Chapter Thirty One
Mia
“Is this what they call a drawing room? Isn’t that what they call them in fancy houses like these?”
Meg clasps her hands together, nodding like the perfect tour guide. “Sort of. In the strictest sense of the word, the blue drawing room is our drawing room. Because it’s where we go if we’re not cooking when the men drink before or after dinner, depending on guests. Drawing rooms were a thing back when sexism was normal, but once it’s dinner time in this house it may as well be the 1600’s. We mostly just refer to the rooms by color though—red, blue, gold, yellow, and we all have sitting rooms in our bedrooms, too. Our bedrooms are like separate apartments. Except Mia’s,” Meg points out, gesturing back at me. “She’s in Mateo’s room now so that’s the largest wing. It’s almost like a little house of its own over there. The sitting room is separate, it has its own bedrooms, and then of course her bedroom.”
Mom turns to look at me over her shoulder. “Are we going to see that one?”
I shake my head. “No, not that one. Mateo doesn’t allow tours of his room. I didn’t see it my first time here, either.”
“I bet you were blown away the first time you saw it,” she remarks.
My lips thin and I offer a polite nod. Of course the first time I found myself in Mateo’s wing, I was not remotely interested in the layout or décor.
Meg faintly grimaces, shuddering.
I cock my head to the side and shoot her a questioning look.
She shakes her head, shakes it off, and proceeds on the tour.
“Anyway, the servants’ quarters are much cozier. I liked to hang out in here back when I was a maid. The house is so big, it can lack coziness, but the servants’ quarters feel more like a home.”
My mom’s eyes grow wider. “You have a whole house for servants? You used to be a maid?” Her gaze drops to Meg’s stomach. “Did you marry up?”
“Almost,” Meg says, brightly. “Mateo never actually married me, but we were engaged for a while.”
I’m waving my hands, trying to get her attention to stop her, but to no avail. Now my shoulders drop as my mom turns back to look at me like this must be news to me.
“Oh. Oops,” Meg says, flashing me a grimace. “Sorry, I assumed…”
“She was engaged to your fiancé?”
“Yeah.” I really don’t want to try to explain sister wives to my mom. She’ll either tell me I’m insane and I need to shove Meg out of the way, or reassure me that as rich as Mateo is, she totally understands me turning the other cheek so he can bang my friend. Both responses are exhausting and at least mildly annoying.
“Is that his baby?” Mom asks, indicating Meg’s stomach. “Are you both… pregnant with his babies?”
I have an honest-to-God hand-to-forehead moment now. I should’ve realized bringing Meg along on the tour would be a bad idea; I just didn’t want the awkward silences as we toured the house and I know Meg’s mouth never stops running. Should’ve probably considered what might come spilling out of it.
Thankfully, like a beautiful angel from the heavens, Adrian comes walking up the hall. I abandon my mom with Meg to meet him halfway. Leaning in close, I murmur, “Tell me Mateo needs me. Save me from this God-awful tour.”
Smiling faintly, he says, “And leave Meg and your mom prowling the house alone? I don’t think so.”
“Please.” I grasp his lapels dramatically. “I beg of you. Take pity on me.”
Instead of taking pity on me, he reaches across my arm and draws a white envelope out of his suit pocket. “The money you requested, you poor unfortunate damsel.”
I look at the envelope, but don’t take it yet. “You don’t understand. My mom thinks she’s touring Buckingham Palace. Meg’s gotta be dying to make cracks about my low-class roots.”
“Her roots are as low-class as yours,” he assures me. “You’re both a couple of gutter mice.”
I release his lapel, smoothing it down, and taking the envelope. “If my mom says ‘fancy’ one more time, I’m going to die of mortification. She can’t come to dinner. Mateo’s going to be exasperated. He doesn’t even like tacos, and my mom is like tacos personified.”
Nodding solemnly, he says, “I bet you’re right. He’s going to retract his proposal on the basis of your sketchy mom that he already knew about.”
