Chapter Nine
Violet
“Are you sure you want to do this now?”
Walking the path down to the clubhouse, hand in hand with Reaux, she slanted him an amused look. It had been two days since the CNC scene and her subsequent breakdown; the entire dynamic of her life had shifted in those forty-eight hours. “It needs to be done.”
The barriers she’d kept erected against him were gone. The hatred, the resentment, the fury she’d used to protect herself for so long were no longer prominent, little more than raised scars left behind to remind her of the burden she’d carried.
It made life easier, she mused, being able to look at his face and not want to tear it off his skull.
She certainly felt more… peaceful within herself.
Once the violence simmering in her veins dissipated, she realized how much damage she’d been doing to herself, how close she’d come to severing bonds with her friends and the community by harboring all that rage.
Now she no longer bowed under its weight, she felt like she could breathe again.
“I don’t want them upsetting you.” Reaux was particularly unsettled this evening, his protective instincts strong.
After she’d cried all over him, he was letting his Dom run on a longer leash, marking his territory around her to keep the bad stuff at bay.
“This could’ve waited until you feel better. ”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m tired and a little rundown, Boudreaux.
Hardly at death’s door. They deserve to hear this from me; if we keep putting it off, they’re going to figure it out themselves, and that’s unfair.
They took me in, made me feel welcome, brought me home into a family I love very much. ”
“They lured you away from your home, away from me.”
“That’s probably a good thing, for you. I’d have been tempted to do something stupid if I remained in a citywide proximity to you.”
“Like come back to me without me having to chase you across several states?”
Violet laughed. “Like hire a hitman or murder you myself.”
“True love doesn’t exchange cash for murder; you’d have done it yourself in fine style.” Grinning, he tugged her to his side, anchoring her with an arm around her waist. “Of course, the cops would pin you as the prime suspect if anything happened to me.”
“Oh? And why would they do that?”
“They always focus on the beneficiaries of a victim’s will, Bennie, and you are my sole heiress. Well, aside from a small portion for Francoise—”
Gravel crunched as her feet slammed to a halt, her heels digging in slightly. She wobbled, fisting her hand in his shirt to keep her balance as her head went unfeasibly light. “Excuse me? I’m what?”
“My sole heiress,” he repeated slowly, enunciating the words with care.
His head cocked, lips twitching in amusement.
“Mon dieu, did that not occur to you? Violet, you are my heart; you own it. As far as I’m concerned, you are my wife in every way but on paper, and I’m planning to change that in short order.
Distance and strife aside, what is mine is yours, in life and death. ”
She couldn’t breathe. “You’re leaving everything to me? Are you insane?”
“Well, as I was saying, Francoise will receive half a million dollars for his loyalty and service to me. He’s been a good friend and associate over the years. The rest goes to you and, with any luck…” He trailed off, glancing lovingly at her belly, then cleared his throat. “Our children.”
“But… But your family…”
“You are my family, Violet. I built Amatory for you, for us. There would be no business, no empire without you. If, one day, I am no longer here, you will inherit my life’s work, the dream I created for you.
” He reached out and popped her mouth shut with a fingertip under her chin.
“My kin are wealthy enough without bequeathing them more. My legacy will live on with you; they’d just dismantle it and sell off the clubs to the highest bidders. This is not what I want.”
Completely stunned, she stared at him in disbelief. “H-How long…”
He tilted his dark head in question, then smiled. “How long has my entire estate been promised to you?” He tipped his hand from side to side. “Around our eighteen month anniversary, give or take a week.”
“What?”
He just shrugged off her incredulity. “Really, Violet, one would think you haven’t listened to a word I’ve told you.
I’ve known you were my only from the start.
Once we’d been together a year, I began thinking beyond the present into the future.
If anything happened to me, I was adamant that you would be taken care of, no matter what. ”
“We broke up for two years, Boudreaux! Did you not think to amend your will?”
His disapproval was evident as he waved that question away. “In my eyes, it was not the termination of our relationship. I remained loyal to you; you did not seek alternative company for sexual or romantic purposes. We were simply taking some time apart.”
