New York City was many things, but a hub for sunbathing?
Nope.
Here, everything was different though.
We had space to roam, space to grow. It felt endless, and when, on an evening, I stared over the vines that belonged to us, it felt like a dream.
I was in France.
More than that, I lived here now.
It was our home.
Our haven.
As I shifted against the railing, I felt the vibrator that Nicholas had insisted I insert before he left. He liked to keep tabs on me, even from afar, but it had been suspiciously still this afternoon.
Which meant he’d either been preoccupied or he was planning something.
I hoped that something involved at least three orgasms—what could I say? He’d made me greedy.
Raising my arm, I checked Mrs. Linden’s Rolex, and was surprised to see that it had been quite a while since both my guys had gone out. Of course, the second that thought crossed my mind, I heard him.
“Mommy!” Scottie squealed from somewhere in the house.
My lips curved as Scottie came hurtling toward me. He barreled into my legs, cupping them tightly through one of Mrs. Linden’s dresses as he hugged me like he hadn’t seen me in days.
His puppy, Barbie the Barbet, a French water dog, came barreling in too, knocking into him, who then knocked into me, as I used the stone balustrades to keep myself up.
“Be careful, Scottie,” Nicholas growled, as there as ever to catch me if I was in danger.
Though it was stupid to think I was in danger on our vineyard, he wasn’t altogether wrong.
I had twins inside me now, and they messed with my equilibrium in a way that wasn’t even funny. He spent most of his time propping me up or keeping my clumsy ass vertical.
I wasn’t even sure how he did it, and often teased him that his stalking days had been a warm-up for the torment of married life with me.
“Don’t even joke about it,” he’d grumbled, but though his mouth had been downturned at the corners, his eyes had sparkled.
I loved that.
Loved making him smile, even when he didn’t want to.
My husband was a complicated man.
Some might say he was twisted, and the truth was, I’d agree with them. He was scarred mentally and physically from his first marriage, and losing his daughter had shaped him in ways that I knew made the fact I was pregnant petrifying.
For all that, I’d caught the glint of satisfaction on his face when I’d told him I was pregnant. I knew this was the final tie he needed to know I wasn’t going anywhere, and I was fine with that.
Fine with him, because I loved him.
Warts and all.
Some might think me stupid, might believe I was as crazy as he was. But those ‘some’ had never been raised by an alcoholic mother. Had never been dragged through Child Welfare as a small child. Had never had to fend for themselves with an infant baby who wasn’t even theirs…
My circumstances had forged me just as they’d forged my Nicholas, and that made me appreciate what he’d done.
Yes, he’d stalked me. Hunted me from the shadows, keeping me safe, protecting me from the harsh realities of life as much as he could from his position. Hadn’t he been there to find me the job I’d desperately needed when I hadn’t had a clue how I was going to pay my bills? Hadn’t he been there to give me shelter when the time had come for me to break free from my mother’s home?
Yes, to many, he was sick and twisted, but to me, he was all the more perfect for it.
He was my knight. Not white, but tarnished, and I wanted him no other way.
Scottie peered up at him from beneath a mop of curls that matched my own. “Sorry, Papa.”
We weren’t sure why I was ‘Mommy’ and Nicholas was ‘Papa,’ but the bicultural life suited our son and we weren’t about to change that, not when we wanted him to be as much American as he was French.
We were laying down roots in the Bordeaux region, and we intended for those roots to last for him and the babies who’d yet to be born.
“Just be careful,” Nicholas grumbled, even as he tucked some curls out of Scottie’s face. “You need a haircut.”
Scottie’s face crunched into one big pucker. “No! I had one three weeks ago.”
“Well, you need another one. Maybe that’s why you’re as clumsy as your mother, because you never know which way you’re going.” He huffed, then eyed Barbie who had almost as many curls as Scottie and me. “I swear, these babies had better come out blond and straight-haired, or they’ll be the death of me.”
I laughed up at him, eyes twinkling with love. “Or they’ll scare you straight?”
“Oh, I’m as straight as a ruler.” So subtly that Scottie wouldn’t notice, he rocked his hips into me. I felt his hardness and inwardly shivered as he moved his mouth to my ear and whispered, “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Mrs. Maclean.”
My throat felt thick. “You’ve only been gone for the afternoon.”
“Too long,” he groused. “I don’t like leaving you.
“You were gone for three hours, Nick. Hardly a lifetime.” When he grumbled some more, I murmured, “I spent most of it lying down anyway—I was finishing up my chapter.”
“You didn’t rush it, did you? I told you to rest.”
He’d been telling me that since I’d reached the final trimester, but dammit, I was invested in the story we were crafting and, babies or no, we had a deadline.
Our publishers were eager for the next chapter in our award-winning series, and hell, I was too. I loved the way we created stories together, and it was a dream come true that someone actually wanted to read what I wrote.
Never in a million years had I thought we’d be doing this, especially not together, but co-authoring we were, and I was thankful every day for that.
Scottie, not happy about being cut out of the conversation, and well aware that we got lost to our plotting without prompt, tugged on my hand. “Papa, can we show her?”
They’d gone to buy clothes for Scottie who was running through them at a rate that made me grateful Nicholas was rich.
Very rich.
More than any of his students would have ever anticipated.
“Show me what?” I asked warily, thoughts of our main characters abandoned.
Nicholas tensed. “Later, Scottie.”
Inwardly, I groaned. “What have you done now?”
“She’s so beautiful, Mommy.”
My eyes widened. “Who is?”
“Her name is Brownie.”
“Brownie?” I tugged out of Nicholas’s arms. “Show me, Scottie.” I glowered at Nick over my shoulder, well aware my husband had bought something else.
We already had two roosters that woke me up in the morning, a coop’s full of chickens that he had to collect the eggs from because they hated me, and a pissed off goat that bleated at us all the damn time.
We were turning into an animal farm, and we weren’t even supposed to be farming!
Scottie’s giggles were infectious though, and as he dragged me from the tiled terrace that overlooked the neat rows of bright green vines and, in the distance, a church steeple that also acted as an irritating alarm clock, I let myself be dragged into his excitement.
He hauled me through the patio doors and into the library. It was, technically, Nicholas’s study, but I found myself in there frequently—old habits died hard—and I had a sofa in there, as well as a small writing desk of my own since it was where we’d begun working together.