TEN
ONCE HER BEDROOM door was closed, she headed for the closet. It had been a long day. Somehow, they felt longer when she wasn’t coming home to her guy. Before she reached her destination a phone rang.
Hers? Stood to reason, except…
She paused to track the sound and, ah, right there in the dock by the bed. Her phone. Like magic. Astrid was a true gem.
Slipping her feet from her shoes, she went to pick it up. “Casanova,” she exhaled his name and sank to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry, baby, I’ve been trying to get away all day.”
“Casanova, Casanova, Casanova,” another whispered chant. “Skippy. Skippy. Skippy.”
And he didn’t even have to ask why. “You met our new producers, huh?”
“You don’t get away for long enough to call the future bearer of your children, but you get away long enough to find out who she met? Who told you? Tripp?”
“I knew today was the day.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“Surprise.”
“That’s not an infinite get out of jail free card,” she said. “You can only use it so many times.”
He laughed. “Then what happens?”
“I turn into a pumpkin.”
“Meh,” he pondered. “I can work with that.”
“Casanova—”
“You’re not mad, Lola Bunny, or you wouldn’t be marrying me in ten days.”
“Maybe I’m not. I’ll send a ringer.”
“I’m not worried. When you’re really mad and want to yell at me there’s always a charged cellphone nearby. Ever noticed that? Strange, isn’t it?”
“You’ve been working, could be I did call.”
An amused half incredulous laugh left his throat. “Do you think Roxanna Kyst, mad, could call Tibbs and let him get away with not handing me the phone? No, baby. You call, I answer, that’s how it works.”
Boosting back onto the bed, she lay in the middle. “Why aren’t you in this bed with me, Casanova?”
“You should’ve told me to get on a plane.”
She pressed the camera button and held the phone up in front of her face. “I spent all day with the show people. Bambi’s going to stay with me and Astrid for the next ten days.”
“Really?” A view of their bedroom ceiling flickered onto her screen. “What happens in ten days? Remind me.”
“Laugh it up. It’ll be real funny until you get stood up at the altar, Playboy Extraordinaire. Wouldn’t that be newsworthy? The world’s most eligible bachelor gets jilted.”
“The altar’s a bonus round, wife. Do I have to remind you again that we already have the piece of paper with our names on it?”
She loved their secret; Tripp didn’t count as “knowing.” And it wasn’t that she didn’t want people to know, no, they could know, that was fine.
It was the sheet of paper that got her off.
She was married to him. The man she loved belonged to her, and she with him.
Who could’ve predicted that commitment could be so damned sexy.
But that wasn’t the only secret Tripp knew.
“Ah, huh, that reminds me, while we’re on the subject…” were they? “I have a bone to pick with you. The whole Jane and Knox getting married at our wedding is supposed to stay secret until the last minute.”
“Just figuring that out?”
“Me? No, not me. I know why you asked if I’d told Tripp. You wanted to cover for your slip.”
“My slip?”
“Someone told Tripp and it wasn’t me. Two of your friends knew and only one of mine. That makes the leak twice as likely to have come from your side.”
“The leak? To Tripp?”
“Knox and Ballard know, they’re your friends. One of them must’ve told Tripp. Now three of your friends know and I only have one ally. Is that fair?”
“Doesn’t Tripp count as yours? That makes us even.”
Okay, so she’d claimed him as hers two days ago. Bygones. All in the past. Wasn’t everything fluid?
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” she said. True? Who knew? “Who’s known him since he was a pimple-faced brat unable to string two words together in front of girls?”
“Women. I have limits. And that didn’t fly with you the other day.”
“Today it does. I’m returning ownership.”
“Rouge don’t accept returns.”
“I’m in my cooling off period, you have to,” she said. “It’s the law.”
He snickered, enjoying her in his faithful way. “Where exactly is it the law?”
“In England,” she declared, triumphant, because ha! “Which is where I picked up Tripp.”
Not that she remembered the salient details of that encounter. Didn’t need to with them plastered across the internet and all. She and Tripp met the night of the Logan Lowe dirty dancing incident. A long time ago. Long, long, couldn’t be too long, or too far away, a time ago.
