat at opposite ends of a banquet table.
“Oh, can we eat in the solarium? It’s been a while since I’ve seen this much nature. I’d love to eat in a room with a view.”
“Solarium it is.” He had the fakest smile I’d ever seen him sport, which made me giggle. Good thing the joke was lost on the caretaker. “We’ll get washed up first; thank you.” He put his hand on my back and shuffled me away from the kitchen.
I ran a little to keep up with his brisk walk. “Is everything okay?” I asked as soon as I was able to catch him.
“Fine. I just need a shower.” He began to trudge up three flights of stairs to the top. “You’ll sleep in here with me,” he growled as he opened two large doors to a bedroom suite that made my insides bottom out.
An enormous bed took up most of the space in the back of a room with a glorious view of the lake. On the opposite side of the room was a large sectional sofa, a massive television screen, and a huge bathtub big enough for four people in an elevated alcove. The room was easily as big as most people’s houses.
“This is an insane room, Alec, but since we have all this space, maybe I should sleep somewhere close.” I shrugged my shoulders and plastered a plaintive grin on my face; it was worth pleading for a little space, though I doubted he’d grant it.
He turned and took his phone out of his pocket and snapped a picture. It was beyond weird, and my expression crumbled in confusion, and he snapped another.
“What the hell are you doing, freak?” I tried to be playful, ’cause frankly, he was scaring me some; his mood swings were so odd.
“You make such funny faces. I want to capture them. I like when you’re playful.” His demeanor had changed yet again; he was still dark and commanding, but less angry.
“Well, I like when you’re playful too. Playful and not scary and sinister ... and these teeter-tottering emotions of yours are giving me a headache. What’s up?” I walked over and bounced on the bed, something to quell my nervous energy.
“I haven’t shared this room since …” He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he might cry. “Never mind. Edwin will have our dinner ready soon. We don’t want it to get cold. He’s pretty particular about what he cooks and the temperature at which it’s served. Come on, the bathroom is this way.” There he was dominating again.
“I’m showering with you?” I acted incredulous, though the idea of being with him again had my pussy firing off.
“Quickest way I can think of.”
“Um, not when you’re naked it’s not,” I teased.
He gently grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. “They’re called quickies for a reason,” was all he said as he disrobed me.
He was impressively hard when we entered the shower and without conversation or ceremony, he started lathering up my body with soft lavender soap and turned me to face the wall. My breasts pressed against the cool tiles as he took my hips and drew them closer to his body then positioned himself at my pussy and slid himself in.
Still overwhelmed by his size, all I could do was hold his hands which were still at my hips and dip my head back to his shoulder as he gently pulsed his cock in and out deeper and deeper until he was buried.
“I like this, Alec.” I jutted myself back on him. “I like you,” I started to pant a little as he began thrusting. “But you’re hard to predict ...” I sucked in air, “... and scary at times.” His hands came up from my hips and looped around my shoulders pinning me against him as he fucked me hard. “Like now …” I gasped.
“Oh, you like this.” He lightly bit my shoulder as one hand rounded the front of me to my clit and pressed and pinched as he rocked me to the moon. I came hard, bellowing into the spray of water that was drenching us.
“Holy fuck! Alec.”
He kept going at me until I shattered and lost my ability to stand, impaled on his cock. Until he released me, all I could do was swim in my euphoria.
His hand wrapped around my belly and brought me as close to his cock as he could physically get and in that position, he filled me with his release, convulsing load after load into me.
“Goddamn, Kylie. I have never cum this hard! Jesus.” He collapsed me against the wall as he breathed in my ear and we waited for our bodies to find Earth again.
I tilted my head to him and tried to play it all off. “Yep, I’m good for the best cum you’ve ever had.” I pulled him out of me and darted out from under his grasp then playfully slapped his ass, though I was a bit hurt. I needed to be more than a really good fuck, yet it was becoming apparent that was all I was. I rinsed off and got out of the shower before he did.
As I stood shivering in his inordinately large bathroom, I searched for towels. There was nothing. Only a small soap canister on the counter and a clear glass bathroom scale on the floor populated the empty pristine space. He came in also dripping and a little bewildered as he walked to the wall and pressed a panel that opened up to reveal a stack of fluffy white towels. He grabbed one and flicked it open but didn’t hand it to me, just walked over and draped it around my shoulders.
“Planning on taking off again?” he asked as he dried my body with the towel. “I’ve noticed that after we fuck, you flee. I get your history, and why you might want to do that, but I’ve already told you I’m in this until the baby is born. We’re getting married next month, Kylie. We’re committed, or at least will be w
hen you sign the contracts.” He was all business again.
