CHAPTER ELEVEN
PAPRIKA’STUFTLOST by a nose. Norma was disappointed but mollified by the quarter of a million dollars that was the second-prize purse.
Fliss had another good day with two wins and a shrewd win-place-show cover of bets in the final race. Her biggest return came when the man who had shadowed her bets gave her his business card.
“Call my assistant the next time you’re on your way to Paris. She’ll have accounts opened at whichever boutiques you like to visit.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you, but I couldn’t.” She looked to Saint, nonplussed.
“I’m up four hundred thousand dollars today. You ought to have a cut of those winnings,” the man insisted.
“Take the card,” Saint said mildly. “Send him your business plan. See if he’d like to bet on you. Fliss designs lingerie,” he told the man.
“Ah. Yes. I’d like to see that proposal.”
His immediate interest plucked against her sense of not working hard enough to earn such an advantage, but it was a nice outcome to end what had been a tense day. She’d been braced for the worst, but it hasn’t been as uncomfortable as Fliss had feared. There’d been too much action and, thankfully, the drunk who’d provoked Saint last night was nursing his hangover and didn’t turn up at the track.
They returned to New York later that evening to headlines about her pregnancy, but a political scandal was already overshadowing it.
A small honeymoon period ensued, one that filled Fliss with optimism. She did send her proposal to her potential investor, then flew to California with Saint, where she was accidentally photographed in one of her own bathing suits. Her bump was growing obvious and the rest of her was filling out, too. She wore a seashell-patterned bikini top that tied between her breasts. The matching bottoms were high-waisted and had seashell-shaped cutouts on either hip, each outlined with dark blue piping. She also wore a wide-brimmed hat that she was holding on her head as she tipped her head back and laughed at something Saint had said.
It wasn’t a lewd photo. The suit was only partially visible beneath her filmy cover-up, but it was labeled “body positive” and captured an intimate moment between them, so it went viral. All the online influencers wanted to know where her ensemble had been purchased, and when it was identified as her own design, her potential business partner leapt on it, offering her an obscene amount of money to get a line of bathing suits to market as quickly as possible.
From then on, she and Saint both had busy days. While he assembled his team for his security project and oversaw that along with his regular responsibilities she hired her own team, including a buyer in Asia who began sending her amazing fabric samples.
Amid their heavy work schedules, they began hosting dinners. The first was a fun mash-up of his nerdy programmers and her fashion geeks that ended in makeovers and at least one new romance. Then, Fliss began finding her feet with Saint’s social circle. They attended cocktail parties and galas. People were more gracious now that they realized she was carrying the next heir to Grayscale and likely to be at these events more often. Fliss didn’t kid herself that it was more personal than that, but at least she was growing more comfortable in these settings.
The only hiccup occurred when they were invited to spend an evening in the private box of a celebrity to watch a basketball game. The evening had barely started when there was the sound of a brash female voice calling out drunken greetings, but even as Fliss turned to look, Saint was moving between them, blocking her from seeing the woman. He put a word in someone’s ear, and moments later, they were heading to the car.
“Julie,” Saint explained with a curl of his lip. “I stopped short of a restraining order when I sent her the cease and desist, but there’s no reason either of us need to be in the same room with her. Do you mind?”
“No.” They hadn’t had a night to themselves in ages. She was more than glad that their evening turned into a cuddle on the couch and some unhurried lovemaking. At times like this, everything about her new life was perfect.
Except...they didn’t talk about the baby very often. Fliss was eighteen weeks along and had begun looking through books of names. She also discussed with Saint which room she thought would be best as a nursery. He was agreeable but always seemed a little reticent, which worried her.
He was busy, though. He’d been curtailing travel for her sake, so she wasn’t exactly neglected. Also, this pregnancy was happening to her in a very physical way. She had been feeling small internal flutters lately and her baby bump was growing more pronounced, but Saint had yet to feel the baby move.