“Tripp knows, huh?”
“He has his ways.” Which they both knew. She unzipped her dress. “Why am I on the nightstand? Where are you?”
“I’m here.”
“Yeah, your voice,” she said and sat up in the middle of the bed. “Casanova?”
“What’s wrong?” She was scooped up to show his face on the screen. “Lo? Baby?”
“There you are.”
Her expression responded to the joy of him. The vision was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. Still, this view always smacked her between the eyes… and between her legs, in a different way.
“Babe…?”
“Hey, handsome.”
“What happened?”
Oh, so serious. “What do you mean what happened?” she asked, slipping off the straps of her dress. “I like looking at you.”
All concern, the way he tipped his head to intensify his scrutiny, betrayed he wasn’t sure whether to believe her.
“Mm hmm.”
“And I’m about to get naked. You’d have to give up your playboy status if you voluntarily missed that. Don’t you like looking at me, Scroogey?”
“The more skin the better.”
“Good boy.” Time for a change of subject. “How are things going with the legacy board?”
“Lo—”
“I’m fine. Talk to me about Gramercy’s legacy board.”
On an exhale, he sat on their bed. “We’re making headway, but it’s precarious. One gives, which relies on another doing the same. Everybody’s jockeying. Men we thought were—that doesn’t matter. Lola, talk to me.”
“Did Kinloch arrive?”
“He’ll show up, eventually.”
“You’re never worried about him. He disappears for weeks and months at a time—we should spend more time with him. I want to know him better.”
“You’re a woman who likes indoor plumbing, remember?”
“Like you’re up for roughing it. We could invite him to our island.”
“That’s too close to the equator for him. I’m still working on getting your agreement to disappear there for a month. Alone. No Kinloch. Just us.”
“We can’t abandon our responsibilities for…” Oh, he was a picture. Perfect. The only view that could balance her equilibrium. “You make everything better.”
“I know. Tell me what was wrong in the first place.”
“Nothing is wrong, I just…” Yes, she missed him. Why did that sorrow feel so potent these days? The wedding? “God, honestly, did you ever think, way back at the start, did you ever imagine that we could ever be…? You’re everything, Z. My everything.”
“You’re getting sentimental again. What’s brought this on?”
“Hatfield and I were reminiscing today. About Boston, Sydney… You already knew by then, didn’t you?”
“Mm hmm.”
“I have never loved, or trusted, a man so much in my life. Don’t you ever wonder what…”
“I told you that I would never have let us lose this.”
“Not that, do you ever wonder why we’re so blessed? Why can’t everyone find this?”
“Because it’s rare, Lo. What we have is, it’s like no other relationship I’ve ever had.”
“And you’ve had plenty of them,” she teased to lighten the moment. “I feel kind of stupid.”
“For loving me? Thanks.”
“For all the time and effort I put in with other guys. If I’d known it was supposed to feel like this…” She scoffed. “God, what a waste of time.”
“Those relationships, those guys…” Good clarification because sometimes calling certain guys “relationships” would be a stretch. “They made you who you are, Lo.”
“And you might not have loved me if I wasn’t so practiced.”
“No, I’d have loved you, but maybe you wouldn’t have seen how special this is.”
“Bambi and Struan are doing good, they look great together.”
“Yeah.”
“Roman’s still giving them shit.”
“Unfortunately, there’s not much anyone can do about that. Roman is… Roman.”
“Yeah, and that’s making excuses for him. He’s a big baby.”
“How’s our baby?”
“I think he’s seeing someone,” she said, her gaze slinking side to side as her eyes narrowed. “In the loosest possible definition of that phrase.”
“Do you like her?”
“I haven’t met her. Or maybe I have. My head spins with how he goes through women. Is that what you were like?”
“Ten, fifteen years ago, maybe. He’s happy, and it’s Tripp, he isn’t hurting anyone.”
“Honesty doesn’t erase hurt,” she said. “It’s the women and their white dresses all over again.”
“It exists nowhere but in their heads.”
“Yep. Astrid and I are going to the cake place tomorrow. I tried to tempt Tripp into wedding errands a couple of days ago.”
