Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
B runch. It’s such a small word. I used to think the definition was as simple as a meal served encompassing breakfast and lunch. Little did I know its expanded definition went like this: Brunch: a meal served encompassing breakfast and lunch and eaten in the company of the Legion of Doom.
I wouldn’t have thought that, given the grandeur of the property, but pure evil resided in this house. A woman dressed head to toe in cream silk crepe with her arms folded over her chest stood behind the woman who answered the door. The woman in crepe glared at us, her light-brown hair cut in that business helmet bob thing that older women of wealth liked to wear. And she wore heels. In her house. On a Sunday. Who wanted to wear heels on a Sunday if you didn’t have to? She’d have been very pretty if not for the scowl on her face.
“Maggie.” Blake greeted the woman who might’ve been the housekeeper, then turned to the woman behind her. “Mother,” he said, and wow. I thought possibly his parents had sent an older sister in to “welcome” us. This woman birthed my husband?
“ Blake ,” his mother greeted—if you could call it that because it sounded more like a scolding than anything.
“I hear you liked boy bands,” I said cheekily, going off that first conversation Blake and I ever had back in Paris.
“Excuse me?” she replied and I got the feeling that in regards to the question of if she liked or didn’t like boy bands? The answer was an emphatic no .
Blake laughed, giving my waist a squeeze.
“You must be the wife,” she said.
And trying to be nice, I held my hand out. “Gloria.”
“Gloria? Seriously, Blake? Is this your way of rebelling? Did we not give you everything you needed growing up?”
“Everything but love,” he answered and I couldn’t help it. I popped out a laugh. Her scowl deepened at me as she flipped her hand in the air, as if to say, “Semantics.”
Okay.
“Let’s just move into the dining room,” she said. The poor woman sounded exasperated.
Maggie hardly had the door shut behind us when haters two and three showed up. “Is this her?” A tall, stately man who looked quite a bit like Blake asked Blake because it seemed no one here wanted to talk to Gloria.
“Yes, Brock. This is my wife, Gloria,” he said, then he turned to me. “Glory, this is my older brother, Brockton. That’s his wife, Emily.” He completed the introductions that they apparently were too good to make themselves. Emily was very pretty. Gorgeous blonde hair and big, blue eyes. She reminded me of Heidi Klum if Heidi Klum were a politician’s wife rather than a supermodel. “And because she was too rude to give you her name, my mother is Adair.”
“‘Mrs. Parker’ will work just fine,” she said as two children walked out of the dining room—I could see the massive table behind them—to join us. A boy about seven and a girl about four. They both had their mother’s hair, but the boy had his father’s brown eyes, not to mention the rest of his face. The little girl looked an even mix of them both.
“Did Grandma hire new help?” the boy asked and I started.
Help? This little boy thought I was the help?
“No,” the woman said indulgently. “This is your Uncle Blake’s”—she scrunched up her nose as if smelling something unpleasant—“new wife.”
The little girl walked up to me and I knelt down. “You look like Merida,” she said.
“I do, don’t I?” I said back. “My name is Gloria. What’s yours?”
“Corrine,” she answered.
Blake knelt down next to me. “Since Glory’s my wife, that makes her your aunt.”
“Aunt Gloria?” the boy asked as he approached, holding his hand out for me to shake. I took his offered hand. “I’m Lauden.”
“Lauden? That’s a handsome name,” I said.
“It was my mom’s last name before she married my dad.”
“Well, that’s very smart. It gives you a connection with your other family.”
“If you and Uncle Blake have a son, will you use your last name?”
Now, as I’d told Blake last night, I loved my last name. I was proud of it. But I just didn’t know how I felt about Kowalski as a first name. I laughed at the thought. “Probably not.”
Blake’s mother cut in. “Of course, she wouldn’t.”
“Come along, Laud,” Emily, his mother, said and the boy looked between me and his mother’s outstretched hand. He nodded once and walked dutifully back over to her. Then she and the children left for the dining room again.
“She’ll have to lose some weight,” Brockton said, and what ? Who said that about someone they’d just met right in front of that someone?
“Gloria is perfect exactly the way she is,” Blake defended me.
“Honestly, brother. People will take one look at her and think you’re gay. No one would marry a woman like her unless they were hiding something.”
“I want to go,” I whispered to Blake.
“Right.” He dropped his hand to the small of my apparently massive back to turn us when his mother spoke up.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. No one is leaving. Brunch is waiting.”