She had hoped by now he would start to see the baby as more real, but when she pressed his hand to her abdomen in the shower and asked “Can you feel that?” he shook his head.
It was a very subtle sensation inside her, so she wasn’t surprised, only disappointed because she wanted him to be as excited as she was. But he wasn’t.
“Are you sure there’s even a baby in there?” he joked lightly, circling his soapy palm around her navel.
“You think I’m packing on weight for show?”
“Pack it on. I’m not complaining.” His lathered hands climbed to cup the weighty swells of her breasts. “I thought you were hot as hell the first time I saw you, but I’m liable to keep you pregnant for years, purely to enjoy this benefit.”
“We all need goals,” she drawled, amused but also heartened when he spoke as though their future together was a given.
She wanted to believe they would marry and enjoy a long life together, but she also knew the baby would change everything. They would have a whole other human being between them. They wouldn’t make love as often or sleep in or go out as much.
There was that other, deeper worry inside her, too. She’d had her world come crumbling down too many times to trust that this new life she was building would last. He might find it threatening that she had contingency plans, and she might have already sat with him and his father as they went over paperwork that explained how the baby’s trust would work if something happened to Saint, but all it did was remind her that something could happen to him.
She stored copies of the paperwork in a safe-deposit box and opened an account in her own name, one that she used to continue paying rent on her bedsit in Nottingham. She knew Saint took it personally because she told him about it and watched his expression stiffen, but having a fallback position gave her comfort.
Somehow eight weeks of living with him had slipped past and it was time for her twenty-week scan.
“Willow is sending contact details for a real estate agent who will meet with you as soon as we arrive in London,” Saint said, pulling her concentration from trying to ignore the fact that her bladder was about to burst. “I’ll need two days at the office, then we can spend the rest of the week looking at properties.”
He had delayed his trip until after this scan, to be sure she was safe to fly and could come with him, but they were going straight to the jet from here.
“Okay,” she said through gritted teeth.
Thankfully, the technician entered with a friendly smile.
Saint took her hand and gave the screen his attention, but Fliss still had the impression he was only being polite and continued to hold himself at a distance where the baby was concerned.
The woman applied jelly to Fliss’s belly and began moving the wand, explaining they typically only used the 3D imaging if this traditional two-dimensional black-and-white imaging revealed a concern. She began pointing to silvery lines and blobs, explaining she was measuring the skull and spine. She pointing out the four chambers of the baby’s heart.
“Oh, that’s a good one.” A pair of feet appeared. They were so clear, it was as though the baby had left its footprints in black sand. She snapped a photo.
Fliss became aware of her hand feeling compressed and glanced at Saint.
His eyes were glued to the screen, his expression frozen in a state of fascinated wonder. He didn’t seem to realize he was crushing her fingers.
“Saint?”
He dragged his gaze to hers and swallowed.
“Fliss...” He couldn’t seem to find words.
She was so touched, she welled up. Her heart grew so big in her chest, it hurt. This was what she had wanted from him. “I know, right?”
His mouth opened, but he only shook his head helplessly and looked back to the screen.
He was still quiet when they were in the car. She waited until they were in the air to ask tentatively, “Are you all right?”
“Not really.” He rarely drank these days, mostly in solidarity to her teetotalling, but he sipped a double scotch before saying, “I just found out we’re having a baby.”
Fliss couldn’t help chuckling. “My bad. I should have told you sooner.”
“It wasn’t a person until today. It was a date on a calendar that I needed to keep clear. It was decisions about furniture and words that Legal needed to write into some documents.”
She took his hand in both her own, able to sympathize with his shock because it had taken time for her, too.
He wove his fingers with hers, staring at their joined hands.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but it was easier to think of your pregnancy as a project with an outcome, not the creation of another human,” he admitted in a very quiet voice. “Now it’s someone I have to worry about. Someone who becomes me. He—” He slid her a look. “Did you think it was a boy?”
