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Respect for the young man has me nodding. I step back to give them room, though LL still has more he’d like to say. I ignore him, directing my attention on Nikki as she reaches the bottom rung of the ride.
After hopping down, she unlaces the kid, who runs crying to her parents, her blond hair flying behind her like a wild halo.
The crowd erupts in cheerful shouts and applause. In that moment relief and terror give way to rage that she put herself in so much jeopardy.
I can tell she doesn’t want the attention surrounding her. Too fucking bad. “You going to her?” LL asks by my side.
I debate for a hard moment, but people have already taken note of me being here, and all it takes is one candid shot of me not supporting her in her moment of heroism for me to be branded as a bitch-ass hater.
“Yeah.” Giving him a brief nod, I head over to her. Keeping my expression of proud concern, I bite back the desire to snatch her little ass up. I don’t know if I even trust myself to be close to her in that moment.
The short distance it takes me to reach her seems endless when she finally looks my way. She does it as if I’m her life raft after she’s found herself adrift.
“Mathias.” She breathes my name like it’s her salvation, her body trembling from the effort of carrying the child and navigating the Ferris wheel’s precarious rails. “This thing is not safe. I don’t know how they even got a license to set up.”
I hug her close, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
“A few questions?” asks one of the legitimate reporters from a local news outlet.
“Are you up to it?” Looking down at her luminous eyes, I know that she’s not. I turn to tell them no.
“I can do it.” She grips my hand like she needs me to anchor her. A woman who just climbed twenty feet in the air is holding my hand like I’m her haven. The contradictions she presents have my teeth gritting. What the fuck possessed her to climb that decrepit monstrosity?The same nonsense that had her thinking she could trick you into a marriage.It sounds similar to something Natalie has been saying lately.
“Mrs. Shelby—Nicolette, how did you know to act so quickly?” Light shines on us as television and phone cameras train on us.
“Well, I grew up mostly on the circus and carnival circuit. My parents were trapeze artists, aerialists, and sometimes operated machines like this. So I knew I was small and strong enough to make it to the top before help came. You never know with these machines, and little kids often panic. I knew I had to hurry before she tried to climb out.” Shrugging, she looks at me sheepishly. It does nothing to calm my ire. But for the masses, I give her a doting smile.
“My wife’s a hero.” Flashes go off. Waving away any more questions, I tell them to talk to the campaign for more details tomorrow.
“Get a biography together for her,” I tell LL when he catches up with us. I know it will be only a matter of time before the press goes digging into her past. “Up till now they thought she was a little country girl from Shelby-Love.” I help her into my Maybach, which I elected to drive since my penthouse in the John Hand building is mere blocks away.
I don’t look at her, closing the door and turning to LL and an agitated Natalie, who’s just made her way over to us.
“We’ll meet at my penthouse in the morning to deal with the fallout of this new revelation,” I tell them.
“This is a good thing. She’s a hero.” LL beams, totally unaware of the repercussions of Nikki’s revelation. He, like everyone else, thinks she and I only met last year at her graduation. Natalie is the only other person who knows I hit Nikki with my car the night I graduated college.
“She is. We still need to know how to answer the questions of her growing up as a carny,” Natalie chimes in, snide humor playing across her face until she catches both our looks. “Hey.” She holds up both hands, apologizing. “I still have work to do on my snobbery.”
“Mm-hmm,” LL says. “You’re getting steadily worse.” After waving bye to Nikki and Natalie, he daps me up. “Tomorrow.”
I nod, quietly fuming as I head to the driver’s side of the car.
ChapterThirteen
Nikki
Silence. All through the short trip to the John Hand building. Silence as we take the private elevator up to the penthouse suite. Silence as we enter. Heavy angry silence that has my tummy twisting in knots by the second.
Panoramic views greet me as we enter the suite, giving me something to do other than worry about an angry husband who hates me. The ceilings are at least twenty feet—maybe more. There’s a gray wraparound sofa with soft-looking pillows covering it from end to end, facing the window with cluster of tufted ottomans sitting in the center of the living room. Candles are atop glass trays on them convey simple elegance.
“Natalie did an excellent job decorating this place,” I acknowledge, assuming this is where they lived together when they were both living in Birmingham.
His face swings to mine, and he looks at me for a long moment. “You are the only woman I have ever brought here, little wife.” His voice is hard as he ushers me farther into the room.
“Oh,” I mumble, kicking off my ballet flats.
“You need to stop giving her fits. I’m tired of hearing about the shit you’re doing. It’s getting annoying as fuck.”