I sigh at him. “Can’t you just let me be dramatic for a minute?”
With a faint grimace, he says, “I would, but according to your sixth grade drama teacher, you’re not cut out for it.”
My jaw drops a few inches and he winks, turning me around and giving me a light shove back toward my mom.
“Stalker,” I shoot back.
“You like stalkers. You’ve never dated someone who wasn’t a stalker.”
I flash him a lightly flirty smile, since he worded it that way. He sighs and rolls his eyes, realizing too late what he said.
“If you and Elise weren’t married, you were Mateo’s pick for my next husband,” I inform him, just because. “Since you had to go and be married, it’s Rafe.”
Adrian rolls his eyes. “He’s lining up a back-up husband for you? He’s such a psycho.”
“Apparently I’m incapable of surviving alone.”
“Nah, you’d do all right,” he assures me.
“See, you have faith in me; that’s why you’re my back-up husband,” I tell him.
“You can’t marry Rafe anyway. Vegas is too far, I can’t keep a good eye on you that far away.” He pauses, rocking his head to the side in consideration. “Although if Mateo’s dead, good chance I am, too.”
“I can’t live in this world where you and Mateo are both dead,” I inform him. “I hate everything about that world. Let’s stop talking about this.”
My mom looks a little less enthusiastic as Adrian and I approach. I wonder what Meg said to her. Probably shouldn’t have left her alone then either, but I needed to escape.
Since he already gave me the money and he doesn’t feel like rescuing me from my own mother, I return to my mom and Meg. Without explanation, I hand my mom the envelope.
Meg’s perfect eyebrows are lifted as she watches Adrian walk away, then flicks a glance back at me. “You better watch it, Elise knows her way around the cutlery.”
Cocking my head, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Getting a little handsy with Adrian there, don’t you think?”
As my mom opens her envelope to see how much is inside, she voices a different concern. “I don’t know how you get used to having all these scary men roaming the halls.”
“Scary? Adrian?” I smile at the absurdity. I guess it’s not really absurd, since he is technically dangerous, but it’s hard to look at him through her eyes after all these years with him around.
“My concern is the bigger threat,” Meg states, giving me a serious nod. “Remember there’s a dungeon in this house.”
Now my mom’s eyes widen and she looks back at Meg to see if she’s joking.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” I tell Meg. “And I’ve managed to stay out of the dungeon for five years; I think I can stop worrying about it.”
“There’s a real dungeon?” Mom asks, torn between horror and fascination.
“What kind of castle doesn’t have a dungeon?” Meg tosses out, turning around and heading back the way we came.
---
My makeshift bridal shower not being an ordinary affair, it concludes with family dinner. Sort of. Sal and Ethan are on their way while the women get ready upstairs. I’m ready, all dolled up in a slinky green dress, so I thought I could sneak away and steal a minute with Mateo before dinner.
“Are you saying you don’t trust Colin’s guys?”
I hear Mateo in business mode, so I peek my head inside the study, knocking lightly on the thick door. It was cracked open so I thought I was okay to come in.
Mateo glances at me, smiling faintly and nodding for me to enter.
Adrian glances up at me, but he answers Mateo anyway. “I’m not saying I don’t trust them, I’m saying I don’t think we need four freelancers. We have enough of our own men. If you want to contract Colin for added protection, fine, but we don’t need his friends.”
“You’re in the wedding. Elise and Westley will be there with you. You’re going to be distracted. I want all four to make up the difference.”
“It’s overkill,” Adrian states. “Will and Kate didn’t have this many fucking guards on their wedding.”
I grin at Adrian’s royal wedding reference and move around the desk, taking a seat on Mateo’s lap. His arm moves naturally around my waist, but he keeps his gaze on Adrian.
“I don’t care. I want all of them. Unless you have a better reason than overkill, contract all four.”
Adrian’s eyebrows rise and he cocks his head slightly. “I mean, there is the fact that three of them were involved in the New York massacre. Personally, guys who already helped take out one mob family don’t top the list of people I’d want guarding mine.”