“First thing in the morning, you call your fancy-ass lawyers and change this, Reaux.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? I don’t want your money or your clubs.
It wasn’t why I wanted to be with you before, and it sure as hell isn’t now.
” She pulled away from him, throwing her hands up in frustration as she spun around.
“When were you going to tell me? Were you going to let the executor drop the bombshell at your funeral?”
“Death is in the future,” he replied wisely. “Today, I’m focusing on the present.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Violet said wearily, knowing she was losing the battle with him. His patience and persistence—so blasé on the surface—camouflaged the dark vein of stubbornness that was nearly impossible to beat.
“I would’ve told you when you said yes.”
“Yes to what?” she demanded hotly, turning back to face him again.
Only, he wasn’t where he’d been standing just a few seconds ago; no, the jackass was on one knee, damp gravel forming a wet patch on his pants, gazing up at her like a servant idolizing his queen. There was a rueful half-smile curving one side of his mouth, but his eyes were direct and serious.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“This is the present, Violet. This is me, tired of waiting for the perfect moment because, fuck, every moment with you is perfect. Good, bad, ugly… every one of them is part of us, and I’m sick of wasting them.
” He extended his hand out, unfurling his fingers to reveal a familiar box before flicking it open.
“I love you, Violet. It has never wavered, faded, or died. It only grows stronger. It belongs to you and you alone.”
“Why now?” This time the words were barely audible even to her own ears.
“Because each breath that passes is one less. However many I have left, I want to spend them with you as my wife, with my name. In a week or so, we’ll find out if we created something spectacular, something precious, and I…
” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Child or not, my feelings and wishes won’t change, Violet.
I want us to be secure in each other before we take that test.”
Christ, he was smooth. Knocking her off balance with the whole inheritance thing, then taking her out at the knees with a proposal that left his emotions hanging in the wind.
This was probably the most vulnerable she would ever see him, and that was saying something when she’d had him trussed up with an anal hook in his ass.
They were going to the clubhouse to tell everyone she was leaving, she reminded herself. Going back home where she belonged, but the truth was, she belonged with Reaux. They’d always been good together, at least until the shift in her dominant consciousness.
Was it possible they could be more, could be what he envisioned?
Equals.
Violet stared at the open box sitting so innocently on his palm. The ring inside was stunning—white gold band, marquise-cut diamond surrounded by a halo of emeralds—but was it a promise, a collar, or a facade?
Not a collar, she decided. Reaux was aware she was no longer the submissive she once was; she could allow herself to submit, but being a full-time sub was no longer on the cards.
After all the shit they’d been through, she was having trouble imagining him using an engagement or marriage as a facade.
He understood what he stood to lose if he played another stunt like before, and she hoped he knew that if he fucked up that badly again, when she walked away, there would be no going back.
A promise then. To have and to hold, cherish and obey, all those traditional values spoken reverently during the vows. A fragile promise, held together with words and a piece of jewelry.
One he’d carried around with him for years, she reminded herself. A promise he’d been intent on keeping for over a decade.
Loving him wasn’t a stroll in the park; it was a rollercoaster, full of epically wondrous highs and frighteningly disastrous lows.
Somehow, despite the hate and the fury, it survived the brutality of her emotional destruction, sheltering where she couldn’t physically rip it out of her heart and throw it away.
Inhaling slowly, Violet rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. “If a man proposes to a woman and doesn’t take the ring out of the box, is it a serious proposal?”
It took him a few seconds, his brow furrowing as he worked out her version of If a bear shits in the woods… Hope, beautiful hope, illuminated his face when it finally clicked, and he stared at her with those remarkable eyes alive with the true extent of his love.
Quite honestly, she began to wonder how she’d ever doubted him when he looked at her like that.
Composing himself quickly, Reaux acted without delay, plucking the ring from its snug velvet bed. The box dropped to the gravel, discarded without a second thought, and he offered the ring between his thumb and forefinger. “How rude of me, Mistress. My apologies.”