They had told the tech they didn’t want to know the sex, but Fliss rolled her eyes at how obvious it had been.
“I mean, I’ll support whatever gender they feel they are, but yeah. For now, I’ll focus on the blue pages in the naming book, not the pink ones. But what do you mean the baby becomes you?”
“Caught in the middle.” His thumb rubbed the back of her hand with a little too much abrasiveness to be comfortable.
“I won’t use him against you,” she vowed. “I know that’s hard for you to believe, but I won’t.”
He nodded absently, gaze fixed on the middle distance.
“You don’t have to be like your dad, you know. The company doesn’t have to be your sole focus. You can make other choices.”
You can love your family. Love us. Love me.
She didn’t say it. She was a little put out with herself for thinking it. For yearning for it. They were in a very good place. She didn’t want to want more from him.
But she did. Because she was falling in love with him.
“I know,” he murmured and brought her hand up to kiss the back of it.
She waited, but he didn’t say anything more than that.
They were served a meal soon after, and she moved into the stateroom when she finished, wanting a nap before they landed, but her heart was still panging with yearning.
Fliss didn’t know how Saint managed the time change so easily. He rose to shower a few hours after they arrived, whispering that she should continue sleeping. It felt like the middle of the night, so she did exactly that. Granted, Saint wasn’t growing a whole other human, but despite her nap on the flight, she was exhausted and thankful for the lazy day where she only had to meet with the estate agent for an hour in the afternoon.
They had dinner with some of his London executives that evening. They were photographed going into the restaurant, but she was used to the attention now. Aside from dressing strategically to promote fellow designers, she ignored the cameras and shouting.
The next day, Saint arranged a car to take her to Nottingham to visit with Mrs. Bhamra. This was for Fliss, since he was busy working all day. They would have a proper dinner with the woman and her family later in the week so Saint could meet everyone.
Fliss picked up a text from Saint as she was leaving the hotel.
I asked the driver to bring you to me on your way out of the city.
At the office? Why?
You’ll see.
A few minutes later, the car pulled into a posh square in Knightsbridge. Saint waited outside a beautiful town house.
“Are we looking at a house?” she asked as he helped her from the car.
“No. You look lovely.”
“Thank you.” She picked up her saucy ballet flat with its colorful pink ribbon, giving the hem of her stretchy knit skirt a lift. The powder blue hugged her bump and hips before falling to her knees. A lacy white crop top with long sleeves and a scalloped hem covered her arms and upper torso.
Saint brought her into the foyer where a guard touched his hat in greeting. At the elevator, Saint tapped in a code.
“This is starting to feel like a secret location for spies or—Oh.”
The doors opened into a sparkling wonderland. A jewelry shop. A very, very exclusive one if the thick glass and security precautions and displayed tiaras were anything to go on.
A woman introduced herself as Ms. Smythe. She had long black hair, bright mauve lips and vintage-style sunglasses with yellow lenses that sat low on her nose.
“Ah. My earrings found their owner after all,” Ms. Smythe said with warm approval. “They suit you.”
“Oh. Thank you. I do love them,” Fliss said sincerely, touching one self-consciously.
“Please make yourself comfortable.” She waved at a love seat with a low table before it.
Fliss’s heart clenched as she saw the array of diamond rings in a specialized black tray waiting on the table.
“I’ve prepared a selection for you to peruse, but it’s only a starting point. I can also create a custom piece once I have a sense of your taste. Shall I fetch some nonalcoholic bubbly?”
“Yes.” Saint nodded at Ms. Smythe. “Give us a moment, if you don’t mind.”
He brought Fliss to the table. She could hardly breathe, realizing what this moment was. Her whole body grew hot, her cheeks stung and her eyes welled.
“I keep thinking,” Saint began gravely while circling his hand in her lower back.
