I belt out a laugh. “What?”
“I mean it. It’s our wedding night. This is sacred trust ground. You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”
I lean back in my seat, taking my fork loaded with chocolate cake with me. It’s milk chocolate and therefore inferior, but I’ll manage it. I nibble on it as I think. “I just want to feel beautiful under someone’s touch. I want them to be so crazy with desire that they can’t hold back. I know that’s not dirty or slutty or sexy. I’m not going to ask him to tie me up—though I do think that’s hot—and I’m not going to ask him to put me over his knee and spank me—though I wouldn’t say no to that either. But for starters, I want a guy I feel comfortable enough with that I have a real orgasm.”
Her elbow digs into the table, and she rests the side of her head against her hand. “I love that for you, and I know you’ll get it. You will. For me, I want a guy who can handle my spirit without breaking it. But I also want to be pushed to my limits to see how far I can go. You know?”
“Is that not Adam?”
She considers this for a moment. “Sometimes I think it is. Sometimes I can get him past his comfort zone, and he’ll dominate me a bit. Sometimes I’m not sure he knows what to dowith me and finds me more amusing and cute than anything else. ”
“Maybe Adam has a hidden dominant in him?”
She glances down at her ring. “I don’t think so. But it’s okay. It’s a fantasy, right? Not reality. Maybe we don’t get all the things. Maybe we get most of them and learn to live without the rest.”
“Maybe. No one is perfect. No situation is either. But that doesn’t mean I’ll settle for less than I deserve again.”
“I’ll drink to that.” We lift our glasses and clink them together. “He kissed you,” she says, changing the subject.
I stare down at the plate. “He did.”
“Was it good? Like the first time?”
“It was good. Different from the first time.”
“Can you not have more of that?”
“Braelyn, I’m pregnant with another man’s child and only married to Aston because he wants me to help him with his kid. Yes, he kissed me. But I’m not sure that made me special. He kissed me much harder than that when I was a stranger in a dark room. That kiss was for the cameras. I remember Micha talking about all the women he used to go around kissing. All the women they’d hook up with. I don’t have time or space to be another man’s doormat, something they can use to wipe their feet on but don’t bother to bring inside.”
“Then here’s to us. Brilliant, bold, guileless, and masters of our own universes. May the men come to us and may fortune follow the routes we pick for ourselves.”
“Cheers.”
An hour later, I’m walking through the door with a giant box of pastries. I bought extras for Zoey and Aston. My attempt at a peace offering for the latter. He’s not a bad man. Actually, I think he’s a good man. And now he’s my husband, and I don’t want to fight with him anymore. I want this to be peaceful andamicable. Not more than that. That’s a big fat no for me. But I want this arrangement to work.
Especially if I decide I’m not going to tell Josh the baby is his.
The lights are out downstairs, and the house feels empty. My rings hit a random beam of light coming from somewhere, causing the diamonds to sparkle and dazzle, drawing my focus there.
He bought me so many diamonds. Such beautiful rings.
I moved my engagement ring to my wedding band finger, and the two are just… god, they’re stunning. I’m married. It’s real and legal. And my family doesn’t know. My parents are going to be crushed. My friends too. It’s not the first time I’ve kept secrets from them, but this is different. I’m pregnant with one man’s child and married to another, and will I ever get my life on the track I want it to be on?
I thought I was getting there. Until this happened, I really thought I was getting there. My chest feels tight, making it difficult to take in a breath.
“I spoke to Micha,” comes from the family room. My head snaps up, and I squint against the dark to find Aston sitting on the sofa alone with not even the fire to keep him company.
My heart picks up an extra few beats. “Did you tell him about the baby?”
“No. That’s for you to tell him. I started to tell him we were married, and he cut me off because he had to go.”
I laugh. “Sounds like typical Micha.”
Aston rises from the sofa and comes into the kitchen. He spots the box and slides it across the stone toward him, untying the red-and-white ribbon wrapped around it so he can open it up.
“I can’t decide if he’ll be pissed at me or not when I tell him.”
“I honestly have no clue,” I admit. “He’s hard to read likethat. Just when you think you know what he’s thinking and how he’ll react to something, he surprises you.”
