40
How much sleep did I get that night? It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two, that was for sure. I felt as though my head was leaking, brain dripping down my front like so much syrup. She was wrapped around me like a vine on a tree, and part of me just wanted to put my arms around her and go back to sleep. But there was no way in hell that was happening, not now that I was conscious enough to start thinking, to start putting the pieces together in my mind.
A war was raging inside of me. It might have sounded melodramatic, but it was the only thing that came close to summing up everything that was running through my head right there and then. It was as though bombs were exploding and people yelling and turf being torn from the ground even as I tried to keep myself together. I was surprised I was only in one piece, that the emotional turmoil hadn’t made itself known on the outside too.
It had all started with that conversation my father had with me the day before when he’d taken me aside at Nonna’s place. I had assumed it was just going to be something along the lines of “how’s the business going?” but to my surprise, when he closed the door behind me and turned to me, there were tears in his eyes.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” I demanded at once. For one panicked moment, I was certain he was going to tell me that he was dying or something, but he shook his head and waved his hand.
“I’m sorry.” He quickly gathered himself. “I just need to talk to you.”
“What about?” I pressed, glancing over my shoulder. I knew Amaya and Jolene could hold their own, but I still wanted to be there for them if they needed me, to dive on any grenades that might have sprung up over the course of dinner with my family.
“About your wife.” He slapped me on the shoulder, and for a split second, my stomach felt as though it was going to drop out the bottom of my feet. Oh, shit. He knew. I didn’t know how, but he knew this was a con, that she was only around for a year. Had one of the guys who’d drawn up the contract leaked it? Shit, I needed to—
“You seem so happy with her,” he continued, and I shut my head up and took a deep breath. He was just trying to be kind and fatherly. He wasn’t here to bust me about anything.
“I am,” I replied. It was the truth. He just didn’t need to know about the reality of our arrangement and what was due to come after it when this year was all done with.
“And I just …” He shot a look toward the door. My father had never been an emotional man, far from it, but it looked as though he was straining as he stood before me trying to come up with what he wanted to say.
“When your mother left us,” he began, and his voice hardened a little, as though he was used to batting away the feelings that came with that memory. “When she left us, I didn’t think I would ever fall in love again. I thought I was too … I thought there was too much baggage there, you know?”
I eyed him for a long moment. Was I really about to get marriage advice off the guy who had done it four times? Well, I supposed if anyone knew how they worked, it would be him.
“Right.” I nodded, and I felt myself soften a little, thinking of Amaya, of everything we’d shared these last couple of months. I did love having her around, that much was obvious, even to me.
“And I tried and tried to find someone to love properly.” He shook his head. “And it just didn’t work. You know that. You saw them come and go.”
“Sure did,” I replied sharply, reminding him that it was us, his family, who had had to deal with the blowback from all his wives leaving, the hysterical, accusatory phone calls, the fury, the rage, all of it came down on us as much as on him. He held his hands up, acknowledging the fact.
“But now that I’ve met Karen, I just know this is it,” he went on, and there was this calmness to his voice that let me know he really did believe what he was saying right then and there. I stared at him for a long while, waiting for the crack to appear in his armor, but it didn’t. He looked back at me, clear-eyed and confident, and I realized he really meant this. That woman waiting out there for him, God help her, he really did love her, and he really did want to spend his life with her.
“Can I ask what this has to do with me?” I pressed. I was still sharp around the edges from everything that had happened the last couple of marriages.
“I see the way you look at Amaya, and I’m just glad my son has the same thing as me.” He grinned, slapping me on the shoulder once more before heading over to the door. “She’s a good one, Kristo. I don’t know how you managed to convince her to stay but keep doing it.”
I watched as he left, and I felt my stomach churn with panic. Fucking hell. Even my family thought this girl was the one for me. I paused for a long moment in the kitchen before I returned to join everyone else outside and did my best to paint a happy face on for the rest of the day. But I couldn’t. Amaya could see through me, see down to the truth I was doing my best to smother, because she already seemed to know me better than anyone else, even my own family.
And when we had arrived home that evening and she had slid into bed with me and made love to me, I felt as though I was helpless to resist her. I had never really made love like that in my entire life. Fucking? Sure, but this was something new. Her body was good and sweet beneath mine, her breath playing on my skin, her touch light and playful as she skimmed her fingers all over my body and drew me in deep. It had felt as though she was peeling away at my walls, brushing them down so nothing about them mattered any longer, as though I was the only thing she wanted and needed. And her ability to be open with me in that way drew it out of me as well, pushing something that I had tried to bury down inside me all this time to run up and over and take control.
And now, as I lay here in bed next to her while she slept peacefully, I found myself envying her. Because she had been the one to tell me she loved me, and she had been the one to take back control and lay the ground rules, and all that time, I had told myself over and over again that love just wasn’t something I did. Hell, sometimes I wondered if love was even something I was capable of at all. I never considered that there might be something more between us, that I might be the one shoving down my desire and my need for her.
But I couldn’t love her. I couldn’t do it, not the way she wanted and needed from me. She needed a man, strong and steady, who knew where he was in relationships, who could love with a broad openness that didn’t have him running for the hills every time he felt anything even remotely intense. And yet, here I was her husband, and I felt illiterate in the face of everything I was trying to give shape to. My heart burned in my chest as she lay there next to me, unknowing, probably committed to keeping her heart safe and playing out the year and having a little fun in the process, where I felt like my chest was going to burst with everything I felt for her.
But it was more than just her. That was the problem. It was her family, Jolene, her job, her commitment to it. Her sense of humor and her style and the way she tipped her head back as she came like she was escaping from reality for a moment. All of that was piling up on top of itself to create this image of a woman, a woman I didn’t know could ever exist in my world. A woman who I might have been able to love if I just let myself, the way my father had finally found love after so long fucking it up. Maybe this was how it happened for me, no matter how crazy that sounded.
All my father wanted was for me was to be happy, to be loved, and maybe that’s what I’d needed all this time, to ignore the gold diggers and my job, to bring life to this sparse, empty apartment. To share my life with someone who understood me.
We had nine months left. I had a running tally in my head that felt as though it was constantly flashing with the reminder of what I had agreed to when I had given her that contract. When this was over, she would have every right to just slide on straight out of my life and take the money and never look back. I had nine months to figure this out, to figure out exactly what I needed to do to get her to stay. When I thought of it like that, as a game, I could feel my competitive nature kicking into high gear and my enthusiasm to take this shooting up a couple of notches. But it was more than just a game. This was me trying to break down the walls I had so carefully constructed and lovingly maintained for so long and spend the next nine months convincing the woman next to me that everything I’d told her about myself up until this point had been a lie. That she had rendered it that way.
She began to stir next to me, and the feel of her hips wriggling against mine as she came to wakefulness was enough to stir something in me, same as last night. I looked down at her, and she grinned as soon as our eyes met.
“Good morning,” she murmured, and I knew she had one thing on her mind. Maybe that was precisely what I needed to get myself out of my own head, to give myself over to a little fun for a change.
“Come here,” I ordered, pulling her on top of me and wrapping my arms around her waist. I slid a hand up her back and grabbed her hair, tilting her head back so I could kiss her neck. She giggled and then let out a sigh of pleasure. And for a while, I was able to pretend to myself that this was all I’d been looking for, that this was all that really mattered between us. Everything else could wait as long as Amaya was here in bed with me, her supple, soft body willing next to mine.