“Colin explained that. They didn’t turn on their employer; they were doing the job they were paid to do. Vince can’t afford a team of hit men, so I’m not overly worried about this being a Trojan horse.”
“Ben can,” Adrian shoots back.
“Ben doesn’t hire outside help,” Mateo returns.
“And you thought Vince wouldn’t go to Ben, which is why we didn’t check there in the first place. You’re wrong sometimes.”
Irritation flickers in the depths of Mateo’s brown eyes. “Colin has never let us down before. It wouldn’t benefit him to do so now.”
“We have enough of our own guys,” Adrian reiterates. “Why take the chance?”
Now Mateo finally turns his attention to me, but it’s just to goad Adrian. “Adrian is boring me. Entertain me?”
I grin, leaning in to give him a kiss. “Sure. Want me to blow you under the desk?”
“No,” Adrian says, firmly. “That will distract him too well. Tell your fiancé he doesn’t need an army of strangers guarding the wedding. Vince is one guy, and he hasn’t been back to Vegas since he left. There’s absolutely nothing to indicate he even knows this wedding is happening, let alone that he’s coming back to stop it.”
I raise my eyebrows, looking back at Mateo. “A whole army to keep Vince out?”
He subtly corrects me. “A whole army to keep you safe.”
“I really don’t think Vince wants to kill me,” I tell him, still with my arms wound around his neck. “He could’ve done that already. He’s reckless; if he wanted me dead, he would’ve just busted into Rafe’s that night and killed me before he could bring me home.”
“I know.” He nods, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. He’s as suspicious as I am trusting, so he’s learned just to ignore my assertions about people.
Adrian butts in again. “We also have eyes on Vince, so if he heads for Chicago, we’ll have adequate warning. Sal already said he’ll have his guys on standby. Between our families, we have it covered. If Vince could see you preparing for him like this, we would need to invent a new word for the level of his smugness.”
“I couldn’t care less,” Mateo states. “Everything that matters to me will be there and I have hoards of strangers and distant relations pouring in. I don’t trust anyone. I’ll be happiest when the whole goddamn thing’s over.”
Even though I understand what he means, my tummy feels a little shifty at him wishing our wedding was already over. I thought choosing ordinary details was stressful; I hadn’t even considered all the stuff Mateo would have to worry about surrounding it.
“No wonder you never married Meg,” I say, lightly. “This sounds like a real hassle.”
That snags Mateo’s attention. His sharp gaze drifts to my face and he seems to realize he’s dreading the day I’ve been dreaming about since it was an impossibility. Catching my left hand, he brings it to his lips and places a kiss on my knuckles, near the beautiful ring he gave me. “I never married Meg because she wasn’t you,” he states. “Making you my wife is worth one day of hassle.”
I beam, leaning in and kissing him. I can’t resist bringing a hand up to lovingly caress his strong jaw line. God, I’m a lucky woman.
Still holding my free hand, Mateo runs his thumb across my knuckles. “Speaking of hassle, I wanted to talk to you about a security matter. Remember when I said you’re no longer allowed to leave the house without someone guarding you?”
I nod my head.
“Well, I’ve given it further thought and updated that particular mandate. From now on, Adrian is your exclusive bodyguard. I don’t want you to go anywhere outside this house without him.”
I blink in surprise, glancing at Adrian, then back at Mateo. “But Adrian’s your bodyguard.”
Nodding once, his face tells me I might not like this next part. “Yes. So unless we go somewhere together, let’s keep it to one day a week. You can have him one day a week to go do whatever you want, the rest of the time…”
“I’m on lockdown,” I say, nodding.
“Or you could just stop ruining my fun and let me kill Vince,” he suggests casually.
“Nope.” I shake my head, injecting a little more brightness into my tone. “That’s fine. I like the house. There’s plenty to do here. I don’t spend enough time at the pool anyway.”
