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“There’s the latest scoop for you,” I say, snapping at Monica. “Piper Quinn and Timofey Viktorov may never get married.”
Monica jots it down.
While she’s writing, I look at Piper and wink.
EPILOGUE II: PIPER
Ashley holds up her phone with the article displayed on it and cackles. “You two are cruel! Absolutely ruthless!”
Akim is leaning over the back of her seat in flagrant disregard of the flight attendant who just told us to buckle our seatbelts. He shakes his head. “This was supposed to be your make-nice with the press. I think you’re about to make an enemy of Monica Pruitt.”
Timofey waves a dismissive hand. “So I fibbed a little. She’ll get over it.”
“A little? We fibbed a lot!” I grab Ashley’s phone and read the headline aloud. “Piper Quinn and Timofey Viktorov Don’t Need the Tax Write-Off; Couple Forgoes Marriage to Focus on Charity.”
Timofey winces, obvious amusement written all over his face. “If she wanted the truth from us, she shouldn’t have peppered you with questions about your dad.”
My dad has been raking in checks from every trashy magazine and online blog he can get a hold of. I know stories about me will stop paying his bills eventually, but I don’t want to drag out his press relevance any more than I have to.
There is no story to tell.
He isn’t in my life, and he never will be.
“Oh my God. What a bitch!” Ashley starts reading another excerpt out loud. “Piper Quinn is cagey when it comes to questions about her father. I’m not surprised; someone in the family has to be. Her father has aired all of their dirty laundry in the last twelve months, and the youngest Quinn isn’t a fan of the public therapy. If what the elder Quinn says is true, Quinn’s beau, ousted CEO of Viktorov Industries Timofey Viktorov, paid her father fifty-thousand dollars to stay away from her. How’s that for bringing families together?”
Akim drops down into his seat when the middle-aged attendant glares at him from the doorway of the cockpit. “Yeah, I take it back. Don’t make nice with the media. They suck.”
“She really was okay,” I say, defending the woman. “She was just doing her job. It just so happens that I hate her job. I want my privacy.”
Ashley spins around and wags her brows at me. “I’m sure you do. You just had your six-week postpartum appointment last week, right? Did she give you the all-clear to—” Ashley makes a crude gesture with her hands.
I gasp and turn to make sure Benjamin isn’t paying any attention. He’s happily tapping away at the buttons that adjust his seat. He buzzes forward and back over and over again, giggling all the while.
“He doesn’t know what this means,” Ashley says, doing the gesture again with a little more vigor.
I glare at her. “No, but other people might. I don’t want his nanny to see him doing that. It would make us look bad.”
“Imagine what the press would say about us then?” Timofey says it softly in my ear, goosebumps blooming all over my skin.
Ashley is crude, but she sure as hell isn’t wrong.
Everything about Timofey calls to me. Those first few weeks, I was beyond exhausted and enamored with the new little bundle we brought into the world.
But it's been eight weeks and things are starting to settle into something resembling a manageable routine. Which means, between nursing sessions and middle-of-the-night crying fits and keeping Benjamin from coloring on the walls with his chunky toddler crayons, I occasionally have five minutes of free time in which all I want to do is tear Timofey’s clothes from his body.
“Easy,” I whisper. “I thought we wanted to wait until after the wedding.”
Timofey groans softly. “You wanted to wait. But that’s hours and hours away. And it has been two long, torturous months.”
“Torturous?” I raise my brows. “I’ll be sure to tell Samuil when he’s older that you found his newborn days ‘torturous.’”
“Tell him whatever you want. So long as you end my celibacy. I’m starved for you, baby.”
Heat floods through me, pooling between my legs. I press my thighs together and readjust in my seat.
When I look back at Ashley, she’s staring at me with one eyebrow raised. “And you thinkI’minappropriate?”
I discreetly flip her the bird, and she blows me a kiss.