She looked up at him, wanting to capture and memorize everything about his proposal. He was as handsome as ever, still looking freshly shaved and crisp from his morning shower. His suit was a lightweight sage green, his collar bone white, as was his tie. His mouth was twitching as though he wasn’t as steady on the inside as he looked on the outside, and his dark coffee eyes were so compelling she could have fallen into them.
“For the baby’s sake...” he continued in a voice that was growing husky.
For the baby’s sake.
She knew that wasn’t the best reason to marry, but it was a good one. She wanted more commitment between them. She already knew that she wanted to spend her life with him. She loved him.
Oh, God. She loved him.
Her insides felt as though they tilted and glinted, reflecting rainbows through her as she accepted all the lovely colors of love he provoked—the bright yellows and laughing greens, the passionate reds, the introspective blues and the endless fire of pure, white love.
“We should have more commitment between us. You’re shaking.” He reached for her hand. “I should have warned you this morning. Asked. I am asking,” he said wryly. “Will you marry me, Fliss?”
“Yes,” she whispered, blinking to clear her welling eyes, so suffused in the power of her love for him she could hardly speak.
He drew in a breath the way he did sometimes when she touched him intimately, as though the pleasure was more intense than he could bear. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, mouth hot and hungry but tender and sweet. Thorough and...loving?
As the fires of arousal began to catch in both of them, he drew back, rueful.
“Let’s pick a ring.”
She swiped under her eyes and drew a breath, trying to catch hold of herself. It wasn’t the engagement filling her with so much joy, though. It was this feeling. She was in love. She had found her person.
He is the one.
“They don’t have prices,” she whispered as she picked up one at random.
“This is not a place for bargain hunters,” Saint said drily. “I like this one.”
He offered an emerald-cut diamond the size of her thumbnail. A pair of trapezoid-cut diamonds flanked either side. The setting was simple yet different enough to be eye-catching. It was stunning and elegant.
Fliss instantly loved it but made herself scan for something that looked less expensive. All the rings were incredibly beautiful and tastefully extravagant and had to be worth millions of pounds. He wasn’t really going to give her a ring like this, was he? What happened to two months’ salary?
“Try it on.”
Her hand was still trembling. She let him push it onto her finger, but it wouldn’t go over her knuckle.
“My fingers are swollen.” It was still morning, and all of her was puffy these days.
“I’ll resize it.” Ms. Smythe appeared with a tray that held two filled flutes of sparkling amber liquid.
“But after the baby comes...”
“I’ll do it again.” Ms. Smythe handed her a glass, then offered the other to Saint. “It only takes a day or two. It’s no trouble.”
Fliss didn’t know a lot about fine metals, but she knew platinum couldn’t be melted down and used again.
“Unless you’d prefer something with color? This yellow diamond would suit your skin tone,” Ms. Smythe said.
“I actually like this one.” Fliss was still trying to force the ring over her knuckle. It was the one Saint had picked out, and looking into its facets was like staring into an infinity mirror.
That was what she wanted to believe, that he was promising her infinity.
“Excellent. Congratulations. Let me get my gauge.”
A few minutes later, they were on the sidewalk again, standing in the shade of the building while they kissed again.
“Say hello to Mrs. Bhamra for me,” Saint said. “Ask her if she’d like to fly back with us. We can drop her in Toronto.”
“It’s short notice. She might want to wait until next time, but I’ll mention it. Thank you. Um...” She was aware of the driver standing at the open the door of the car, waiting for her.
“We’ll have dinner tonight, just us. To celebrate.” Saint cupped her cheek and dropped a last, lingering kiss onto her lips.
She smiled shyly. Should she say it? She felt it. Meant it. Wanted him to know it.
“I—” Her throat started to close with nerves. “I love you,” she confided in a hushed voice.
The relaxed warmth in his expression vanished. The cool, remote man appeared, the one who only thought in binary logic and looked like his dad and said things like, “You don’t have to say that.”
Her heart was instantly pinched in a vise. “I mean it.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.” His hard brows came together. “We agreed that wasn’t something we should expect.”
