Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
“I LOVE BIRTHDAYS,” Roxie said.
Zairn filled his wife’s wineglass. “Everybody’s got one.”
She and Bastian had left their suite to join Roxie and Zairn in theirs.
The suite? Yeah, Bastian hadn’t just provided a room for her birthday, they’d been in a Grand suite for three nights.
Work, family, it was all still out there, though Roxie and Zairn were the first people they’d seen, or talked to, since before they arrived on Friday.
“Know who sucks at birthdays?” Roxie asked, electing to snag her husband’s brandy. “Zairn sucks at birthdays.”
“Your birthday was a smash hit,” Zairn said. “People are still talking about it. We’ll have to kick it up a gear this year.” He swiped the glass back just as it touched Roxie’s lower lip. “Brandy gets you giggly and we’re in company.”
Angled against her husband, chairs so close they had to be touching, Roxie returned to her wine. “He’s not worried I’ll embarrass him, he’s worried I’ll turn him on.”
“Around you, Lo, I’m always at eleven.”
“What were we talking about?” Roxie asked. “Birthdays, yes. Your birthday was a non-event, Casanova. Bo-ring.”
“I had you, Wife. At my beck and call. What else do I want, Lo? We party every night. We can party any time.”
“We have sex every night too, just the same as we did on your birthday. What made it so special?”
Zairn leaned in, burying his mouth in Roxie’s hair. “Want me to remind you?”
“It wasn’t that kinky,” Roxie said, patting his cheek over her shoulder as he sat back, smirking in his bold arrogance.
“Sex was my birthday request too,” Harper said, drawing some amusement. Bastian raised her hand to his lips. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Hey, you get it, girl.” Roxie raised her glass in a silent toast, though then crooked a suspicious brow at Bastian. “Providing he delivered. And I don’t mean just for himself. Showing up gets no reward, it’s all about satisfaction.”
“Lola grades me.”
Bastian’s laugh clashed with her horror. “You grade him?”
“He passes…” Roxie folded an arm under her breasts while swinging the glass to her mouth. “Most of the time.”
“Ha,” Zairn said, his hand dropping beneath the table, most probably onto his wife. “Would anyone believe you’d let me leave the room if you weren’t satisfied?”
“No,” Bastian said. “No one would believe that.”
Almost strutting, Roxie’s shoulders went back. “I’m glad my reputation proceeds me.”
“So other guys hear it?” Zairn slid his arm along the back of Roxie’s chair. “Me too, keeps them far, far away. Talk about taking one for the team.”
“It’s no dent in your reputation that your wife won’t free you from our marital bed.” Roxie’s grin flashed. “Almost two months in and this wedding thing is still going. Still weird though.”
“You mean marriage?”
“Oh, marriage is a way bigger slog,” Roxie said. “After the wedding, it shouldn’t feel different…”
“But it does,” Zairn finished for her and kissed her head. “This gorgeous fucking creature…”
“You’re still attracted to each other…” the whispered words weren’t meant to come out. They had, which she knew because the couple’s focus quickly switched to her. “Sorry, I… I didn’t mean…”
“Harper has a theory that everyone ends up settling,” Bastian said. “That love is an anomaly—”
“That’s not what I—I only said it’s not as common as people think.”
“She said most people settle with respect and cohabitation.”
“Wow,” Roxie said, something saucy curving her lips. “That kind of turned me on.”
“My Lola loves a cynic.”
“Also known as a realist.”
Zairn let that one slide. “There’s all kinds of people out there, some do settle. That’s an unrefuted fact.”
“Thank you, Mr. Patronizing.” Roxie leaned a little closer. “Harper, honey, I was you. I still am you. Sometimes. People do settle. I believe that a hundred percent.”
“That’s exactly what I just said.”
Roxie ignored her husband. “Not everyone. Some. Not all. I was settling with my ex before Z. I didn’t know it at the time, not exactly. He’s an amazing guy. Smart. Funny. On the fast track, or some kind of track, I don’t know.”
“And that’s the first time Lola didn’t lead with his penchant for suicide.”
“His penchant for—”
“Porter does have a penchant for suicide—given he’s a prosecutor going after a mob boss—but that’s beside the point.”