Mateo rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t argue. We both know he could take the matter out of my hands and solve it for me, but since it involves killing Vince, we also know he won’t. I lean in to give him another little kiss to express my gratitude for his restraint.
I’ve debated whether or not to say anything about this, but at the end of the day, I think it’s better safe than sorry. I’ve bet on people and lost too many times and the wager on this one is just too high.
My gaze drops to my lap where Mateo’s hand rests on my thigh. I’m afraid to say anything to make this already suspicious man more suspicious, but I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t say anything and it turns out I should have. “While we’re on the subject of security concerns, I have one.”
Mateo appears mildly surprised. It only feeds my anxiety.
“Go on,” he says.
“First I need you to listen and not jump to any conclusions. I’m just being abundantly cautious because… well, sometimes I’m not and it ends up costing me big time, but this is something I don’t want to take a risk on.”
Nodding once in acknowledgement of my terms, Mateo says, “I understand.”
“I think you need to give Meg a loyalty test.”
For someone so closely guarded, his eyebrows rise and his jaw goes slack. He goes to speak, then stops, apparently at a loss for words.
Several seconds of silence pass before I finally explain myself. “She said something to me that was probably completely harmless and just Meg being Meg and talking too much. But she mentioned how she wants to do her own thing now and start making legitimate money removed from you. Then she added—again, probably harmlessly, I’m just getting my Morelli paranoia on—something about how just in case you ever get caught doing your less… legal endeavors, so the kids wouldn’t be penniless while your accounts were all frozen. Now, I don’t think Meg would turn on you, I just think it’s worth checking out. Obviously don’t give her the loyalty test you gave me, but one more suited to this situation. I think a good way would be to either pour some money into her business or make up her coming into money somehow—I’ll leave the details to you, that’s more your thing. Then once she knows she has enough money to stand on her own, send your cop friends who chatted with me to try to get information from her. Just to make sure there are no sour grapes and she’s not secretly plotting your downfall, ‘cause, you know, that would epically piss me off.”
I can feel Adrian’s eyes still on me. I meet Mateo’s gaze straight-on, but neither man speaks.
“And as long as she’s loyal, it shouldn’t matter. If you have a better idea, obviously go with yours. I just want to make sure she hasn’t come up with some revenge plot. I don’t actually know how the break-up went down. I don’t know how her brain works. I don’t want to stir suspicion unjustly; I just want to make sure she wouldn’t try to hurt you.”
I’m not sure what to expect, but a slow smile crosses Mateo’s face. There’s clear approval on his face, but this is the first time I’ve wondered if I was earning that approval for doing something bad.
He doesn’t give me time to wonder. He catches me around the back of the neck and pulls me in for a hard kiss. As his lips work their magic, he seems to suck the anxiety right out of me. By the time he’s done, I’m thoroughly kissed and not a speck of discomfort remains.
“We’ll look into it,” he says simply, his hand lightly caressing my hip. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
While I’m riding the high of surprising them with my vigilance, I lean back, meet his gaze, and tell him, “I’m also not comfortable with you guys snuggling together when you’re ignoring my text messages.”
He frowns lightly—not with disapproval, just confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Before the last doctor’s appointment when things were weird because of the baby. You didn’t come to bed and you weren’t answering your phone. I went looking for you and you and Meg were snuggling. Post sister wives. I’m not sharing anymore, so I don’t think I should have to walk in on stuff like that now.”
“I can’t remember the last time I snuggled with Meg,” he states. “But it surely hasn’t been since you went missing, let alone since we found out you were pregnant. I don’t know what you saw, but you’re mistaken.”
“You were eating ice cream. She called you a Gremlin,” I state. “I’m not sure what that meant—isn’t that a demon or something? Like a… wait, maybe that’s a goblin. I don’t know, it was weird.”
“Oh, my god,” Adrian says, falling back in his wing chair and covering his face. “She doesn’t know what a Gremlin is.”
