35. Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Tanner
S he lets me into the apartment, which I take as a good sign. I’ve been walking for the last several hours, all the way around Stanley Park. By the time I reached this side, I knew I had to come home, even if she’s about to tell me she’s done with the marriage.
“Listen, Vic, I’m sorry—” I cut off as I look at the dining table, seeing the stack of paper there. My heart hammers in my chest and I swallow hard, wondering what she thinks about what she’s read. “You found my notes.”
She holds up the paper rose on its green pipe cleaner, the first one I ever gave her. I hadn’t noticed she was holding it when she opened the door. “What does this say?”
I gesture to the table where she’s unfolded all the other origami. “You could open it and find out.”
She shakes her head. “Just tell me.”
I take the flower from her, staring at it. I’d been so full of hope when I’d written this note and given her the flower.
“It was this flower that made me think I had a chance with you. I hoped you’d kept it because you had some kind of feelings for me. I probably couldn’t tell you what the rest of the notes said exactly. I’ve written so many over the past few months. But this one. I remember what this one says.”
It’s interesting to me that I can say this now when I never thought I’d be able to. She’s opened all the notes. She hasn’t opened the roses, but still, she has to suspect.
“Tell me,” she begs.
I face her, meeting her eyes, because I realize I want to say this. Even if she’s about to tell me to leave. Even if I’ve just thrown away the one thing she wanted from me. I need her to know before I let her go. “I’m not ready to say this—”
“I don’t care—”
I press a finger to her lips, stopping her from speaking, my mouth kicking up on one side in a semblance of a smile. “It says I’m not ready to say this, partly because I know you’re not ready to hear it. I am in love with you, Victoria Sterling.”
She sucks in a breath and her eyes sparkle with moisture. I keep my finger over her mouth and gesture to the other flowers. The ones I put there on the first day of every month since the day she got sick and I realized how much I wanted to tell her I was in love with her.
“They all say variations of the same thing, except I changed Sterling to Marcus. You said you don’t mind me using Victoria as long as I add my last name to it.” She nods, since I’m still preventing her from speaking. I take a deep breath. “I have a confession. I’ve been in love with you for a very long time. Since before we got married, in fact. And before you tell me I’ve messed everything up, I need you to know that.”
She pulls my hand away from her face. “When? When did you fall in love with me?”
“I didn’t fall in love with you, Vic.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and she lets me. “Falling in love makes it sound like I tripped or something. That’s not what it was really like. It was more like a slide. But not one of those steep ones where you’re out of control. It was gentle. Gradual. Inevitable. There was a purposeful aspect to it as well. I climbed the ladder. I knew what I was doing.” I drop my hand. “And now I’ve fucked it all up, haven’t I?”
She rolls her eyes. “Have I said you’ve fucked it up?”
“But I—”
“Quit a job you hate. Yes, I know. Now we can both do something we love. If you want any help in figuring out what that’s going to be, well, I’m your wife, aren’t I? Your problems are my problems.”
I blink, not entirely sure I’m hearing what I think I am.
“You’re not mad?”
“No, Tanner. I’m not mad. I was a little frustrated that I came home to tell you I turned my dad down and you weren’t here.”
I blink a few times, my brow drawing down. “Turned him down?”
She smiles now, stepping a little closer, holding onto my tie. “Yes. He called in a rage when you left the office. He said I needed to divorce you, and if I did, he’d give me Sterling.”
My breath turns to lead in my lungs at this. But only for a second as she follows up the statement with another.
“I said no. I figured out a few months ago that I don’t want Sterling. I want Blue Vista, and if I owned my father’s company, I’d have to give up my position at my own. I like it better there. I like the people. I like the business model. I like that it’s mine . That I built it. And even if I did want Sterling still, I want you more. Because I love you, Tanner.”
“You do?”
She nods. “It wasn’t gradual for me. Both times I fell in love with you, it kind of hit me all at once, kind of like a freight train. So, that was fun.”
“Both times?”