“Why were you angry when we walked in here?” I ignored his observations.
“As I’ve said I haven’t had anyone in here for a long time.”
“But I told you I’d sleep somewhere else, I don’t mind.” I stood my ground. “And am I just the mother of your child and a good fuck? I mean, I get the intrigue; I am super fucking famous, but so are you as we’ve said over and over again. Am I so much of a train wreck that you need to keep me under you naked and all sexed up?”
“How can the creator of a non-profit, a successful media identity, and a kind-hearted woman ever think she’s a train wreck?” His confusion only pissed me off more.
“Then what is it, Alec? What is wrong with you or me?” I hadn’t wanted to go there seeing that dinner was probably already on the table and getting cold.
He wrapped a towel around himself and used a small hand towel to briskly dry his hair then grabbed one last towel from the cabinet to wrap my dripping hair in, not saying a word. He walked into the bedroom and dressed in the clothes he removed from a white dresser. I was about to get something to wear out of my bag, which was on the floor near the door when he tossed a pair of soft sweatpants at me.
“Don’t worry about underwear; I plan to sex you up again.”
A T-shirt came hurtling through the air, which I grabbed on the fly.
The clothes weren’t his.
“So, um? These clothes belong to?” I felt oddly strange putting them on as they were just a little big larger than my size.
“My wife,” he said, and I almost threw up.
I stood there paralyzed as tears welled in my eyes. I knew he couldn’t offer to marry me if he was already married, but for some reason, all I could think of was that I didn’t belong, not with him, not in the lake house, and certainly not in his wife’s clothes.
I began to slip the pants off, my mind in a blur when he was on me, his hands keeping me from taking the sweats off. I dropped my towel, and my breasts laid bare to him.
“Please wear them.” He was kind and loving again.
“But don’t they belong to her?” I was shaking.
“She never wore these.” His voice choked a little. “When I saw that your belly had grown, I thought they might be more comfortable. She never got the chance to wear these.” He bit his lip. “She died.”
My heart suddenly broke for him.
Here I had thought I was the only one who’d faced tragedy, but he was struggling.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I put the T-shirt which read ‘First Time Mommy’ with two baby footprints walking across the belly.
When I looked down and saw the shirt, my emotions rioted. Part of me wanted to hate him for making me wear the shirt because it announced very boldly that I was pregnant, yet as we were just business partners in this, it also plays nicely the ‘let’s pretend we are happy we’re doing this’ scheme he’d designed. The other part of me was slowly coming to the realization that his wife had died when she was pregnant with their child.
“Come, I’m sure dinner is ready. I’ll explain when we’re downstairs.” He was quieter and more subdued.
I felt so uncomfortable wearing a dead woman’s clothes, but since he seemed so unbalanced, I went along with it as we left his bedroom. When we entered the solarium, my worries faded a little. Seeing the deep rich reds and oranges of an incredible sunset lighting the room and reflecting off the glass table, a warm euphoria overwhelmed and intoxicated me. The room was a magical place made to be one with nature entirely.
As everything in his penthouse was white, everything in his solarium, but for the white soft furniture was glass. I came to the realization that nothing he owned was kid-friendly, almost deliberately so.
Chapter 26
Alec
We walked silently to the solarium where Edwin had laid our dinner out in elegant style as per his usual. He must have been happy to have someone to serve. I’d left him and his family unattended for months. When Ava was alive, we came every weekend; she hated the city but loved the lake house. It was like a fairytale for her as she hadn’t come from money, and I loved to lavish her. She hated my money, but I didn’t flaunt it. I only used it to make her happy, and the simplest things used to bring her joy, like that damn T-shirt. I had bought it in the hospital gift shop the day we found out we were pregnant. She loved it but said she wanted to wear it when she knew for sure everything was going to be okay with the birth.
The women in Ava’s family had a hard time carrying their pregnancies to term. There was some medical explanation about their wombs being an odd shape, but I had every confidence our child would be perfectly fine. At her four months checkup, we found out she was having a girl ... our daughter. I didn’t think I could be happier. We had planned a trip to the lake house and dinner with neighbors who she’d befriended and with whom I’d since lost touch. We were getting ready to walk the two hundred yards to their home, the only other residence on this side of the lake when she started cramping. The memory haunts me to this day.