I frown at Adrian as he grins into his hands and shakes his head, then back at Mateo, who smirks in response.
“The Gremlin is not the point here,” I say, trying to bring us back to the point.
“We were sitting on the same piece of furniture. We weren’t snuggling,” Mateo states.
“I watched her rest her head on your shoulder. She tried to feed you ice cream from her bowl. You guys were super close.”
He grasps his heart in a blatantly mocking gesture. “How close?”
“It’s not funny,” I object. “It hurt my feelings.”
His amusement melts and he adopts a more serious expression. “All right. I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me.”
His agreement comes too easily and throws me off. I didn’t expect to argue, we rarely argue, but as much as I’ve been putting it off, I expected more pushback than that. “That’s it?”
Quirking a curious eyebrow, light amusement dances in the depths of his handsome brown eyes. “Did you want me to argue?”
“I don’t know.”
He watches me for a few seconds, then abruptly changes the subject. “Is this what you’re wearing to dinner?”
I glance down at my dress, mildly surprised that we jumped that many tracks in this conversation. “I was planning on it. Do you not like it?”
“It’s pretty,” he assures me, his hand sliding up my thigh. “But you should wear the new one I bought you—the white one with red roses.”
I smile faintly, catching his devious hand as it moves too far up my thigh. “All right.”
“No panties,” he adds.
I grin, leaning in to kiss his neck. “Yes, sir.”
“I hate panties,” he states.
“You do not.” I trail a hand down his chest, creeping down his abdomen and lightly brushing his crotch. “You love to peel them off.”
Adrian interjects. “Do I really need to be here for this?”
Mateo grins, steals one last kiss, then boots me off his lap. He gives me a smack on the ass to ease the dismissal, telling me, “We need to finish up in here. You go change and I’ll see you at dinner.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Mia
I sigh, falling back into the pillowy softness of our bed. Mateo climbs on top of me, playfully lifting an eyebrow before swooping down and burying his face in my neck. God, I love when he’s playful.
My arms slide up his muscular back. I drag my fingernails down the stiff white fabric of his dress shirt, then let my hands travel down to grab his ass, pulling him against me.
“We have so many clothes on,” I complain, just before his lips make it to my mouth.
His deep voice sends shivers running up and down my spine. “But you’re not wearing panties.”
He catches me around the waist and rolls me over, yanking me on top of him. His hands move down to my ass. He squeezes, mimicking what I just did, but it’s so much sexier when he does it.
His hand is just about between my legs when we hear a knock at the door.
Groaning as he hauls me off to his side and gets off the bed, I say, “Tell Adrian to go away.”
“That’s not Adrian’s knock.” He opens the door and looks down at the dark-haired three-year-old in footed pajamas standing at the door. She has a book tucked under her tiny arm and she looks up at Mateo, all business. “May I help you?” he asks.
Her little messy bun bobs as she nods. “We need to have a talk.” Without awaiting permission to enter, she breezes past his leg and strides over to the bed.
“Oh, do we?” he asks, closing the door and following her.
She nods, pushing her book up on our bed so she can try to pull herself up. Our bed is pretty tall, so Mateo comes up behind her and gives her a boost.
“What do we need to talk about?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“The Gruffalo,” she says, stretching her pajama-clad legs in front of her and grabbing her book.
He gives her a lightly narrowed, playfully suspicious look. “The Gruffalo? What’s a gruffalo?”
She grins, and I don’t really understand why. “Why, didn’t you know?”
This sounds more like a skit than a conversation, but I’m lost.
Moving on, Mateo states, “You already got your bedtime story tonight.”
“Yeah, but you read it better than Mommy,” she informs him. Her face is innocent, but I don’t buy it. She’s only three, but she already knows how to get what she wants.
“If we give you all the bedtime stories you request, you’ll never sleep,” Mateo points out.
“I don’t like sleeping all the time,” she states. But, seeing the tides are not in her favor, she turns around and crawls over to me. Once she’s situated in my lap, she says, “Mia didn’t get a bedtime story. Let’s read it to her.”