“It’s up to you,” Blake said. I thought about it, and these people were my new in-laws. I had to at least give this brunch one more chance.
“I’m giving it an hour, then I’m leaving.”
Right as he was about to answer, the front door burst open and a gorgeous woman with thick, light-brown hair flowing down past her shoulders and deep-brown eyes sauntered in. She wore an A-line sundress, pink with slim spaghetti straps. Simple yet elegant in its own way. Her heels matched the color of her dress.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said to the room before dropping her gaze specifically to me. “Oh, my… what a scandal.”
Great. Now I was a scandal?
“Glory, this is—” Blake started to introduce the younger woman, but she pushed between us, spinning me around to get a better look at me.
When I faced her again, she said, “I’m Jupiter, Blake’s younger sister, and you are everything I hoped you’d be.”
“Ju,” Blake admonished.
“What?” she asked more defensively than innocently. “I bet you can’t stand it, can you, Mother? She couldn’t look less like old Vermont money if she tried. I bet you even have one of those ethnic names too, don’t you? Given your red hair, I’d say O’Malley or Fitzgerald.”
“It’s Kowalski, actually.”
“Kowalski?” She threw her hand to her chest laughing out loud, but somehow, I didn’t think it was at my name or my expense. “That’s a hoot. Only you, brother, would come home from an African safari with a wife named Kowalski . Whatever will you tell the women at the club, Mother? Yes. A delicious, delicious scandal.”
“That’s enough, Jupiter,” Mrs. Parker said and if she didn’t stop frowning, she’d wrinkle her beautiful face. “Let us all retreat to the dining room. Brunch is waiting.”
Jupiter smiled big, linking her arm through mine as she started to walk to the dining room. “You’re sitting next to me,” she said, but Blake moved to my other side, dropping his hand to the small of my back again.
“She’s sitting next to me ,” he replied.
“Simmer down, brother. She has two sides.”
“Why does that make me feel like I’m being served up on a platter for brunch?” I asked, but Jupiter only laughed. Blake gave a reassuring tug to the back of my dress. Well, I hoped he meant it as reassuring and not “ you have no idea .”
Robert Parker sat in his big boy chair at the head of the table. Apparently, given our meeting last night, he saw no reason to greet me today. The man didn’t actually look at me. He looked to Blake, though. “Took you long enough. We’ve been waiting forever.”
Blake smiled at his father while he pulled out a chair for me at the opposite end—and by the opposite end, I didn’t mean the foot of the table. Mrs. Parker sat there. I meant just farther away from his father. Blake took the chair closest to his mother. I sat down in the offered chair next to him, and Jupiter elegantly settled into the chair next to me on my right. Lauden took the chair next to Jupiter. That left Blake’s brother to sit closest to Mr. Parker across from his son. There was an empty chair, then little Corrine sat in the next chair. Her mother sat closest to Mrs. Parker.
“Well,” Brockton said to Blake. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing. I feel no need to say anything for myself,” my husband answered.
“For Christ’s sake, you kept us all waiting over an hour.” Mr. Parker folded his arms over his chest in a way I suspected was supposed to look intimidating. I wasn’t intimidated. What could he do? We were married. At least by semi-nomadic tribal law.
“Glory got in last night on a red-eye flight. We didn’t get to bed until late. If you were that hungry, you could have started without us. You could have even uninvited us. We have better things to do with our day.”
“Don’t be crude, son,” Mr. Parker said at the same time Brockton muttered, “ Jesus .”
“I said nothing crude. Get your head out of the gutter.”
“Let’s just eat,” Mrs. Parker said. “Henrietta,” she called, and immediately, a mousey, young woman in a gray maid’s uniform entered the dining room. She had brown hair and a room-temperature stare. Like she shone neither heat nor cold at the family sitting around the table. “We’re ready for the food, Henrietta,” Mrs. Parker finished.
The woman nodded once and backed out of the room before turning around and walking in the direction, I presumed, of the kitchen.
“Where did you go to school?” Mr. Parker asked me. “I assume that you’ve graduated college, at the very least.”
“I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Michigan.”
“A state school.” He grunted. “Of course.”
“Celebrities send their children to U of M. It’s a very good institution,” I defended myself.
“It’s not Ivy League,” he countered.
“I got into Harvard. I received full scholarships to several schools including Princeton and Yale. I chose to go to school closer to home because my mother needed me. My father had been sick with cancer and he passed away.”
“Cancer?” he asked, then he turned to Blake’s brother. “Can we spin that? It’s not genetic, is it?”
