“The cow jumped over the moooooooon,” he said, elongating the last vowel as he jumped a stuffed horse through the air, over the crescent shape, and onto Cleo’s belly.
She erupted in giggles and Edward did it again. “The cow jumped over the moooooooon. The little dog laughed to see such fun and the dish ran away with the spoooooooon.”
This time she squealed with glee.
My heart. It felt like it was twisting and bursting all at the same time. How did I get so lucky? It was a profound thought after where I’d just been. My father’s statement at the press conference had been moving and much appreciated, but it was a reminder of where I’d come from. Of the disjointed family that barely related. Of my shadowed past where a father placed convenience and ease above the word of his daughter.
From that to this.
From the outside, I was sure my life with Edward didn’t look so different from the one my mother had with my father. Living in it, though, the difference was night and day, and as much as it had destroyed me to go through what I had growing up, I’d live through that night a thousand times over if just once it brought me to this beautiful day.
Edward and Cleo. Life didn’t get any better than this.
The simple moment was much bigger than one that could be captured, still I pulled out my phone from my purse and clicked a photo. The fake shutter sound wasn’t loud, but foreign enough to be noticed. Edward looked up quickly, his expression saying he might have been just a tad embarrassed at being caught playing something so silly.
“I’m weak in the knees,” I said, determined to not let him get out of being adored.
He gave me a bashful smile. “You probably should have had more than coffee for breakfast.”
“From you, you goof. You’re making me swoon.” I frowned at the horse in his hand. “Though, that is definitely not a cow.”
“If there is one in the bunch, I couldn’t find the bloody thing.”
My cheeks hurt from grinning. “So when her preschool teacher says she doesn’t know her animals, we’ll know who to blame.”
“Elsa, definitely.”
I laughed and sat down on the upholstered bench. “What have you done to this room?”
“The reason we’ve never had these out is because there wasn’t enough room.”
“You mean the reason we’ve never had all three out at one time was because there wasn’t enough room. Which was fine since we don’t need all of them at once.” The space was tight, though. Not for the first time, I longed for our home in London.
“Pish posh. Everything’s better in threes.” He gave the horse to Cleo who immediately put it in her mouth, then he scooted closer and sat with his back against the bench, his legs stretched out in front of him. “She thinks the setup is brilliant. You can’t tell so much when she’s obsessing over the taste of that horse’s mane, but trust me, she loves it.”
He leaned over to kiss my thigh, his eyes skimming down the bare skin below the hem of my skirt. “And I love how long your legs look in these heels. Remind me to have you wear them later when I have my face between your thighs.”
“Behave,” I scolded as I nudged him with my knee.
He responded by reaching out to remove the shoe closest to him before rubbing the arch of my foot. I sighed into his massage. “The heels are a bitch, but I loved being in my old clothes today. It felt good just being out in the world, interacting with adults.”
“Which is why you need to get back to work soon.”
“Should I? I keep thinking about it, but does that make me a bad mother?”
“It does not. It makes you a woman who knows that her own mental health and well-being is essential to being a good mother.” He looked toward my other foot. “Give me that one.”
I slipped my shoe off then stretched my foot toward him. “You make it sound like such a simple decision. I don’t want to miss anything important.”
“You only work part-time. You’ll miss some things, but you won’t miss everything, and that’s called balance.”
Like he knew about balancing home and career.
Except, that was the old Edward. This Edward was trying. Doing better than just trying, so far. Proving it was possible to have it all.
“I’ll think about it,” I conceded.
Then I gasped as the foot rub was interrupted by a sharp slap across my sole.
“I wasn’t giving you an option,” he said with a stern look. The kind of stern look that wasn’t to be argued with. The kind of stern look that made my lower regions tingle.
I’d forgotten that look. It had been missing for so long, since before Cleo was born. Now he wore it like it had never left his face.
This is my king, I thought. This is the man who cares for me and rules me and knows just what I need. And here he was rubbing my feet when I should have been bowing at his.
I gave him the next best thing. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll get back to work.” That earned me a calf rub as well.
“Where is Elsa, anyway?” I asked when his hands were tired, and it finally occurred to me she wasn’t around.
“I sent her home. Daddy’s taken the day off to spend with his girls.”
“I like the sound of that.” The words turned into a surprised “eek” when he tugged me by the leg to the floor with him, my skirt riding up in the process.
I didn’t have time to adjust it before he was climbing over me, his body stretched over mine. He studied my face, looking for what, I didn’t know, but I found something in his as I stared back—a serenity I normally only saw on his features when he was sleeping. His jaw was relaxed, his smile loose. Maybe it was me seeing what I wanted to see, or projecting my own feelings, but he looked at peace for the first time since I’d known him.
Eventually, he gave me a brief kiss then rolled to his side next to me. “How did it go?” he asked, twirling a loose strand of my hair.
He meant the press conference. I couldn’t believe it had taken this long for it to come up, but that was the way with things that weren’t that important.