“What is your point, Lola? That no guy measures up to me? That’s public knowledge, babe. Why’d you think you have so much security?”
“Your many, many admirers are my posse now, friend. My Delights, my Crimsettes—”
“My Crimsettes—”
“Formerly,” Roxie said, nudging him with a shoulder when he got closer. Her friend still leaned across the table. “The wheels turn in his world because I power the engine.”
“You power something.” Zairn nipped his wife’s waist, bringing her body backward into his embrace. “My Empress.”
“It’s been almost two years, right? Since you got together.”
“Since we met.”
“I’ve never met a couple who…”
“Still want each other?” Roxie asked. “It’s why some of us have to look so long. It does happen, and not just with us.”
Some of the people she’d met at the Hunt anniversary party were more than just settling.
“I didn’t really think about it, not until… I don’t think you’re settling.”
“You don’t have to settle either, honey. You deserve the real thing. Honestly? I’d say unless it’s real, there’s just no point. I’d definitely rather have lived my life alone than spent the whole thing with Porter.”
“Sure about that, Lo? Could’ve got you all the way to the White House.”
“If I wanted the White House, Skippy, I’d have the White House. I wouldn’t need a man to get me there.”
“If any woman is capable,” Bastian said. “Roxie’s probably our best bet.”
“I’d have no problem serving under her,” Zairn drawled with such innuendo that Roxie laughed.
“You could be First Lord.”
“I’ll be your first anything, baby.”
It wasn’t just that they weren’t settling, they still had fun. Someone could be forgiven for thinking they were in the early throes of a new relationship. If this was what they were like now, what were they before?
“I suppose it’s important to appreciate each other in private,” she said. “It must be difficult to have the whole world watching.”
“Oh, we’re used to that. When Roxiverse airs, the scrutiny will only grow.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s what we signed up for. Now with the wedding out of the way, we don’t have to worry about faking it so often.”
“Faking it?”
“Z and my problem was the opposite to yours and Bastian’s. You’re faking being together… with sex. Z and I had to fake not being together… with sex.”
“With sex makes a big difference,” Zairn said.
Roxie half rolled her eyes. “You don’t know the difference between together and not together.”
“Not when it comes with sex.”
“Casanova tends to progress things in his own way, his own time. To hell with the rest of us.”
“If I didn’t do what I did, we’d still be playing phone tag, Lo.”
Roxie raised one concessionary shoulder. “I’ll give you that.”
“When it’s love, you forgive,” Zairn said, bowing to kiss Roxie’s shoulder. “There are knocks, but when it’s forgive or walk away forever…”
“We don’t do too well with the walk away part.” Roxie sighed on a whole body bump against her husband. “He’s only being nice to me because he’s leaving me.”
“Leaving you?”
“I’m going back to New York tomorrow,” Zairn said. “Alone.”
“Why alone?”
Bemoaned, Roxie sighed. “I have an appointment with a global audience.”
“Roxiverse is picking up the pace. Lo’s in LA for another week, then off to Boston,” Zairn said. “Preliminaries are out of the way—”
“So, hey, Harper, you want to come with me to CollCom tomorrow?”
CollCom was—“The CollCom Complex?” Owned by the massive global-dominating media conglomerate? “I don’t—I never…”
“It’s not as scary as it sounds. There are so many people you should meet.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Bastian smiled at her. “Could be fun.”
Yeah, or terrifying. “I have work. Calls to make and—”
“You can do that from CollCom, or we have a whole squad of people geared up to do whatever you need. It’s no problem.”
But she… Could be fun… terrifying… informative.
A door closed elsewhere in the suite.
Roxie sprang upright like a meerkat on alert. “Are we being robbed? My husband’s too pretty for jail, so I’ll be the one kicking your asses!”
“Since we lifted the embargo, this place is like Times Square,” Zairn murmured.
Bastian laughed. “That why you’re going back to Manhattan?”
“For a break?” In one of the most densely populated cities on earth? “Could be.”
“It’s just us,” a disembodied female called.
Roxie gasped and leaped to her feet just as that female entered the dining room.
“Oh, Jane!” Rushing over, she pulled the woman into her arms. “Oh, Janey-Jane. Jane. Jane! Oh, I’ve missed you!
” Leaning back, Roxie stroked Jane’s hair.