It very well might’ve been genetic, given my grandfather passed from cancer as well, but hell if I’d tell him that. “No, it’s not genetic. My father was a chemical engineer. He most likely developed cancer from the chemicals he was exposed to. My genes are fine,” I replied. “And I may not have attended Harvard by choice, but my best friend, Sierra Winthrop, did. My other best friends, Penelope Von Dutton and Stanton McCain, both attended Brown. Does that work for you?”
“You know the Von Duttons and McCains?” Brockton asked incredulously.
“Yes. I stood up at Penelope and Stanton’s wedding last year.”
“Where did you meet them?” Mrs. Parker asked. “Does your mother work for them?”
“No, her mother doesn’t work for them,” Blake practically shouted. “She met them at Cranbrook Prep. Glory graduated from there. Not that it’s any of your business or makes any impact on the person she is.”
I placed my hand on the top of his. “It’s okay, Blake.”
“It’s not okay. This is exactly what I didn’t want to subject you to.”
“It’s okay,” I repeated and thankfully, the servers in their black slacks and white server jackets strode in with carts and trays to begin serving us. I didn’t much like being served in the Parkers’ home. I could serve myself, but I kept reminding myself that this was how these people earned a paycheck. Who was I to deny someone an honest living? That helped some.
“Her hair is just so… red ,” Emily said out of the blue. “We’ll have to tone it down to maybe a deep auburn. I fear we can’t do much else with it. I’ll set up an appointment at the salon. They can straighten it too.”
When pretty much everyone sitting at the table turned to her, she asked, “What? I know you all were thinking it.”
“You aren’t dyeing, toning down, or straightening her hair unless she agrees to it,” Blake said. “She’s beautiful the way she is.”
“Her red hair makes her look common,” Emily said in defense.
“Not as common as her last name,” Brockton muttered. “Could you get more immigrant ?”
“Yes, we could’ve worked with a Green or a Gold,” Mr. Parker said. “But Kowalski? I just don’t know what we’re going to do with that.”
“She’ll have to take our last name,” Brockton said. “Then we’ll bury hers down as far as we can bury it. She’ll simply go by Gloria Parker. That sounds respectable.”
Jupiter leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “They named their only daughter Jupiter yet they’re worried about the name Kowalski? Don’t worry… my brother got a dreamy look when he heard Gloria Parker, I think he likes that idea.” She shook her head. “But he won’t have you change yours unless you want to, if for nothing else than to piss the rest of the family off. But given that dreamy look, I’d say he really loves you.”
A dreamy look? I didn’t see it. I wished I’d seen it. Blake leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Eat, sweetheart. Your food’s getting cold.”
I nodded and picked up my fork. The food was delicious. I especially loved the spinach quiche and the tomato and onion tart. We drank mimosas and the children drank mimosas substituted with sparkling grape juice rather than champagne or so Jupiter told me when I got a horrified look on my face.
The rest of the meal consisted of Blake’s family running down my appearance, my name, and my family lineage while Blake defended me, but all I could think about was what Jupiter said. He loved me. I knew that. But did he want me to change my name? Maybe I could hyphenate it like Pen did. Gloria Kowalski-Parker. That seemed long and I tried to imagine signing that every time something required my signature.
Thankfully, the torture— oops! I mean, brunch ended and Blake whisked me to the car as fast as humanly possible. Once in there, though, the two of us alone, neither of us spoke.
We remained quiet right up through turning into the circle drive in front of his house. He cut the engine and got out, rounding the hood to open my door. I let him take my hand to help me out. Then we walked up to the front door where he let us in, shutting it behind me.
“I’m sorry about brunch,” he said, finally breaking the silence.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m used to not being good enough.”
“ Dammit —don’t you dare say that. Do you think I’d travel throughout all of Europe and half of Africa with someone not good enough?”
“Men always have dirty, little secrets. I was yours.”
His face hardened. “If you really think that, then why did you agree to come here.”
“I don’t. Not totally.”
“Not totally? Care to explain?”
“You met me. You fell in love with me. But you kept me a secret from your family because you knew they’d never approve of me.”
He spun me into his arms, placing both hands on my cheeks, and bent in to kiss me. “I never dreamed that I’d meet a woman as perfect for me as you, sweetheart. Everything about you is something I want to spend the rest of my life learning about.” He kissed me again, dropping one of his hands to cup my butt as he bypassed romance novel kiss and headed straight into erotic romance novel territory. I’d never experienced a kiss like that in my life.
