“For sex, yes. I know.” She turned and put out a pleading hand. “Don’t make it sound like more than it is. That’s not fair to me.”
“It’s the truth, Fliss. Yes, I brought you here because of the baby, but the baby isn’t even real to me yet. It’s a concept. I feel...protective, I guess? I’m anxious for a positive outcome and bothered that I have so little control over that. Mostly it’s a gray fog that I don’t know how to navigate, so I’m not even thinking about it. I had options, though. I could have arranged protection for you or did as you asked and claimed the baby wasn’t mine. I could have worked out a custody arrangement and hired a nanny to cover my side of it. God knows I know what constitutes a good one of those, having been raised by them myself. I didn’t want to do any of those things. I wanted you here.”
“For se—”
“For more than sex,” he near-shouted, rising off his stool.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed, hugging herself and looking to the ceiling.
“Yes, I want to have sex with you. You’re in the same bed with me. You know it’s amazing. That’s why you want it, too. But it’s more than that, Fliss.” He pushed his hair off his forehead and left his hand on his head as though trying to keep the top of his skull from popping off. “You’re damned right I want you to rely on me. I don’t know what else to give you. And I don’t know how to deal with someone who doesn’t want things. Who only cares if she’s under a dry roof, not how big it is or which neighborhood it’s located in.”
Fliss bit her lips because they felt so unsteady and searched his tortured expression, wary of believing him because she really, really didn’t want to be disappointed in him again, but she could tell how much this was costing him to admit.
“You got under my skin from the second I saw you. I call it lust because if I call it something else, it feels dangerous,” he admitted gruffly. “It means that a drunk I see once every three years can say something about you that makes me act like a Neanderthal. You think I behave that way every day?” He waved his hand in a vague direction. “Never. When I say people know how I feel about you now, I mean they know they can get to me through you. It’s terrifying.”
She didn’t want to be moved in any way by that, but she was. A little. She crushed the sleeve of her robe in her fist, emotions crashing around in her chest like storm waves.
“Do you see how insulting that is, though?” she asked. “That you don’t want to care about me? That you resent that you do?”
“You don’t want to care about me,” Saint shot back, stabbing the air between them with his finger. “You don’t trust me. You don’t want to rely on me. You’re only here for the baby. You think I don’t know you have an exit strategy? If you search for train tickets to Toronto, where Mrs. Bhamra’s sister lives, I’m going to get ads for them in my feed. How the hell am I supposed to trust you when you keep one foot out the door?”
“She’s talking about visiting,” Fliss mumbled, looking down at the elegant arcs of gold painted against her cuticles on her otherwise pink nails.
“I shouldn’t have blurted out that you’re pregnant. I know that,” he said begrudgingly. “You’re right that people haven’t been taking you seriously. That’s on me. I have a history of not taking any of my relationships seriously. But I said it so Kyle would know this is different. Now everyone knows this is different. And yes, maybe it was also a move to lock you in. Not consciously, but... I don’t know.” He ran his hand over his face. “I want you here, Fliss. You. And I hate myself for hurting you. I’m sorry.”
Oh, what was she supposed to do now? Her anger was washing away like footprints in sand, leaving her feeling more vulnerable than ever.
“Can we at least not be angry anymore?” He held out a hand.
“What do you have to be angry about?” she grumbled as she stepped close enough to let him draw her into his arms.
“You clocked me with a pillow, for starters.” He hugged her securely. “Disparaged my cooking skills. Accused me of human rights violations.”
“Pregnant women need the loo. And I was moving the pillow. It’s not my fault your face got in the way.”
“My mistake. See? I’m getting the hang of relationships.”
She hummed a small laugh as she tucked her face against his chest, wanting to stay in this moment of reconciliation forever. But.
“We have to go to the track tomorrow, don’t we?” she said with dread.
“No,” he said firmly, dropping his arms away from her. “I’ve already told my pilot we’re flying back to the city first thing.”
“Saint. Your mom will be devastated if we don’t watch the race. If her horse doesn’t win, who will console her? Your dad? It will be awkward for me, I know, but it won’t get less awkward if I put it off, so let’s get it over with.”
“You think Paprika’s Tuft won’t win?” he asked with a frown. “What did your cards say?”
“I don’t ask questions I don’t want the answer to.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do your cards say about us?”