“Oh, you’re so pretty.” She yanked her into another hug.
“You are what I need! Here, on time, perfect, as always. I missed you! I love you! My Jane!”
“This could go on a while,” Zairn informed them.
A blond guy came in behind the hugging women. Whoa, now that was a Hollywood pinup for sure. The epitome of LA personified stood right there with them. Would be great if his name was Oscar. Nah, that didn’t suit him… Adonis would be a better fit.
“Come in and sit with us,” Roxie said, releasing her friend to hurry back to the wine on the table. “We have so much catching up to do!”
Pouring another glass, it was serendipitous that they had spare. Though maybe that was by design if they had so many visitors.
“Good to see you, man,” Zairn said to the pinup guy. “You look rested.”
“You don’t,” the guy said.
“Yeah, well, marital duties, etc.”
“Pulled that shift too, buddy,” the guy said, “and I got a tan.”
“Harder to screw outside around here. What with the buildings and masses of people hanging around.”
The pinup’s smile actually stole her breath. “Try harder next time.”
“There’s still a mile or two in this first wife,” Zairn said. “So I’m told.”
It was definitely getting hotter. With so many of these gorgeous guys around, they created their own tropical ecosystem.
“People keep asking how you’re doing, honey,” Roxie said, still pouring, ignoring the men. “I keep telling them, there’s no way Jane lets Knox off that island before—” Roxie stopped, raised her head and slowly twisted to look back over her shoulder at the couple. “Oh my God.”
“Don’t…” Jane said, holding up a flat, horizontal hand to block Roxie as she squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t look at me.”
The wine bottle went to the table. “Oh my God.”
Pinup was intent. “Don’t look at her.”
“Oh My God.”
Harper rested on Bastian to whisper, “Why does she keep saying that?”
“Because she knows something we don’t know,” Zairn answered and picked up the freshly poured wine to tip it into his wife’s glass.
“Knows something that—”
“You’re pregnant,” Roxie’s words were a rushed breath. “Oh my God, Jane—”
“Don’t look at me! Stop looking at me!”
Roxie screamed, startling the room, and rushed back to hug her friend again. “Oh my God, honey, I am so happy for you!”
“I said if she looked at me she’d know,” Jane whined to the guy at her shoulder. “She knows!”
“You are. You’re pregnant!” Roxie squealed again and grabbed her friend’s upper arms to match their eyes. “You did it? You peed on the stick!”
Jane nodded. “It’s super early, we’re not telling people.”
“Of course we’re not telling people,” Roxie said, ushering her friend over to settle her in a chair. “No, this is just for us right now.”
“Us?” Pinup asked, raising a brow.
“Yes, Knox,” Roxie said, stroking Jane’s hair again. “Us. You haven’t been waiting years and years and years for this day. Jane and I have been waiting years and years and years.” Roxie cupped the new beauty’s face. “Oh, honey, you should’ve called me. We would’ve been there with you.”
“We did just fine without an audience,” Pinup said.
Uh, Knox, right, not Pinup.
Jane whispered, “We’re not telling people.”
“I love that it happened on the island,” Roxie squeed. “It happened on the island, right?”
Jane nodded. “We thought about staying until… we got past the twelve weeks, you know, but…”
“Collier children get the best from conception to the grave.”
“So Knox wanted you to see a doctor. Okay, maybe he gets points for that.”
Knox. Wait… Knox Collier? Holy hell!
“You went on vacation with pregnancy tests?” Harper asked.
Roxie tipped back. “Jane barely goes from one room to the other without pregnancy tests. We’ve been waiting a long time for this!
” Another squeal and Roxie sat by Jane to hug her again.
“We need soft seats for baby names. And we need a birthing plan.” Roxie pulled Jane onto her feet.
“Harper, come around here…” The brunette blew a kiss to her husband.
“We need virgin cocktails for the new momma, Casanova. Oh, this is so exciting!”
As the others filtered out, she stood with Bastian. “Should we go?”
“Do you want to go?”
“They’re your friends. I wouldn’t want to…”
“Sweet, when Roxie Kyst wants rid of you, you know.” He linked their fingers. “And they’re your friends too.”
New friends on a new adventure. This was her most interesting birthday weekend yet.