In my life .
Reflexively, my arms wrapped tighter around his neck and I lifted my legs to hook around his hips. Blake started moving us into the living room. His staff got the weekend off, so we were alone in the house. He dropped onto the sofa, bringing me down onto his lap. I straddled him. He slid his hand up my thigh, exposing the skin until he reached the elastic of my panties, sliding his finger between the fabric and my skin.
The move shocked me. “You have to tell me what you want or I’ll freeze up,” I whispered. Smiling against my lips, he gripped my hips jerking me forward and slowly easing me back to rub against the bulge in his pants.
“Grind,” he ordered. I dragged my center over and back slowly, enjoying the feel of him so thick, long and hard between my thighs. When I couldn’t take any more, my head fell back and my hips stopped moving while my lungs burned from a shuddering breath.
“Did I tell you to stop?” he asked, not without kindness, but the look on his face said he needed me to keep going.
“I don’t know what to do next.”
“Do whatever you’re moved to do.”
“I can’t. You’re everything a woman could want in a man, but men have needs, and if you don’t tell me what you need, I’ll mess it up.”
“Mess it up? Glory .” He stared me down waiting out an explanation which he deserved, but given my propensity to be a chicken when it came to talking about my shortcomings, I hesitated until tears pricked at my eyes and leaked out the corners to wet the curls closest to my face.
If we were truly married and he didn’t want a divorce, then he had the right to know. It just sucked to have to do this.
Nodding once to give myself courage, I went for it. “I’m bad at sex.” There, I said it. “That’s why I wouldn’t sleep with you in Europe.”
Telling him hurt, like really hurt. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable putdowns like, “ If I’d known this in Europe, I wouldn’t have wasted my time on you .” I waited. And waited. But when I got too anxious to wait any longer, I cracked my eyes open to see him staring at me, a smile spread teasingly over his lips. A smile?
“Sorry?” he asked instead, holding off a laugh. Maybe he didn’t hear me. I searched his face, and all I found was humor. Humor?
No, he did not get to laugh at this. I shoved his shoulder. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m bad at sex, Blake.” My answer coming a little more forcefully, considering he wasn’t taking this conversation as seriously as the situation deserved.
“Oh, I heard you. I just don’t believe it.” Didn’t believe it?
“My ex wasn’t the first to run me down, he was just the worst.”
“What exactly did he say?” Blake held a firm grip on my hips keeping me from moving.
“He told me I was worse at sex than I was at kissing and I was a shitty kisser. He said that if I were better, then he wouldn’t have had to cheat on me to get better. And he cheated on me a lot.”
“I already know that’s not true. Your kisses do it for me, Glory. Every damn time.” And somehow, we fell into one of those kisses. He pressed his lips to mine in a slow, deliberate way, driving me out of my mind.
“No—” I managed to push him back. “This is serious. You only think you like it because I’m the shiny new toy in the box. Once my newness fades, then what will you have?”
“A sexy woman who I’m lucky enough to wake up next to every morning because we’re married and she owns my heart.”
“But the sex,” I protested.
“Glory. Please hear me.” His eyes bore into mine making it impossible to look anywhere else. “I want to make love to you.” To prove his point, Blake dragged my hand down to the bulge still very present in his pants. “This is what you do to me. If you don’t want to, I won’t force the issue, but, sweetheart, I’ve kissed my share of women. None of them made me feel how you make me feel. Your ex was an ass. I’m not. I see the beauty in front of me. I already know how good it’ll feel to move inside you. You just do it for me, Gloria Kowalski.”
“But,” I whispered.
“No buts. The question now is: Do you want me to make love to you?”
“Before I answer, I’d just like to know what happened to cinnamon roll in the streets and alpha in the sheets. If you’d stuck to that agreement, then this conversation wouldn’t have had to happen.”
He shrugged. “I got caught up in the moment. Now I know it’s truly what you need, and knowing, as some smart person said, is half the battle.”
“So, you promise. You’re my cinnamon roll alpha.”
“Does this mean you want to make love?”
“More than you know.”
Because yes. All the yes. I’d never been made love to before. My stinking ex and I never came close to making love . But Blake’s said it twice. He wanted to make love to me . Gloria. His wife.
You can do this, Gloria. He’s yours. I sucked in a slow breath, then let it out even slower. Then I held my hand out to him.
“Glory B!” he whisper-shouted, helping me up off the sofa.
Glory B .
I sure hoped so.