I pulled out the chair for Kylie to take a seat at the table and instantly regretted letting my emotions get away with themselves. Seeing Kylie in the bedroom I’d shared with Ava suddenly flooded me with a mix of hopefulness and pain. Kylie was no less remarkable than Ava, but they were entirely different people, and yet, both pregnant with my child. That fact alone overwhelmed me.
“Thank you,” she said quietly as she took the seat. I sat to her right as Edwin walked in.
“Is everything to your liking?” he questioned as he stood waiting for my answer.
“This all looks wonderful,” I said more kindly than I’m sure he was used to hearing.
I was a kinder man when Ava was in my life, and I was finding myself becoming that way for Kylie
“May I get you some wine? We have, as you know, an extensive selection in the cellar.” He nodded at me.
“Kylie will have water and …” I looked at her. “Do you want juice or some herbal tea?” It was unfortunate she couldn’t share a glass of wine with me, but I really appreciated that she didn’t even think to drink while she was pregnant.
“Just water is fine. This looks so delicious,” she added giving Edwin a flirty smile in typical Kylie fashion.
“I’ll have a Malbec, thank you.” As Edwin left, I looked to Kylie. “Go ahead and eat before it gets cold.” I felt as if I needed to give her permission because as soon as Edwin was out of the room, she seemed much less sure of herself and us.
She took a few bites, and we were silent for the moment, which was odd for us until Edwin came back with my wine. He poured some in my glass, and I took a sip, the rich woodsy flavor hit my palate, and I felt fractionally better. A good glass of wine always put me in better spirits. I nodded at him.
“This is nice, thank you. You can retire for the night. Kylie and I can get whatever else we need.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said with a curt bow and was gone.
Kylie dabbed her napkin across her lips as the game hen was delicious but quite moist. She cleared her throat to speak, and my heart began to race.
“Yes,” I caught her before she could ask the question.
Since I was the one stupid enough to blurt out that I’d been married before, I was going to steer the conversation back to waters I could navigate.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she started.
“Well, I won’t go into great detail. It was a long time ago; almost seven years. I was married just out of grad school to a history major from the liberal arts campus. I was a business major but had to take a humanities course. Ava was in my class. I hated the class, Human Geography. My particular interest was economic geography as I was planning on entering an international business. Her specialization was how civilizations were both different and the same, economically, culturally, etc. I say this because she and I couldn’t have been more opposite, but we ended up in a
study group together, which nearly brought us to blows.
“She was so irreverent and spunky, and so she vehemently debated almost every word out of my mouth. I missed her when the class was over. I approached the TA and lied, saying I had her sweater and needed to find her to return it. I got her cell number. I was so nervous about making that first call. I asked her out; we bantered, fought, and fucked. Then I fell in love. Three years later, we were married and pregnant. I brought her here on the weekends. She was a teaching assistant at the college and had such a heavy workload I wanted her to be free of distractions ... other than me, of course. I made sure I was a pretty convincing distraction. Anyway ... I haven’t had anyone up here since her death.” I halted the story there, though I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
“She sounds like she was a wonderful person. I probably would have liked her.” Kylie’s smile lit up the room.
“Guaranteed you both would have loved each other. She was very much like you, independent, strong-willed, beautiful, but the two of you are also so very different, apart from being pregnant.” I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry ... I hope I’m not ...” Poor thing was struggling for the right approach.
“You are, and you’re not. Life continues ... doesn’t it? We were here when she got sick. She was four months pregnant, and we found out that day we were having a girl. She wanted to tell our neighbors, who she’d grown close to, the good news since neither of us spoke much to our families. We went from being happy and excited to the emergency room. She lost the baby that night.” God, I could barely continue.
“Oh, my God!” Kylie covered her hand over her mouth as her eyes welled up. “I am so sorry.”
“We came home really late, and she slept the whole next day. I didn’t know what to do for her. I thought it best just to let her sleep. The following day I got her out of bed, and even though she didn’t want to get up, I made her. I took her out on the boat; she loved to fish, so we did some fishing, though she wasn’t into it. We screened a movie in our theater. I’ve yet to show you around the house, but we have a state-of-the-art home theater. Somewhere during the movie, she got really sick and started throwing up. She had a high fever and wouldn’t stop convulsing. I called an ambulance, and we went back to the hospital, but by that time the infection had entered her blood and her brain. She was septic, and the doctors were never able to get her stabilized. She went into a coma that night and died the next morning.” I had never told anyone that story outside of Christian.
FAKE: An Enemies to Lovers Standalone Romance Page 17