Lightly amused, he meets my gaze. “I was just about to tell her a bedtime story when you came in.”
“It was going to have a very happy ending,” I agree, nodding.
“Well, this one is better than that one,” Rosalie decrees, opening the book and turning to the first page. Flashing her big brown puppy dog eyes at him, she adds, “Please, Daddy?”
The little boss has defeated the big boss tonight. With an indulgent roll of his eyes, he climbs across the bed and takes the book. “We’ll read it once, then you’re going to bed.”
Rosalie claps her hands, looking up at me with a victorious smile. I hold up my hand and she gives an answering high five.
Mateo settles in beside us and starts reading the book. I’m not normally present for their bedtime routine, but his practiced command over the words and Rosalie’s recitation between giggles leads me to conclude this must be how they always read this story. It’s a cute book, probably a million times cuter because it’s Mateo reading it. For all the stories this manipulative man has told in his time, this is by far the most adorable.
My poor heart barely makes it through the book without exploding. Mateo reads his lines with relish, Rosalie comes in with hers then collapses into giggles of delight, and I’m so consumed with tenderness for both of them I could burst. She’s in my lap so I can already squeeze her, but this little performance is making me want to jump Mateo’s bones even more than I did prior to the interruption.
After the story ends, Mateo hauls Rosalie back to bed. I take the opportunity to rid myself of my pesky clothing and burrow underneath the blankets.
Mateo reenters the room, closing the door behind him and meeting my gaze. “Now, where were we?”
“Oh, I’m a step ahead of you,” I assure him, nodding toward the dress. “Clothes have no place here.”
He smirks as he unbuttons his shirt. “Women and bedtime stories, I swear. I should’ve skipped straight to that move and saved myself a lot of plays.”
I can’t help smiling. “Yeah, you really should’ve. Remember when we were in here the first time and you mentioned you had been reading Isabella a bedtime story? You should’ve made me watch. Then sent your cops to talk to me. I would’ve been like, ‘leave that man alone, he reads to his daughter.’”
“Eh, you covered my ass anyway,” he says, peeling his shirt off and going to work on his pants. “I got the right result, regardless of my method.”
“I’m just saying.”
“My way led us here,” he states.
“Um, that would have, too. Much faster. You in daddy mode makes me crazy. You could’ve swept me right off my feet if you’d played that card sooner.”
He shrugs, faintly shaking his head. “Women.”
I roll my eyes at him. “It’s not a woman thing. You have kids. Didn’t it make you all warm inside when you first found out you were going to be a father? When the baby kicked and you got to feel it for the first time? When you looked at ultrasound pictures? Didn’t it make you all lovey to see Meg’s belly growing, knowing your baby was in there? Don’t answer that last one, obviously,” I add, quickly.
He does anyway, as he drapes his shirt across the chair. “None of that made me feel warmth or desire.”
I cock my head to the side. “No? When did it kick in, then? When the babies were born?”
“When did what kick in?” he asks mildly, ditching his last article of clothing and hitting the lights.
I frown slightly as he heads to the bed. “The…” I trail off, unsure how to explain it. The moment I realized I was pregnant, my affection for the little bundle growing in my womb rooted itself deep inside my soul. I don’t know how to describe the feeling, but he’s already a parent—I expected him to know exactly what I’m talking about.
“Desire for a woman because she’s having my child?”
That’s not what I was talking about, but I shrug.
“Doesn’t do anything for me. A stranger could have my child. Why would that make me feel anything for her?”
“Because of the connection implied?”
“What connection? That we’ve had sex before? I’ve had sex with plenty of women I’ve had no feelings for. It didn’t mean anything. Why would a pregnancy change that?”
Grimacing, I shake my head and wave my arms in front of myself in a halting motion. “All right, shut it down. I don’t want to hear about that, it makes me ragey.”