She nods, sliding her hands over my shoulders and around my neck, pulling me a little closer. “The first time was when our MBA finished, and I realized I was going to see you less often, and I didn’t want that. This time was on Thanksgiving. We were at your parents’ place, and I’d just told off Keith. I realized how much I wanted to be part of your family. And I realized it was because I’m in love with you.”
She pulls my head down for a kiss and I feel like I could fly to the moon and back, wrestle a giant, and conquer the world. Vic is kissing me. Vic loves me. I deepen the kiss, my tongue claiming hers as mine. She undoes my tie, throwing it aside before starting on the top button of my shirt. I know where she’s going, and I want to go there, too. But there’s one more thing I need to do first.
I break the kiss.
“Hold that thought. I want to show you something.”
I let her go and retreat to my bedroom, where I pull the laptop out and set it on the dining table.
She looks confused for a moment, then her eyebrows raise. “Are you going to show me the project you’ve been working on?”
I nod, booting up the laptop and opening the file. “It’s a business plan. A company I want to build with Wyatt.”
She sits in the chair in front of the computer, scrolling through the document. “You want to visit businesses and see if you can come up with new tech to help them lower costs.”
I sit next to her. “Working for Sterling, I got to see a lot of businesses that were failing. We would swoop in and buy them out. I could see how so many were running their business inefficiently. With a few minor tweaks, they would have been fine. It’s a consulting business on one end, a tech business on the other.”
“This is comprehensive.” She’s reading through the abstract, but the document is over fifty pages long. “I like this idea.” She turns to me. “This will make you happy?”
“I think so. I like the idea of helping people. And working with my brother. And working for myself.”
“Good.” She closes the laptop. “I’m going to look at that in depth later. Right now, I want you to take off all your clothes, Mr. Marcus.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Then I want you to fuck me hard against this table.”
I’m already undoing the buttons on my shirt.
“You like tables, do you?”
She gives me that playful smile as she watches me undress. “It’s an excellent place for negotiations.” She picks up the laptop, setting it on a chair.
“If I’m undressing, Mrs. Marcus, so should you be.”
She stands and so do I. “Who’s in charge here?”
I grab her by the waist, pulling her in for a kiss before I drop my shirt to the floor. “We both are.”
Our clothes are gone what seems like an instant later and we’re back together, kissing feverishly, our naked bodies pressed together as though we never want to be apart. I lift her onto the table, and her legs lock around my hips. My cock is already rock hard, pressing against her entrance. She is so wet for me, my cock head slips against her.
“Tanner,” she breathes, and I love the sound of my name on her lips.
I pause, ready to sink into her heat, savouring the moment.
“What are you waiting for?” she asks.
“We have all the time in the world, Vic. We have forever.”
She smiles and kisses me. “I love you, Tanner.”
Slowly, I thrust into her and we both moan at the feeling of my cock inside her tight pussy.
“I love you, Vic.”
“Good. Now fuck me.”
“Whatever my wife wants.”
I hold tight and thrust into her again. I move with long, sure strokes, driving into her, deep. Her head falls back, and her nails dig into my shoulders as we ride together, our bodies meeting with a lurid smack.
“Look at me, Vic,” I say, and her eyes blink open, finding mine. They’re hazy with lust and so much love it’s a wonder I never noticed it before. Then again, maybe she’d hidden it, just like I had, afraid to put herself out there. Afraid I wouldn’t feel the same.
It is the most intense feeling, my cock buried inside her, her cunt squeezing me tight, as we stare into each other’s eyes. I can’t get enough. I will never be able to get enough.
“I’m so close,” she says. “Come with me.”
I speed up, rocketing us toward that precipice of pleasure. I think for a second that I break first, coming with a groan as my hips stutter over the final thrusts. Then I realize she’s coming, too, her legs squeezing me almost as tight as her cunt, milking the cum out of me.
I’m wrapped completely around her as we gasp for breath, entwined on the edge of the table.
Vic strokes back my hair, her face buried in the crook of my neck. “I love you, Tanner,” she says again.
“I love you, too,” I tell her. And I will never get tired of saying it.