Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock…
The song crackled over the airport speakers, and Bea couldn’t help smiling. She loathed winter’s bite, but coming home to snow felt like Christmas in a way nothing else did.
Rafael steered their two suitcases, stopping just on the inside of the sliding-glass doors.
His dark coat was thrown over the black hoodie and jeans he’d worn across seventeen hours of first class.
He was maddeningly fresh: jaw cut, stubble artful, shoulders carrying casual strength.
Jet lag was something that happened to other mortals.
She’d never let Gage upgrade her when she flew solo, and they’d never gone commercial together since King Global Capital had its own jet.
Rafael hadn’t asked, he’d simply put her up in first with him, because there was no version of reality where he’d let her ride in the back.
Bea, to her chagrin, had to admit that champagne and a flat bed were luxuries she might not be able to say no to again.
Now Rafael was here, in a Canadian arrivals hall, impossible to miss. His beauty wasn’t polite; it demanded attention. He drew stares the way Christmas trees drew ornaments. He looked like he’d been flown in with the poinsettias and tinsel, another imported luxury for the season.
“There’s Papa’s truck,” she said, pointing as an F-150 pulled to the curb outside.
Rafael caught her hand. “Don’t be nervous, little Bea.”
“I’m trying.”
Yesterday she’d FaceTimed her parents to inform them that: one, she was dating Rafael Griffin.
And two, he was flying home with her. They’d taken it better than expected.
Seemed unsurprised, pleased, even, that he was visiting.
To them, if he could survive Christmas dinner with her uncles, aunts, and cousins, that was as good as a background check.
He tugged the ends of her scarf and wound it snug around her throat, cocooning her in warmth like that was his responsibility. “Better.”
As they approached the sliding doors, Cain stepped forward, murmured something in his ear, and received a brief nod. A black SUV came up behind her father’s Ford. Bea could only assume Voss was driving it.
They stepped into the frigid air just as Papa and Umma climbed out of the truck.
“Beatriz! Rafael!” Umma called, her voice slicing through the wind.
Bea hugged both parents in turn.
Rafael and Papa shared a gloved handshake.
“In our part of the world this time,” Papa said.
“With a promotion, sir.”
“Step up from driver.” Papa chuckled. “Now get in before we freeze our noses off.”
Suitcases were stowed, doors slammed, and somehow Rafael folded all six-foot-three of himself into the back beside her without complaint. His hard thigh brushed hers and stayed there, sending little spasms of pleasure up and down her leg.
“How was the flight?” Umma asked, turning in the passenger seat.
“Uh…good,” Bea said awkwardly. Translation: she’d slept like a pampered heiress in a fully flat wool-covered bed. She didn’t even know why she was discomforted admitting it. “Best I’ve ever been on.”
“Seventeen hours in the air still makes you grateful to be on solid ground, ma’am,” Rafael added smoothly.
“I was thinking,” Umma said, eyes twinkling, “Bea calls your parents Theia and Theios. Maybe you can call us Imo and Tio?”
Bea’s stomach nosedived. Immediate, catastrophic parental adoption. She stuttered out, “Are you sure?”
Rafael gave her a look, then turned back to Umma. “I will, Imo. Tio, have you been fishing lately?”
“I can’t go ice fishing or I’d never see my girls,” Papa said, indicating left and merging lanes. “Neither of these two would come with me. In winter I smoke meat instead. You came at a good time—we’re smoking and grilling for Christmas.”
“Do you need help cooking or judging?”
“Both.”
“Perfect.”
“Are you staying with us?” Umma asked.
Rafael shook his head. “I booked a place in the city. Didn’t want to intrude on your family time.”
Approval flickered across both their faces.
“Come eat dinner with us first,” Umma said. “I made too much food.”
Bea sank into the seat, watching as Rafael continued a conversation with her parents with an almost unfathomable level of ease. All the awkwardness in the vehicle was coming from her.
They pulled into the driveway. The porch light glowed against the snow, casting a yellow halo on the steps. Rafael carried their suitcases to the front door.
Inside the foyer, everyone peeled off coats and scarves. Bea had to bite down a smile when he automatically bent to untie his boots, sliding them neatly beside her father’s.
“There’s a game on, I’ll just check the score,” Papa said, disappearing into the living room.
“I’ll heat everything up again. It won’t take long,” Umma said, already moving toward the kitchen. “Bea, show him around.”
There wasn’t much to show. Modest bungalow, three bedrooms, a few creaky wooden floorboards. But Rafael didn’t breeze through like most people. He kept stopping, as if their family photos were an art exhibit.