I glanced up at the TV, which was playing a news channel on mute. “You watched it. There’s no way you didn’t.”
“Of course I watched it. I want to know how it went from your perspective.”
But that wasn’t as interesting as how he’d gotten my father to say it in the first place. “It was your doing, wasn’t it? You wrote that statement for him.”
“I didn’t put a gun to his head to get him to read it out loud. To the entire world, no less.” He traced his thumb across my bottom lip.
“You didn’t push him to do it at all?”
He shrugged. “Merely suggested that he should.”
I let out a sigh, trying to decide how that made me feel. I’d known Edward had been involved with the Werner Media statement. He’d sent me there, after all. To what extent, though? I’d probably never know exactly what he’d said or done to get my father to read it. I supposed it was enough that he’d read it at all.
It was more than enough that Edward had made it happen. “Thank you,” I said, sincerely. “It was...as good as I’ll get from him, I think. And that’s okay. It’s more than I expected.”
“Much less than you deserve.”
I’d spent years playing games where I made people fall in love with me. I was good at it. My uncle had taught me well. I’d never had a shortage of men willing to give anything, give everything, to be with me.
But the earnest way Edward looked at me felt brand new. Maybe because he was the first one who saw who I really was inside, and he still wanted to keep looking.
“You’re besotted,” I said, rolling to my side to face him.
“You’re bewitching.”
“You’re super hot.” I trailed my fingertips across his pecs. But it wasn’t just his body that turned me on. I peered over Edward’s shoulder at Cleo, who was now mesmerized with a hanging mirror sunflower, and the expansive baby playground he’d been inspired to set up all on
his own. “Especially with this whole dad thing going on. I thought you were attractive before, but this is next level shit. Fatherhood looks so good on you, in fact, we really should consider having more.”
I had to bite my cheek not to laugh, even though I was only half teasing.
Teasing or not, Edward did not take kindly to it. “I should punish you for the mere suggestion.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Oh, you asked for it.” He swept his hand up the back of my thigh.
I flipped to my back, a desperate attempt to protect my ass. “You cannot spank me in front of Cleo,” I warned. “You’ll traumatize her.”
“Spanking is not what I had in mind.”
“Oh?” But then his hand was under my skirt and inside my panties. “Ohhhh.” The man could ignite my pussy with just a brush of his thumb. A second brush, and I was molten. By the time he settled into a steady rhythm across my clit, I was halfway to orgasm. “Fuck.”
“Shhh. You’ll traumatize the baby.”
I giggled. “It’s your fault for making me…” Whatever I was saying got lost to the intense wave of pleasure. “God, I never realized how hard it was not to scream when you’re doing this.”
“Terribly hard?”
“Terribly hard.” I bit my lip to suppress a gasp as he slid a finger inside me. Holy shit, it felt so naughty. Like we were teenagers fucking around when we were supposed to be babysitting.
Except we weren’t babysitters. We were parents. We were supposed to be responsible.
I lifted my head to look behind Edward. “Is she watching us? I swear she’s watching us.” Really, she was still captivated with her reflection.
“Of course she is,” he said, not bothering to look. “She adores us. We’re the most absolutely fabulous people in her world.”
He added two fingers on his next thrust, and I had to grip my nails into Edward’s shoulder to keep from crying out. “Is it bad, though? If she sees this?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No! No.” She couldn’t really see anything anyway. His body blocked her view, and she wasn’t even looking, and if she did, she wouldn’t possibly understand, and with all that self-reassurance, I was able to relax and let the orgasm wind itself up, tighter, tighter. “I’m almost there,” I panted, my eyes closed. “Almost—”
With no warning, the pleasure cut off abruptly. Edward pulled his hand from my panties and sat back against the bench, a smirk on his face.
I sat up, propping myself on my elbows. “Why did you stop?”
“Seriously, Celia. The baby is right there.” When I glared, he said, “It was supposed to be a punishment.” Then he smugly brought a finger to his mouth—a finger that had just been inside me—and sucked it clean.
I was wound up and blue-balled and I’d never been so happy. “I hate you a little bit right now.”
“I always love you best when you hate me a little bit.” He missed my scowl because he stood then and walked over to the desk. When he returned, he had an unmarked envelope in his hand. “I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
I took the envelope from him, and sat up to open it while Edward attended to Cleo, who had started to fuss intermittently between her coos. It wasn’t sealed, so all I had to do was lift up the flap to pull out the folded document. It was several pages of legalese. A contract of sorts. Or an option to buy, I realized as I skimmed through it, my pulse ticking up when I saw Hudson’s name and my name and Werner Media mentioned.
“Edward!” I looked up at him, a magnificent god with the most beautiful baby cuddled against his chest. “He’s selling us the shares?”
“He’s selling us the shares.”
“Oh, my God. He’s selling us the shares.” I read on, scanning for a catch, and finding none.
Then suspicion kicked in. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. This was all you. Hudson had it prepared before I met with him.” He took his place again on the floor, propping Cleo up in his lap.