I expect him to be amused by my possessiveness, but he’s frowning at me. It’s a puzzled frown, like I’ve just given him new information. It throws me. There’s no way that’s news. I hate thinking of him having sex with anyone who isn’t me, whether he knew me at the time or not.
Then he asks, his words more alarming than his tone, “Do you feel that way? Do you feel having a baby necessarily breeds some sort of emotional connection between a woman and the man who impregnated her?”
Every receptor in my brain grabs a red flag and waves it frantically. My stomach twists with anxiety for more reasons than I have time to process. The leading reason, obviously, that I am currently pregnant with someone else’s baby. Not something he was thrilled about, obviously. Being that I’m a normal human being, I assumed he had already included that issue in his rundown when he was processing the disaster of my pregnancy. I assumed one of the reasons he didn’t want me to have this baby was exactly that—he knew it would make me feel a certain tie to the Vince, and Vince is maybe the last man alive Mateo wants me having ties to.
Right now I experience a moment of mild horror as I realize maybe he didn’t think of that. Whatever his reasons for not wanting me to have this child, however flawed I think they may have been, the valid one didn’t occur to him.
My heart gallops and my brain races, trying to keep up. I have to lie and I’m a terrible liar. He sees through people who can lie.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. I’m shaking my head with too much vehemence. I can feel it. I can see it on his face. My heart races faster, but I can’t stop shaking my head, like if I just shake it enough, he’ll believe me. “No, I don’t think that.”
“It’s what you just said,” he states.
“I misspoke. I mean, of course there can be a connection if it was already—” I cut myself off, realizing that’s not better. Vince and I have had an emotional connection in the past and apparently my part-robot fiancé doesn’t understand how feelings work in this instance. I read that completely wrong. I assumed part of why I’ve been sharing with Meg for four years despite Mateo’s feelings for me was their parental bond.
The expression on his face doesn’t change, but his eyes are chilly with in-progress calculation.
“When you and I have a child, that will… that will feel special. But only because we love each other. Right? I mean, you’ve said you wanted to have a baby with me, that you would love that, so… you…” I’m not saying anything at all, so I stop talking.
I think I know what he needs to hear, I just don’t know how to get there. I can blurt the answer, but it’s not what I actually believe; if he questions me further, I won’t know how to back it up. It will be like answering a complicated question in class because I cheated and read the answer off someone else’s homework.
I can give the right answer as long as I’m not asked to show my work.
I say it anyway and hope for the best. “No, I didn’t mean—There’s no connection resulting from the pregnancy or the baby itself, really. I just meant it’s exciting for two people who love each other to become parents together—like we are right now. It’s exciting that I finally get to contribute to your family, right?”
He thinks it over for a minute. I’m too nervous to hide it, but I try. Finally, he says, “I don’t see the connection between those things. You’re my family because I love you—I wouldn’t love you any less if we never had children, and I won’t love you any more if we do. You are my everything. You are all I need. My feelings for you are independent of your breeding capabilities.”
I try to keep a straight face, but my baffled skepticism is probably showing up anyway. I can tell he’s being open with me right now and I so appreciate it, but for God’s sake, breeding capabilities?
He’s such a weirdo sometimes. I understand his childhood was fucked up on levels I can’t even comprehend, and judging by stories I’ve heard his father did essentially breed women like horses, but it’s still hard to wrap my head around Mateo’s bizarre worldview when it pops up like this. I know he loves his children despite whatever bizarre gap lies between his brain and his heart in situations like these, though, and I guess that’s what’s important.
It feels like the danger has dissipated now, and I’m overrun with tenderness for him. You are my everything. I want that tattooed across my heart. I want to record and save it for the inevitable tough times we will go through. I want him to always feel that way.
I wrap my arm around his midsection and curl up close to him. “For someone with so much intelligence, it sure took you long enough to figure that out,” I tease.
He pulls me closer, securing his arms around my waist. “Figure what out?”
