The gossip channel his mother-in-law was watching had been muted and every so often he’d get a glimpse of his picture with some woman who was not his wife. Christian wanted to hurl something at the damn screen, but he couldn’t change his past or the fact that everyone was privy to it. Including Zoe.
She glanced behind her just as an old video of him and Jaylen walking the red carpet was put on repeat. His entire body tensed as she turned back around in her chair, slender shoulders drooping. A small frown appeared on her face.
“How can you stand to watch that trash, Momma?” Luke growled.
Everyone turned to look and of course it showed him snogging Jaylen before giving the camera the finger. Then shouting what he knew to be profanity-laced sentences or at least what would have passed as a sentence. He’d most likely been drunk at the time, possibly high.
An uncomfortable silence descended.
Zoe looked down, pretending to examine the top of the wooden table. Her fingers flexed, the wedding ring that should be sparkling there conspicuously absent. As was his. She’d never given him one. Judging by her body language, he wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon.
Heath cleared his throat. “Who wants dessert?”
“I’ll go check on SmithAnn,” Carter said.
Logan shot to his feet. “I’ll get the plates.”
“Leah, did you hear what Chrissy Jean said about Kelly Rae at Daisy’s bakery the other day?” Melanie asked, moving to the living room. “I swear, those two looked like dogs fighting over scraps. “
Leah held up the remote and clicked off the television, then motioned for Melanie to sit down in the closest chair. “Over Nelson Landry?”
Everyone but Evangeline got up from the table to crowd around the large island in the middle of the kitchen. She shrugged a shoulder when Christian sent her a questioning look.
“It’s my job to clean up. That’s the curse of being the youngest. You’ve always got to do the crap jobs.”
Wasn’t that the truth? His crap job would be mindlessly spewing Romanov Industries’ mission statement all over the world.
He helped her gather up the cards and sort through them, creating two decks again. “How’s school going?”
“Just fine.” Evangeline gave him a brilliant smile, one very like his wife’s. “Are any of your friends coming here?”
He inwardly sighed at the sight of her sweet face. Now he had a little sister to think of. His friends could stay the hell away from Holland Springs and the women who lived here. “Not any time soon.”
Her smile fell, but only slightly. “I already know one of them.”
“And who would that be?” He closed the top of the box of cards.
“Luke wants to kill you,” Evangeline warned, ignoring his question. “He thinks you’re only here to boost your image, because something bad has happened or is about to happen.”
That much was obvious. It didn’t take a genius to notice Luke’s fury-filled glare. And those damn pictures of him were still lurking in cyberspace. Still waiting for confirmation on the identity, but he was sure the bloggers and the reporters without standards would be publishing them soon. Ramifications be damned. Christian’s second shot at happiness be damned as well.
He knew he needed to tell Zoe soon, but he was afraid she would think he was using her. “I’m here because I love your sister and want to stay married to her,” he assured his sister-in-law.
Evangeline finished shoving the cards into the two boxes. “That’s what I figured. You’d have to be either an idiot or desperately in love to come into the lion’s den.” She tilted her head in her brothers’ direction. They were milling around the kitchen, eating and joking with one another.
Jealousy stabbed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Sebastian had joked around. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time they’d spent together that hadn’t involved Christian receiving a dressing down from their father. Zoe’s family teased, cursed and yelled at each other without taking it personally. Without their parents pitting them against each other.
“Well, I am idiotically, desperately in love with your sister,” he said with a wink and a grin.
Zoe carried a plate of cookies and a glass of milk over to Melanie, who was sitting in a chair with her feet propped up on an ottoman. She sat on the arm, talking to Melanie or rather her belly. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her as she made silly faces while talking in a sing-songy voice. She’d make an excellent mother. To his children. Their children.
A warm, fuzzy feeling settled in his bones. They could live here, follow Zoe’s routine, and be deliriously happy. Just like she’d always wanted and now like he did, too.
“Why don’t you leave and let her have a normal relationship?”
Christian looked up to find Luke in Evangeline’s place at the table. He leaned back in his chair, trying to keep his voice smooth and his face impassive as he faced a challenge nearly as formidable as his wife.
“Obviously, Zoe craves something different. She broke up with Mr. Normal months ago and it wasn’t the first time,” he pointed out. No, the first time had happened before she’d moved out to California and kissed him. Had had a one night stand with him. Christian rubbed his thumb along the bottom of his glass, wiping away the condensation that had gathered.
“You two broke up last month.”
“Now we’re back together.” Christian glowered at Luke from beneath his brows.
“Until you get bored or don’t need her to fix your rep.”
White-hot fury flashed through Christian. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“I can wait.” Luke slouched down in his chair, a slow grin covering his face. “Unlike you, I know how to stick around.”
Christian suddenly remembered a little tidbit Zoe’d inadvertently let slip out about Luke and his ex. “Is that how Lily Sawyer would see things?”
Luke’s jaw clenched and his eyes flared. “I’d hate to mess up that pretty face of yours, Romanov.”
“Yes, it would put a damper on the whole do no harm creed you doctors have. And as flattered as I am that you think I’m pretty, I’m married.” Christian looked around the room, struggling to keep his temper under control.
“Unbelievable. You can’t even say anything original. Does your personal assistant have to email you a script to get through the day?” Luke leaned forward, placing his hands on the table between them. “You might have everyone else fooled, but not me. I know why you’re here: You need my sister to save your ass again and make you look good to everyone.” Luke rapped his knuckles on the table. “Thing is, deep down inside, you know you’ll never be good enough for her.”