“Didn’t work?”
“Not his thing. I’ll try again tomorrow. Cake’s perhaps more appealing.”
“You’re going to check everything’s right?”
“I won’t be as particular as Jane, but Knox gave me instructions, I shouldn’t fuck it up too much.”
“You’re more worried about Jane’s wedding than ours.”
And it didn’t sound like that offended him.
“Because I got the guy, and you got the girl. Everyone cares about what they care about. If our cake went splat or my dress was an inch or two wrong in either direction, we’d laugh it off or it wouldn’t feature.
It’s one of those things. Who cares if there’s too much tuna and not enough steak?
What does it matter if the flowers are too bright or arranged with this instead of that.
It doesn’t change our happiness. Right? Am I right? ”
“You’re right.”
“Jane has been dreaming about this her whole life. She’d never flip out, she may not even say a word, but if it wasn’t perfect, she’d feel it for a long time.” Maybe forever. “I won’t have that.”
“Neither will Knox.”
“Exactly! It matters to us that Jane is happy. She does so much for us, for all of us. She’s the definition of good people. She deserves this.”
“I agree,” he said, ever calm. “Knox can do something physical, something tangible for the woman he loves. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.”
“I’m happy, Casanova.”
“I know you’re happy. We’re happy. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to go the extra mile for you sometimes.”
“The extra mile like arranging for two incredible people I love to be at my back with Roxiverse?”
“Yes.”
“The extra mile like loving me so much you couldn’t go one more day without being married to me.”
“That was a doozy.”
“And what do I do for you, huh?” she asked, bringing the phone a little closer. “I once told you I’d never be able to return the favor.” And she never had. “How do I please you, baby? How do I go the extra mile for you?”
“You could start by taking that dress off.”
Clutching it closer, she gave him an enhanced view of her chest. “The sex stuff must get old for you. You’ve been having it for a long, long… long time.”
“You go the extra mile when you call if I’m not in your bed when you wake up. You go the extra mile when you appear in the office, take me by the hand, and lead me to bed.”
“Even in the times I only want to cuddle?”
“Especially those times. You go the extra mile when we’re in different parts of Crimson Palace, but you send me a message with a drink that hasn’t been mixed to your liking.”
“There’s something different in the way you do it.”
“You go the extra mile when you need me, Lo. When you think about me.” He groaned as he inhaled. “You and me, building our life, how you include me in every little thing, even when I’m not there. I need you to need me, Roxanna, though it’s never half as much as I need you.”
“You like to fix things,” she said and licked her lips. “And I like it when you fix things for me.”
“Anything. Everything, Lola. You get what you want and you get it right. If anything’s not up to par, I need you to tell me. Nothing matters more to me than your happiness. Do you get that? Do you get how much your happiness means to me?”
“You’re an overachiever. That’s your problem, Lomond. You can’t do half measures.”
“Not with you, no.”
“I won’t be able to need you like that when Roxiverse is shooting.”
“You can. You will or I’ll pull the plug on the whole thing. Anything that gets in the way of us is out.”
“The world will see me as moany and demanding…” She fake tossed her hair even though she was lying down. “I mean, I am moany and demanding, but the world doesn’t need to know that.”
“The world will see me hanging on your every word.”
“Uh, you’re not the star of this show, Buster. Who’s to say I’ll even allow you in frame.”
His voice dropped an octave. “As long as I’m in your frame, the pleasure’ll be all mine.”
Her laughter came like a torrent from her throat. “How do you make even that sound sexy? Oh…” She released all of her muscles. “I love you, Casanova.”
“You know we’re a trademarked brand now?”
And that was hilarious too. “We are?”
“Oh, yeah, the merch money we’ll make on this deal alone… We’ll build a second Crimson Palace in LA.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head in the pillow while rolling onto her side. “I don’t want there to be any question where our home is.”
“Wow, how far you’ve come.”
“If we have two homes, maybe you’ll forget to come back to me.”
“Never,” he said, touching the screen like he wanted to caress her face. “Never, Lola Bunny. You belong to me for life.”
“Ditto.”