“This isn’t fair.” I pouted, burying my feet in the warm sand. “I turn twenty-one, and you guys get to drink.”
The noisemaker buzzed from Reed’s mouth. I batted it away.
“Just be glad you survived.” Max showed no interest in the cake, but a pretty silver package wrapped for me with his name on the tag. “Didn’t think you’d last this long, baby.”
The waves rolled in close. I kicked at Reed’s surfboard. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“So is Abigail,” Nicholas said. Reed and I voted with four thumbs down. “Claire?”
I shook my head.
He poured another drink and opened the second baby name book with a sigh. “Madison?”
“Bumper,” I said. It was so much easier and safer. I didn’t want to risk anything on our little vacation far from the truth and secrets and danger. “For now.”
Nicholas brushed my hand, his kiss soft and warm and promising to make my birthday night just as fun as the afternoon. “What would make this day perfect? Name it. It’s yours.”
That was easy and impossible. I met his lips with a gentle nibble.
“I don’t want this day to end. I wish I could stay here forever.”
If only because I dreaded what would happen when we returned home.
“I have another surprise for you,” Nicholas said. “I think you’ll like it.”
The limo pulled from the airport and returned us to San Jose.
I feared we’d regret it.
“What kind of surprise?” I asked.
“You’ll see. I want to show you before the party.”
I checked my phone. Only two hours before Nicholas’s induction as the new CEO of the Bennett Corporation. The party forced us back to reality, swept away from my birthday adventure on the beach to assume our rightful responsibilities—the ones we fought to earn, and the ones we now dreaded possessing.
“Do we have time?”
“It won’t take long.” He squeezed my hand. “I can’t wait to show you.”
I doubted he’d show me anything that would ease the prickling, suffocating, consuming instinct to run once more.
I’d never look back.
An altered sonogram would only fool Darius until my daughter was born. Then it wouldn’t end until one of us was dead.
And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.
I made my plan. Plane tickets and duplicates, hotel reservations and rented properties, false trails and security details. It could all come together in less than an afternoon. If I needed it. If I had no other choice. If the risks in staying out-numbered the reasons to remain.
And they did.
But I hadn’t gone. And I knew why.
I wanted Nicholas to come with me—with us.
The surprise waited for me at Nicholas’s penthouse. He guided me through the hall.
“Close your eyes.”
Nicholas had often issued such orders, but this time it wasn’t accompanied with a collar and blindfold. He opened a door and crossed his arm over my waist. I rested against his chest as he whispered to me.
“This is for Bumper.” His hand rubbed my tummy. “I didn’t want to wait.”
I peeked open my eyes.
Oh, this man.
The nursery was styled like a farm. A mural of painted blue skies overlooked fields ripe for a harvest. Little barns and animals printed on the walls—horses and cows and the sheep Dad never actually bought but threatened to ranch in Montana. The white and wicker furniture looked exactly like the ones from the pictures of our farm when my great-grandparents first settled the land. He decorated with a rocking chair and crib, changing table and shutters over the windows. The mobile was made from little barnyard animal figurines.
“I hired Atlas to do the work.”
“Nick, this is…” My words broke.
Run.
Stay.
Hide.
Fight.
My options became more limited the longer I waited and the bigger I grew. This was just the sort of perfection that would blind me to the true danger.
“I know you’re scared,” he said. “Even if you won’t admit it. But I want you here, with me.”
“You can’t promise me we’ll be safe.”
“I can. I will.” He kissed my temple. “Sarah, I’m a man who has always received everything I’ve ever wanted the instant I demanded it. You are the one exception to my rule. I can’t buy you. I can’t own you. I have nothing to offer you except my heart, and even if you refuse it, you are the reason it beats.”
“Nick…”
“I want you and the baby. You are my world. You are my family. A real family.”
He gave me a devilish smile, pulling a package from the top shelf of the dresser. I tugged the ribbon and opened the box, grinning at the tiny pink onesie.
“I couldn’t help myself.” Excitement warmed his voice. “After decorating with all the farm themes, I needed a little something else in here.”
“Daddy’s Princess?” I wrinkled my nose. “You’re going to spoil her before she’s born.”
“Absolutely.”
I covered the box before the pink seeped out and every secret spread. Nicholas took my hand.
“Tonight, I want to celebrate. We have the companies. We have Bumper.” His smile was so rare, so perfect it almost startled me. “Let’s celebrate tonight. You know how much I love you.”
“It’s not about how much you love me,” I whispered. “It’s about how much he hates me and my family.”
His fingers brushed my belly. “It’s one family now, Sarah. And nothing he does will change that.”
“Everything can change it.”
“Only if we let him.” Nicholas kissed me once more. “I dare him to try in what little time he has remaining.”
The trace of his lips on mine warmed with every whispered promise and murmured devotion. He meant to leave for the party. I pulled him into our bedroom instead.
Nicholas grinned.
We embraced in a fierce and passionate kiss, every quick nibble answered in the same fervor, the same intensity, the same realized desires.
So much for his celebration. My dress slipped from my shoulders. Nicholas’s gentle mouth caressed my skin, dragging from my puffy lips to the pulsing heat in the hollow of my neck. He kissed where the material fell away over my flushed breasts.
My body was changed now. Noticeably. I was soft curves and delicate swells. My breasts plumped, full and beautiful. Nicholas hummed, taking a nipple into his mouth. The warmth swirled around me, entirely too sensitive for little more than his tender attention.
He lowered me to the bed, but for the first time, hesitated before lying over me.
He kissed my visible tummy.
“I have to be more careful now,” he said. Bumper kicked at the sound of his voice.
“We’re tougher than we look.”
“I’m not taking any chances.” His fingers hooked within my panties. “Not when there’s so many other ways to enjoy you.”
The silky tease of my panties slipped over my hips. His hand never left my tummy. It hardly ever did. I knew he was tempted by the thought of getting me pregnant, but I feared once it happened, Nicholas would realize how truly barbaric such a practice had been. Or that his excitement would pass and I’d be taken and ruined all from the same moment.
Not so.
Not ever.
Not with the nursery and the gifts, the kisses and the touches, the honesty in his voice when he declared his love.
How gently he whispered to the baby when he thought I’d fallen asleep.
I believed him when he vowed a life of family, trust, and warmth. But it was so hard to give him that part of me. Loving him, trusting him was a strange form of surrender that wasn’t found in bindings or chains or whips.
Trust was completely consensual, independent of him and what he could offer and what he had done. It came from me. I had to trust myself first.