Chapter Eleven Ellie
“Look this way please,” the photographer said, and I turned my attention towards the smiling woman.
I couldn’t believe it happened so quickly. But the ceremony was over, and I was now Mrs. Ellie Ramirez.
Holy. Shit
We’d decided on a light fare with Autumn themed cocktails and appetizers passed out by servers after the ceremony.
We already cut the cake, and coffee was now being served in pretty little demitasse cups.
It was a delicious confection made of dark chocolate and the most sublime buttercream on the whole planet, decked out with realistic replicas of my bouquet made out of spun sugar.
I looked down at the beautiful princess cut black diamond surrounded by dozens of sparkling baguettes in a platinum setting sitting on my finger, and my eyes widened.
He’d nailed it. There was something about the stone that just drew me. Maybe it was the mystery behind it. Or the fact black was not the normal color for a wedding dress or ring.
But I always liked it. My fascination with Halloween started when I was a child and I wanted to wear a scary witch costume.
My nanny insisted on me wearing a princess dress. I caved.
Of course I did.
I’d wanted to be liked and loved, and my father cared, but he was never one to coddle. So I did what I was told.
I always did what I was told. But I didn’t want to. Not anymore.
Andres really had thought of everything.
The ring.
The dress.
The party.
Everything.
He did everything. Things I hadn’t even asked him to see to. Things I was hardly willing to admit I wanted.
I didn’t know how to handle it. I mean this was a marriage of convenience.
Mainly mine.
But Andres made it seem like more. Like this was something he actually wanted and not something I just threw out at him in a moment of desperation.
“Coffee?” he asked, coming towards me with an espresso in his hand.
“Is it spiked?” I asked.
“Just a little,” Andres said, his lips quirked up in a rare teasing grin.
He held the cup to my lips, and my pulse raced.
It was nothing, really.
Just my new husband sharing his coffee with me.
Nothing to write home about.
But my hand trembled as I touched his, allowing him to tilt the delicate ceramic so I could swallow the delicious dark brew.
“Good?” he asked once I’d taken a small sip, relishing the licorice-flavored liquor he’d added to it.
“Mm hm. Sambuca?”
“Anisette,” he corrected me.
I hummed again, and Andres grinned. My lips parted.
Christ, he was good looking.
He downed the rest of the coffee in a single gulp. I watched his throat work and heat flooded my system.
Why was that sexy?
He was just a man drinking espresso, for God’s sake. Not like he was one of those shirtless lumberjacks that kept popping up on my social media feed.
Don’t ask.
Again, I reminded myself it was no big deal.
But that was a lie. I was fooling myself.
It was something. The simple act of sharing coffee was monumental somehow. I felt my pulse quicken and my heart squeeze.
Maybe it was the intimacy of it that left me a little breathless.
“Did you see Sammy before he went to bed?” I asked, knowing how Andres enjoyed tucking him in.
“I did. I must have just missed you. I gave him a kiss goodnight after he’d already fallen asleep,” he said with a shrug.
I smiled indulgently. My son was my pride and joy, and it was one subject Andres and I seemed to have no trouble communicating about at all.
Was it wrong that I loved how openly affectionate he was with Sammy?
Andres didn’t shy from hugs or sticky kisses. Sammy was still young enough to enjoy being petted and praised. And Andres indulged him with genuine affection.
He never had anything like that from Gary. I was worried he would be afraid, living with a man after months of it being just us. But he wasn’t.
Maybe it was because Sammy and Andres had formed a bond over the past few months. We’d seen him at every Sourdough Saturday and at other times when we visited Meredith or one of the other women.
Andres was good to my son. And that made me like him a little more than I should.
Sammy deserved to be happy and safe. I just needed to remind myself that was the reason for our marriage.
We got married to protect Sammy from Gary. Not because we were in love or anything.
Why did that make my heart hurt?
“He must have conked out right away, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Poor little guy was all tuckered out. I mean, after all this excitement, who wouldn’t be?” I shrugged.
“What do you mean? The party?”
“Well, Sammy just got a new stepdad and a new grandmother. He was thrilled when she asked him to call her Nana,” I told Andres, waiting for him to gift me with one of his rare smiles.
He did, and I almost swooned at his feet.
I had to admit I’d been nervous about meeting her, but Andres’ mom was fantastic. A sweet, wonderful woman who obviously loved her son.
“Oh, that reminds me, the car is here to take my mother back to her place in Hoboken. But I know she’d like to say goodbye to you, if you don’t mind.”
“Um, sure,” I agreed, closing my eyes for a second when I felt his hand on the small of my back.
Andres had been touching me all night.
Not blatantly. Not in any way that would make anyone notice.
But I noticed.
It was like every brush of his fingers across my body was him marking me in some way, branding me as his. I nodded my head, allowing him to gently guide me to the front door where his mother, who insisted I call her Nancy, was waiting.
“There she is. My beautiful new daughter! Now, I know you’re both leaving for this one night honeymoon of yours, and you have loads to do to get settled in, but I want you to come visit soon with my baby boy,” Nancy said.
“Mom, I’m thirty-seven,” Andres teased his mother.
“Not you! I meant my little Sammy. Anyway, I just wanted to say, Ellie, I am so happy my Andres found such a special woman to share his life with. He works so hard?—”
“Mom,” Andres moaned.
“Okay, okay. Congratulations again, my darlings,” she said, squeezing both of our hands and tugging us forward for cheek kisses.
“Thank you. It was so nice to meet you,” I replied, a little embarrassed.
“I’ll walk you out, Mom. Be right back.”
Andres’ hand contracted on my back as he stepped away from me to walk his mother to the car. I bit my lip and watched him.
“That’s a good man right there, taking care of his mom like that,” Meredith whispered from right beside me, and I jumped.
“Christ, Meredith! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Uh no. I’m just saying, Andres is a really good guy. I mean, look how gorgeous everything was tonight. He went above and beyond?—”
“He hired a planner. It’s not that big a deal,” I muttered, refusing to acknowledge what she was trying to do.
“Um, actually, he sent a ten paragraph email to the planner detailing everything from the menu to the flowers to the lighting. If I’m not mistaken, Andres is meticulous like that in every aspect of his life, but you would know better than me,” she said, waggling her eyebrows at me.
I shook my head, biting my lip to stifle my giggle.
She wasn’t wrong.
Andres was a generous man.
In all ways.
My body heated, and my mouth was dry. I licked my lips, watching as he closed the door after his mother got inside the car.
Andres tapped the roof, signaling to the driver, and he backed up a step to watch the vehicle pulling away until it turned around the corner.
He really was a good man. And it dawned on me right then, Andres was my man.
My husband.
Technically, it wasn’t wrong for me to want him in that way. It didn’t make me depraved or sick to imagine his hands on my body or his lips crushing mine.
Sammy was safe and secure. Josef was the motherfucking head of security for Volkov Industries, and he ran his own very successful, very lethal, security firm. My son wouldn’t be safer if he were in Fort Knox.
I’d already had my fill of food and drink and conversation. In fact, I felt more myself tonight than I had in years.
There was one common denominator in all of it. And that was Andres.
Maybe I was moving too fast.
Maybe I should work harder to separate the reasons we married.
I was tired of ignoring the way my chest tightened and my pulse reacted whenever his stormy eyes met mine.
Maybe I should have fought harder against his insistence that we make this thing real.
But even if I had, even if this was all a mistake, it didn’t change how I felt right then.
Warm. Needy. Wet.
Tonight I was a newly married woman, and I wanted my husband with a hunger I’d never felt.
Suddenly, I was very ready to leave.