“I haven’t asked.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PAPRIKA’S TUFT LOST by a nose. Norma was disappointed but mollified by the quarter of a million dollars that was the second-prize purse.
Fliss had another good day with two wins and a shrewd win-place-show cover of bets in the final race. Her biggest return came when the man who had shadowed her bets gave her his business card.
“Call my assistant the next time you’re on your way to Paris. She’ll have accounts opened at whichever boutiques you like to visit.”
“Oh, that’s kind of you, but I couldn’t.” She looked to Saint, nonplussed.
“I’m up four hundred thousand dollars today. You ought to have a cut of those winnings,” the man insisted.
“Take the card,” Saint said mildly. “Send him your business plan. See if he’d like to bet on you. Fliss designs lingerie,” he told the man.
“Ah. Yes. I’d like to see that proposal.”
His immediate interest plucked against her sense of not working hard enough to earn such an advantage, but it was a nice outcome to end what had been a tense day. She’d been braced for the worst, but it hasn’t been as uncomfortable as Fliss had feared. There’d been too much action and, thankfully, the drunk who’d provoked Saint last night was nursing his hangover and didn’t turn up at the track.
They returned to New York later that evening to headlines about her pregnancy, but a political scandal was already overshadowing it.
A small honeymoon period ensued, one that filled Fliss with optimism. She did send her proposal to her potential investor, then flew to California with Saint, where she was accidentally photographed in one of her own bathing suits. Her bump was growing obvious and the rest of her was filling out, too. She wore a seashell-patterned bikini top that tied between her breasts. The matching bottoms were high-waisted and had seashell-shaped cutouts on either hip, each outlined with dark blue piping. She also wore a wide-brimmed hat that she was holding on her head as she tipped her head back and laughed at something Saint had said.
It wasn’t a lewd photo. The suit was only partially visible beneath her filmy cover-up, but it was labeled “body positive” and captured an intimate moment between them, so it went viral. All the online influencers wanted to know where her ensemble had been purchased, and when it was identified as her own design, her potential business partner leapt on it, offering her an obscene amount of money to get a line of bathing suits to market as quickly as possible.
From then on, she and Saint both had busy days. While he assembled his team for his security project and oversaw that along with his regular responsibilities she hired her own team, including a buyer in Asia who began sending her amazing fabric samples.
Amid their heavy work schedules, they began hosting dinners. The first was a fun mash-up of his nerdy programmers and her fashion geeks that ended in makeovers and at least one new romance. Then, Fliss began finding her feet with Saint’s social circle. They attended cocktail parties and galas. People were more gracious now that they realized she was carrying the next heir to Grayscale and likely to be at these events more often. Fliss didn’t kid herself that it was more personal than that, but at least she was growing more comfortable in these settings.
The only hiccup occurred when they were invited to spend an evening in the private box of a celebrity to watch a basketball game. The evening had barely started when there was the sound of a brash female voice calling out drunken greetings, but even as Fliss turned to look, Saint was moving between them, blocking her from seeing the woman. He put a word in someone’s ear, and moments later, they were heading to the car.
“Julie,” Saint explained with a curl of his lip. “I stopped short of a restraining order when I sent her the cease and desist, but there’s no reason either of us need to be in the same room with her. Do you mind?”
“No.” They hadn’t had a night to themselves in ages. She was more than glad that their evening turned into a cuddle on the couch and some unhurried lovemaking. At times like this, everything about her new life was perfect.
Except...they didn’t talk about the baby very often. Fliss was eighteen weeks along and had begun looking through books of names. She also discussed with Saint which room she thought would be best as a nursery. He was agreeable but always seemed a little reticent, which worried her.
He was busy, though. He’d been curtailing travel for her sake, so she wasn’t exactly neglected. Also, this pregnancy was happening to her in a very physical way. She had been feeling small internal flutters lately and her baby bump was growing more pronounced, but Saint had yet to feel the baby move.
She had hoped by now he would start to see the baby as more real, but when she pressed his hand to her abdomen in the shower and asked “Can you feel that?” he shook his head.
It was a very subtle sensation inside her, so she wasn’t surprised, only disappointed because she wanted him to be as excited as she was. But he wasn’t.
“Are you sure there’s even a baby in there?” he joked lightly, circling his soapy palm around her navel.
“You think I’m packing on weight for show?”