She wasn’t asking for his love. That was what she wanted to say. But she was, she realized. She wanted her feelings to be returned.
And they weren’t.
“I just thought you should know,” she mumbled and turned away to dive into the car.
“Fliss.” Saint stopped the driver from closing the door.
“You can’t help how you feel, Saint. Or don’t feel,” she added stiffly. “Mrs. Bhamra will worry if I’m late.”
“Damn it.” He should have handled that better.
Saint went back to the office, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was snappish enough that people gave him a wide berth. A few hours later, he went back to an empty hotel room and texted Fliss.
Are you on your way back?
I’m at my bedsit.
His guts turned to concrete.
Why?
I need some time here.
He swore again, refusing to ask how much time. Was she staying the night? Should he go to her? And say what? He hadn’t been built to love anyone, not even himself.
He didn’t even know how to be loved. The few times his father had shown him something like fatherly affection had been around things that measured up in Ted’s estimation of what was important. Did Saint grasp a complex concept? Did he provide a solution that could be monetized? Then yes, Saint was valuable to his father.
As for his mother... Her love had been a needy variety that pulled so hard Saint had never felt like he could possibly be enough to alleviate that emotional chasm inside her.
Thiswas what he had wanted to avoid with Fliss, this sensation of expectations beyond his ability to fulfill. Of not being enough. Of failing.
And he was angry that she’d put this on him. Was she doing it on purpose? Putting herself out of his reach to teach him some sort of lesson? Holding their baby hostage...
He pinched the bridge of his nose, not wanting to believe Fliss would do something like that, but it was the behavior he knew too well from his own upbringing.
Saint and I will be staying at the cottage.
Saint will be coming with me to Texas.
Why don’t you spend more time with me at the stables?
Why are you wasting time at the stables when you should be studying?
As recently as a few days ago, his father had asked him scathingly, Why are you letting that woman distract you? You got what you wanted, so get to work.
She’s pregnanthad been his response, but Ted had only snorted with disinterest.
Fliss was more than pregnant. She was carrying their baby.
When Saint had seen those shadows and lines moving on the screen, slowly piecing themselves together into a full picture of the baby Fliss carried, he’d felt it like a punch to the heart. The baby was only the size of a banana, the technician had said, but the magnitude of its effect on him had been world-altering.
He and Fliss had made that baby. He was going to be a father. Why was he distracted? Because all he could think about was them. How he needed both of them close so he could ensure they were safe. He wasn’t so dependent that he needed to be with Fliss every minute of every day, but he damned well liked knowing he was going back to her every night. Anytime he held her, even if it was only her hand, things inside him settled.
And now all he could think about was seeing their baby. Holding him. Watching him explore the world with Fliss’s humor and curiosity.
That was why he’d proposed to her, so they would have that deeper promise to stay together. He wanted her in his life every day. He wanted them to be a unit.
He should have known she would want his heart, though, given how sensitive and emotionally open she was.
Did she not realize his heart was a shriveled raisin of a thing, not worth having?
Frustrated, he paced into the bedroom, noting with relief that she hadn’t taken anything more than her purse today.
She must have done a reading while she’d still been in bed because her cards were on the nightstand, not even tied into their velvet cloth. What had she been asking? he wondered. She had told him she didn’t ask questions she didn’t want the answer to, which was why she hadn’t asked about their relationship.
He didn’t even believe in these things, but it irritated him that she had said that. He interpreted it as distrust. She lacked faith in their relationship and didn’t want her doubts to be confirmed by her cards.
Was his faith in her any better, though? Yes, he had proposed, but when she had told him she loved him, he’d taken it as a personal attack.
From the beginning, he’d known that if he couldn’t give her what she needed emotionally, he might have to let her go. Was that what he was supposed to do? What in hell was coming next for them?
He never touched her cards. She had asked him not to, but with the questions ringing in his mind, he impulsively turned over the top card.
Death.
His phone rang, kick-starting his stalled heart.