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Yet I know if she would have had the chance to have more time with me, she’d have taken it in a heartbeat.
The wind fades. The leaves overhead still. My lips part.
“Yes.”
Michail
I don’t know of a single person in my acquaintance who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to spend a year at home with all of their expenses paid while living in a luxury penthouse.
But as I’m coming to learn, Alessandra isn’t most people. Something I took into consideration this morning when I decided to propose if the will couldn’t be broken. I know she cares for our son, to the point of putting herself in harm’s way to keep him safe. Her continued insistence that she wanted nothing to do with me, coupled with her lack of demands, led me to the conclusion that our time in Santorini had truly been chance.
Leaving me with a solution to my two biggest problems: the will and being a part of my son’s life.
Another torrent of wind rushes over the railing, catching her hair and pulling strands of auburn across her face. She frowns and futilely tries to push it back. With her hair wild and loose and that fierce frown on her face, she looks more like the woman who caught my attention in Greece than the cool, calculated professional I’d met at Kingston.
Warning pricks the back of my neck. Living with Alessandra for a year will test me in multiple ways. But the alternative options, either letting my mother’s paintings be destroyed or marrying someone else, are not viable. I will not let Lucifer hurt my mother any more than he already has. And the thought of marrying another woman when Alessandra is pregnant with my child disgusts me.
I hold out my hand. She eyes it like it’s a snake about to strike.
“Scared?”
My taunt does the trick. She slides her hand into mine. My fingers tighten around hers as I bring her hand to my mouth. Her sharp inhale is primitively satisfying, as is the tensing of her fingers in my grasp.
Just one more touch. One simple touch to satisfy my craving for her. I brush my mouth over her knuckles, watch her eyes widen and her chest rise and fall.
“Deal,” I whisper against her skin.
She yanks her hand out of my grasp. A shutter drops down over her eyes as a small shudder passes through her.
“All right.” She looks out over the city. “When?”
I stare at her profile. The possibility of indulging in sex during the course of our marriage hadn’t been a primary factor when I’d first thought of proposing. But now, after voicing it during our negotiations, it’s at the forefront of my mind. Judging by the pitch in her voice and the blush staining her cheeks, she is, too.
The spell woven that night that has kept her in my dreams will break with time; all spells do. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves until fantasy gives way to reality.
“Next week.”
Her head jerks back around. “That soon?”
“If your doctor approves after your next appointment, yes.”
I force my focus back onto one of the two main reasons I came up with this idea: the paintings. The will stipulates they can be released to either mine or my mother’s possession upon proof of marriage. Until I have them, I won’t be able to rest.
I’m also not giving Alessandra any more time than necessary. Time to ruminate, to dwell.
To run.
A dull sensation tugs at my chest. I reached for her when I woke that morning after we’d met. Like I had been waking up next to her for years instead of the first time. I’d pushed aside the shock of encountering empty sheets and immediately yanked my walls into place. Walls that had been tested time and again by the memory of her, of the passion we had shared.
Her hand moves back to her belly, cradling it in a way I’ve seen her do when she’s unsettled or perceives a threat to the baby.
Ourbaby.
Resolve hardens my heart.
“Do you have any preferences?”
Her lips part and she blinks, like a wild animal caught in the glare of headlights.
