“One as important as this?” She put her briefcase back down. “Absolutely. Take a look.”
The woman showed her three floor plans for small two-bedroom luxury apartments downtown.Another piece of property?Is she kidding me?They had bought a sprawling penthouse! One thing all the properties Alicia looked at now had in common was the proximity of the two rooms to each other. While they were luxurious, nothing was interesting about them. Until Danica explained what she had in mind, anyway.
“I want to buy us a small apartment to be our home away from home, so to speak. It will be absolutely ours. Someone will come in to clean, and we’ll have our bodyguards on standby,” oh, of course, couldn’t forget the little people, “but otherwise, only you and I will go there when we need to unwind. When we have children, it will be off limits to them.”
“I see.” Alicia pretended she didn’t say that last part. “What’s wrong with the place we have now?” Their spacious suite basically acted as this already. Alicia’s first night in their bedroom was so quiet and comfortable that she almost forgot a whole apartment existed beyond it. Let alone one with a live-in servant and more than one bodyguard milling about.
“The place we have now can’t have a, ah…”
For once in her life, the woman was speechless! Was she avoiding eye contact? Oh, this was too good. Alicia leaned over, catching her wife’s amber eyes. “Can’t have a what, Danica?”
Whatever anxiety she felt disappeared the moment she saw Danica’s face. Ah, there she was. The woman who first walked into a VIP room and asked to fuck her. “We can’t have a playroom in our family home.”
“Oh.Oh.” Alicia sat back up. Nobody had heard her say that, right? Alicia only vaguely knew what she was talking about, anyway. She had a feeling Danica didn’t mean a playroom for the kids. Why would she, when she said they weren’t even invited to this place? “I suppose not. You’ve been thinking about this, huh?”
“Alicia, every time I gaze at you while you’re on your knees or bending over for me, I think about how much I wish I had a proper dungeon to play with you in.”
She needed more to drink.
“So, you want to buy an apartment and remodel one of the rooms into a… dungeon?”
“Yes, of course.”
Oh, of course!
That certainly broke the ice. Within fifteen minutes – and lots of wine – they had their appetizers and enough silly topics to keep them preoccupied while the sun began to go down behind the horizon of skyscrapers. Shadows cast across the river and their table. Birds swept low, searching for their last meals of the day. A chorus of boats coming into the marina for the evening played in the background of the Moreaus’ dinner date.
What did they talk about, beyond remodeling some small apartment into their personal playpen? What they wanted to change about the penthouse. Where they wanted to go on their future honeymoon, and what they wanted to do for their realwedding. They spoke of Alicia’s family coming to visit that weekend.That is going to be so awkward.The Colberts didn’t find out about Alicia’s marriage until the day after it happened. Candice was still on another planet after Alicia moved out of their shared hotel room and into one with her new wife.
They were also planning a weekend trip to Boston to see Julia’s side of the family. Danica was still adjusting to having her mother back in her life, although Julia was taking things slow. It helped that she still had many of her hermit tendencies and didn’t care to be seen in public for multiple reasons. Except she apparently still had some connections with the family that sold her to the Moreaus, and her daughter wanted to meet them. Of course, Alicia would be coming with her.
The last point of discussion, after dinner was cleared away and dessert brought out, was what to do with their current penthouse. Danica made it clear that it was a “starter home,” and that they could find something more suitable to their tastes once things settled down, but it was completely in their power to remodel some rooms.
“If you ask me,” Danica said, dabbing some whipped cream on her wife’s nose. “We should use the two bedrooms in the eastern part of the apartment as staff quarters. We’re already setting up the maid there. Perhaps the other one should be the nanny’s when we get to that point. Oh, and we should use the second biggest bedroom as the nursery.”
Alicia was too shaken to wipe the whipped cream off her nose. “Do we have to talk about that now?” Her ice cream was now untouched. “You’re making me nervous.”
Her wife’s demeanor turned dark. Not a frightening shade, but the sort of pensive that unsettled a woman. “It was part of our agreement before we married.” Her mouth turned. “We’ve already done the procedure.”
“I know that.”Was I not there, Danica?Alicia finally wiped off her nose and stared at the lazy waters beyond the glass panel. “Iknowthat. I knew exactly what I was signing up for when I agreed to your terms.” Indeed, Danica had succumbed to a few terms as well. It couldn’t be said that Alicia didn’t understand her share of contract negotiation. “But you need to understand where I’m coming from. It’s a bigger deal for me than it is for you.” She cringed. “Physically, that is.” She understood what it meant for her legally and emotionally. Perhaps not in that order. “Can you understand why I’m nervous?”
“Precious,” Danica said, hand wrapped around hers. “No one wants you to feel better about it than I do. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t even have to worry about this right now.” Her face darkened again; her hand clenched Alicia’s until it turned red. “Except there is too much at stake. If this attempt doesn’t take, we must try again as soon as the doctor says it’s fine. You’re not as young as the shareholders would like.”
Alicia snorted. “I’m not even thirty yet, and I’m made to feel like an old hag.”
“I don’t think you’re anything but my wonderful wife.”
“No, no… never mind.”
“My love.” She had both of Alicia’s hands now, clutched on either side of the centerpiece. The sun was setting in such a way that it created a golden glow beneath Danica’s head.Spare me.Nevertheless, Alicia stifled a laugh. The thought of her wife being an angel was too silly to comprehend. “You are the woman I have been searching for all my life. I know this has all happened suddenly. I reel from it as much as you do, but I am confident that this is meant to be, and that we will create a legacy that will renew my family’s name into something bigger and better. I can’t do that without you. You’re as much of a Moreau now as I am.”
“That position would be solidified the old-fashioned way, of course.” Alicia sniffed. “Even though we’re both women. Ha! A sapphic rewriting of classic family history.”
“I won’t pretend that it’s not a factor. Even my father cooled down after learning of your supposed pregnancy. Nothing has been more important to him than sustaining our line. I daresay, he would’ve forced me to marry within another two years, otherwise. The man may have raised me to take his place in the business, but merely because I’m his only child. If I had been a boy… my brother…” She shook her head. “There is only what is true now. He pushes me forward because I’m the only proof of his legacy. The only reason he tolerates my sexuality is because he at least doesn’t have to worry about some other family’s son coming in with a wrecking ball to theMoreauname. He approved of me saving my eggs and would have 100% used them should anything terrible have happened to me. If you’re carrying the genetic link to our next generation, then he can’t touch you. He won’t. But… yes… he would like to see me married.”
“To someone of his choosing.”
“Naturally.”