He paused at a frame of Bea at two or three, sitting in the grass in overalls, cheeks round, fists full of dandelions like she’d conquered the whole yard. Her hair stuck up in soft tufts, mouth grinning, nose scrunched in delight.
He touched it lightly with the tip of a finger. “I bet your parents smile every time they see this. Hard not to, with a face like that.”
Bea snorted. “The face of the girl who wiped out the dandelion population.”
“One day it’ll be our daughters terrorizing the yard.”
So. That was…a choice of words.
Her heartbeat thumped. “Rafael, you can’t just drop things like that in the middle of my hallway.”
His gaze met hers, unashamed. “And you can’t keep pretending I don’t mean every word.”
Every molecule in her body was humming with tumult and arousal.
As if showing mercy, his thumb brushed the old giraffe sticker climbing the wall. “So this is how they tracked your height.”
Bea angled toward him, grateful for the change of subject. “Mm-hmm. Every birthday until I stopped growing.”
“Stopped growing?” he teased. “You just refused to compete with the giraffe.”
Bea huffed a laugh. Her knuckle traced just above the top mark. “I got as a far as I was going to get by the end of middle school.”
“Perfect,” he murmured in that whisky-on-the-rocks tone. “Any taller and I couldn’t fit you under my chin.”
She had to concentrate hard not to be seduced right before family dinner. “Quick tour of my room?”
It was exactly as she’d left it: bookshelf crammed full, desk still lined with neat notebooks, blankets folded dutifully at the foot of the bed.
Rafael stepped inside, and immediately the space felt tiny. His gaze flicked over the walls, full of posters of her favorite bands and artists. He trailed a finger along the spines that lined her shelves. “You read all of these?”
“Most of them,” she mumbled, suddenly very aware of the way her posters and paperbacks screamed sixteen-year-old girl rather than St. Ives graduate.
His hand stilled on a row of bright-colored spines, then drifted higher, plucking something off the shelf. A stuffed polar bear. The poor thing had been loved to within an inch of its life.
One of his brows tipped. “Is this who guarded the fort before I came?”
“Put him back.”
He squeezed it once, testing its durability. “Maybe you should bring him to Westhaven. Let him meet Octavian.”
Her mouth fell open. “No way. They’d fight. Octavian is two and a half feet taller, and has four more legs than Mr. Blizzard.”
Rafael carefully returned the polar bear, then sank onto the edge of her bed.
Her ears were on fire. Rafael Griffin, all sinew and sin, on her floral quilt. Not exactly on her bingo card for this life.
He caught the expression on her face, and the corner of his mouth curved. Wicked. He reclined back on his palms, shoulders stretching the fabric of his hoodie like it was trying to survive him.
“It’s small,” he said, tapping the mattress with his fingers, eyes gleaming. “But I can make it work.”
Brain activity: terminated.
“Come here, little Bea.”
That idea belonged in the absolutely do not category.
He leaned forward, hooked his arm around the back of her thighs, and pulled her toward him until she was kneeling on either side of his legs. Her pulse went ballistic.
“Dinner’s ready!” Umma’s voice sailed down the hall.
Bea launched off him like a rocket.
In the dining room, the table groaned under the weight of Umma’s ambition. Two bubbling stews, half a dozen plates of banchan, and at least three kinds of stir-fry.
“I told her not to cook this much,” Papa said dryly, setting out the last of the bowls.
“She didn’t listen,” Bea said, like it was scripted.
“She never does,” Papa agreed, already reaching for a spoon.
“Our only daughter was coming home,” Umma said, as if that explained everything. And really, it did.
Rafael ate in earnest. With unselfconscious appreciation.
Umma kept refilling his bowl like she’d found her new favorite son. “Eat more. You look strong, but not enough.”
Bea nearly choked on her rice. Her mother was feeding a billionaire like he’d just been discharged from military service.
“Last time I spoke to your father, you were working on something in Malaysia,” Papa said, pouring Rafael a shot of soju. “How’s that going?”
“That one’s on-schedule now. The deal in the pipeline is Thailand.”
“How long does it take to put together one of these?” Umma asked, eyes wide.
“It depends. Six to twelve months is usually enough for the suits to get the signatures if it’s a private deal. Once governments are involved, we could double or triple that timeline and reduce profit by around twenty percent.”
“You’d think it would be the opposite considering the amount of tax we pay,” Papa grunted.
Rafael nodded. “It’s not the men doing the building who overcomplicate things. It’s the suits who’ve never lifted a beam telling them how to hold it.”