Wisely, Christian kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t as if Luke wasn’t correct and Christian knew it. But selfish bastard that he was, there was no way in hell Christian was going to help Zoe realize it any sooner than she had to.
***
A full moon lit Zoe and Christian’s path as they walked home. Tall pine trees swayed when a blustery wind gusted.
Zoe wrapped her coat tightly around her, wishing for the summer-like weather that had disappeared when the sun set. Hair dancing around her head smacked her in the face, making her eyes water.
She brushed it away and glanced up at the black sky, noting the large clouds rolling in. “It smells like rain.”
Christian walked beside her, unusually subdued.
Lacing her fingers through his long, tapered ones, she tried again. “You sure are quiet.”
“That’s because I’m still reeling from the shock of discovering how close you live to your parents,” he said, lightly squeezing her hand.
She laughed. “It’s fifteen minutes to their house from mine.” Ours, she wanted to say, but her feelings were still hurt by what she’d seen on television. How did other women do it? How did they reconcile themselves to their husbands’ well-documented and broadcasted pasts while trying to look to the future? And in front of their families. It was one thing to see it in private, but like that, with everyone’s attention on her and Christian, it had been excruciating. Suffocating. It had taken every ounce of willpower not to order him to leave, then run home.
“Only by car. By foot it’s less than five,” he said. “I’m having visions of your mother walking in on us, but I’ll be respectful by not kicking her out when it happens. Over and over and over.”
“You won’t be able to tell her to eff-off while giving her the finger. How inconvenient for you.”
He stopped, turning to look at her. “I know how to comport myself.”
“Yeah, your classiness shined on the red carpet in that video. Shoving your tongue down your lover’s throat was an extra special touch.” She jerked her hand away and stomped ahead of him, but her short legs couldn’t put enough distance between them and he was soon caught up to her.
“Ex-lover, remember? I swear to God, Zoe. It’s one step forward and a million steps back with you,” he said, obvious frustration filling his tone.
She stopped in her tracks. “You think it’s fun to watch you with other women? You don’t think that your display of affection with your ex-lover didn’t humiliate me? My family saw you, Christian.”
“I can’t help what your mother chooses to watch,” he said and even though it was true, it still stung and hurt.
“How would you like to see videos of me and Gabriel kissing? Sex tapes?”
He splayed his arms wide. “I don’t have to. Every damn photo of you in that house has Gabriel at your side.” His face changed as though he realized what she’d just said. “What sex tapes?”
Only the one you’d mentioned in front of Gabriel, she wanted to say. “It’s none of your business,” she said with a toss of her hair. There, that should fix him.
The next thing she knew his hands were around her upper arms and he’d propelled her against a tree. The rough bark caught at her hair and tugged painfully at her scalp. He loomed over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the moon. His face was wreathed in shadows, but by some trick of the light, she could see the color of his eyes as they burned in his face.
“How many and with whom?”
“You first or can’t you count that high?” His hands were gentle, and she knew instinctively he’d never hurt her.
“Five and the only one whose name I care to remember is yours. Now, will you be adding or subtracting to my number?” His perfect lips thinned as he waited for her response.
She tilted her nose in the air. “One.”
“Adding or subtracting, love?”
“Neither,” she whispered, not wanting to play any more games with him.
“I swore I wouldn’t ask this and that I didn’t care, but how many lovers have you had? How many men have touched your beautiful body? How many have plunged deep inside of you, experiencing every little flutter and the lush moans you make when you’re completely filled to,” He teased the hollow of her throat with an long finger, “here?”
She sucked in a breath, aroused by his words and blatant display of jealousy. “None of your business.”
Christian’s mouth lowered to hers, brushing over her lips with infinite gentleness. “I promise not to be angry.” He raised his head and barked out a laugh, “No, I won’t. I can’t promise that. Tell me, baby. How many?”
Swallowing hard, she said, “Just you. Happy?”
His mouth dropped open.
She shrugged out of his embrace, ducked under his arm, and left him standing in the space they’d both occupied.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was past midnight when Christian’s Suburban pulled in the drive. The headlights beamed briefly through the front picture window of her house. Her heart tripled its beat.
She clicked the television off and quickly headed to her office, still unwilling and too angry to talk to him. Even after two hours of fuming. Of staring at his clothes in her closet. His shaving kit with her cosmetics. His ridiculous—okay, cute—PEZ collection mixed in with her crystal fairies. The coyote one had looked like he was about to take a bite out of the closest wood sprite, so she’d flicked him over with the tip of her finger.
In less than three weeks’ time Christian had made his mark on her home, but it wasn’t overpowering. He didn’t demand she change anything. Didn’t criticize her taste or lack of it, according to her mother. Only blended in as if his things had always been there. As if he had always been there as well.
The door opened and shut, Christian’s heavy footsteps coming to a stop.
“Watch it, Miss Wood Sprite. Mr. Coyote will not be happy if you keep teasing him,” she heard him say. “There, everyone’s as they should be. Cheers.”
She shook her head, trying not to be charmed by his antics.
A few seconds later, he stood in the doorway, watching her with hooded eyes.
“Did you have fun with my brothers?” she asked coolly, keeping her fingers moving over the keyboard.
“Actually, it wasn’t bad. Heath’s a good sort, Logan bought my drinks, and as long as I don’t ever turn my back on Luke, I’ll keep living to see the next day,” he said, his playful mood nothing like the man in the forest. “What are you writing?”
“A scene with Dimitri and Katrina.” She tensed, pain starting along the lines of her shoulder blades. Maybe this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He hadn’t said anything about her writing since moving in with her.