My ovaries would have burst if I wasn’t so distracted by the document in my hand and the man who undoubtedly coerced Hudson in some terrible way to get it.
“You met with him—?”
“Last night,” he said, misinterpreting what I was after, though I hadn’t known that bit either.
“...and?”
“And he gave me that envelope. Which I have now given to you.”
“You didn’t…?” I shook my head in frustration, trying to fit the picture together. “I don’t understand. Are you saying it’s over?”
“We could counter, if you like. Demand the majority instead of just one percent.”
I stared at him, then stared at the paper in my hand. Then stared again at him who was too preoccupied with playing peekaboo with Cleo to notice how intensely I was staring.
I just…
I was shocked, to say the least. Edward had put Hudson on his Revenge list at least three years before. That was when he’d mentioned it to me, anyway. He’d likely wanted to go after him the minute he’d first read my journals, which had been at least six months before that. We’d fought over his desire for vengeance. I’d nearly given up a chance at having Cleo because of it. It was so much a part of our marriage, it was almost a foundation stone.
Which was a shitty way to look at it. I wondered what our relationship might be like without this battle between us. We’d still find something to fight about, I wasn’t worried about that. But maybe there’d be more of the good. Less of the jealousy. Less of the spite.
I looked again at the document. Hudson had offered to sell us enough shares to make us equal. We could probably announce it publicly, even, without the detail that Hudson had owned the majority before instead of the other way around. We could once again be partners, on equal ground.
Like Edward and I were partners, but also not like that at all.
“I’m happy with this,” I said, setting the document down on the bench out of Cleo’s reach.
“Then I am too.”
“Okay,” I said as I scooted up next to him so our shoulders touched. It was time to feed Cleo. She wasn’t complaining too much, but she was rooting around on Edward’s chest.
Except I was still stuck on my husband’s beef with Hudson. I couldn’t believe Edward was able to let it go. He never let anything go. Maybe he was still planning to ruin him behind my back. Or maybe he’d already done something he didn’t want to tell me, which, in either case, would mean I was the one who should let it go, because I definitely didn’t want to keep fighting about Hudson Pierce for the rest of our lives, and whether it was true or not, it was a gift to believe it was done.
But I could never do what I should. “And nothing else?” I asked. “You really aren’t going after him?”
“I’m really not. I realized it wouldn’t get me what I want.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
My breath caught in my ribs. “You already have me.”
“Exactly.” He shifted Cleo to me so I could breastfeed, but he stayed sitting next to us, his brows furrowed.
I let him be alone with his thoughts and focused on the hungry baby in my arms. When she was settled and latched on, I had my own thoughts to parse through. Edward had basically told me he’d felt second place to Hudson. I, too, had felt second place. Edward tunneled in on his schemes, always seeking retribution from this person or that, looking for something to fill some sort of aching need inside him.
So many times I’d wished I could fill that need. Wished that I was enough. Was that what he was telling me? That I was as much to him as he was to me?
* * *
“I’ve been burning for a long time, bird,” he said, breaking the silence. The somber tone immediately grabbed my attention, and before he’d said more I already knew it was something he vitally needed me to hear. “I’ve been completely consumed with rage and spite, these twin fires that ate
everything in their pathway. No matter what I fed them, they continued to burn, burn, burn. Everything was fuel, and there I was, throwing flames at whatever I deemed deserving to be burned down.
“Then you came. And while I’d always been facing backward, always looking to the past, you beckoned me toward the future. It took a while to get me to turn all the way around, but now that I am, my back’s to the inferno. If it’s still burning, I don’t see it. All I see in this direction is you. And Cleo. And whomever else you end up forcing me to love. Everything that seemed to matter so much before is just smoke, rising in the distance.”
“Edward…” A multitude of emotions pressed inside me—complicated, enormous emotions that were too multi-shaded to be named. There was love, of course. Overwhelming and boisterous, but saying I loved him didn’t feel big enough. “I’ve never felt like this before,” I said when I couldn’t find the right words.
“I know,” he said, cupping my cheek in his hand. “I feel it too.”
He leaned down to kiss me, more lips than tongue. Appropriate with Cleo lodged between us, and also probably it was exactly the kiss he would have given if she hadn’t been there. It was a kiss that made me feel cherished and adored and wanted and all those other unnameable emotions that I was feeling about him.
“God, I love you,” he said when he broke away.
“Me too,” I said, determined not to cry. “And I think you just said we get to have another baby.”
“I said no such thing.”
“Whomever else I end up forcing you to love? That was definitely a reference to another baby.”
“You are definitely getting spanked when she goes down for her nap.”
My belly fluttered in anticipation. “Any other surprises I should know about?”
“Just one.”
I raised a brow. I didn’t think there was anything else he could say to make me feel more content at the moment or more complete.
It turned out I was wrong because his last surprise, announced in his no-nonsense alpha way of his that I’d missed for so long, was maybe the best surprise of all.