I brush my lips across his and run my fingers through his hair. “That I’m all you need,” I say, still lightly. I’m only teasing him; I don’t want him to think I’m retroactively bitter about sister wives. I agreed to it, I was fine with it, but I’m still glad it’s over.
“Oh.” He shakes his head dismissively. “I’ve known that for a long time.”
“We have very different concepts of ‘a long time,’” I inform him. “A month is not a long time.”
“There’s no way in hell you think I’ve only known that for a month.”
“Fine, a few months,” I allow.
“Try again.”
I frown down at him. He’s calm now, lightly amused. His fingers move lightly up and down the curve of my back. I’m not in the mood to play guessing games. “Well, I’ve been sharing you with someone else for four years. Evenly, until a few months ago when she got pregnant again. I know you and I have always had… this,” I say, for lack of an adequate word to describe what’s between us. “But you must have been getting something from her you weren’t getting from me.”
He shrugs. “Nothing I won’t still have now. Frankly, sharing was kind of a hassle.”
I can’t keep my jaw from dropping open. “A hassle?”
“Not you,” he says, amused at how offended I am. His hands settle at the small of my back and he pulls me up to give me a little kiss. “You’ve always been my favorite disturber of the peace, even before you were mine. I’m looking forward to you hassling me for the rest of my life. Keeps me on my toes.”
“We did sister wives for you and you have the nerve to call the experience a hassle.”
Shaking his head, he says, “I mostly did sister wives for you. You didn’t want me to hurt Meg, so I didn’t. As long as we were all happy, it was fine. Once that stopped, I couldn’t justify the inconvenience any longer.”
I can’t close my jaw. It’s hanging wide open and I’m so flabbergasted, I don’t even know what to say. “But… but…”
“I don’t see the problem,” he states. “We all got what we wanted. No one got hurt.”
“You’ve been sleeping with someone else for four years.”
“Yes.” His tone seems to imply, “and the problem is?”
My eyes threaten to bulge out of my head. “Why would you do that?”
“I just told you,” he states. “I was already killing Vince—you think I should’ve compounded it by making you feel like you were hijacking me from your pregnant friend? You absorb guilt the way a sponge absorbs water; you’d have fallen apart. Meg agreed to the arrangement, you agreed; problem solved. I never intended for sister wives to go on this long, but you both seemed to get what you needed from it. I didn’t mind it. This isn’t that complicated to understand, Mia.”
Yes, it is! I can’t say that and sound like an idiot, but it totally is. “Didn’t you love Meg?”
“Sure,” he says, easily. “In a much more limited way.” He catches my hand, lacing our fingers together and kissing my knuckles. “I’m only in love with you. I would take my life apart and rebuild it to fit you all over again if you needed me to.”
My heart sinks under the weight of that tenderness bomb, but my brain holds steady at the helm. “Mateo… you proposed to her.”
He shrugs. “Well, I didn’t plan to take you back at the time. You were never going to leave Vince on your own, and for a while you two seemed fairly happy together. You wanted to move on and I let you. I figured it was for the best anyway. But Meg brought you back. Before Meg, you kept your distance from me. I only ever saw you in person on Sunday nights, and Vince was always there. If I couldn’t have you, I wanted you around as much as possible. People look at things through their own individual lenses. My settling down would’ve reassured you and Vince that the threat had been lifted. He would’ve been less vigilant and you wouldn’t have been afraid to come around anymore. Maybe you wouldn’t have been with me, but you would’ve still been there for all the important things in my life. Once I had you all lulled, you could’ve come by for dinner and drinks again. I may have even been able to convince you guys to move into the guest suite Adrian occupies now. If not, you still would’ve graced my table for holiday dinners and all the important things. Vince didn’t want children and I distanced you from your existing family, so with nowhere else to go, you would’ve ended up here. Long story short, the easiest and most effective way to install you in my life permanently was to settle down with Meg. I was fond of her, we had fun together. Meg was a good back-up; she just wasn’t you. I was fair to her. I gave her the life she wanted, met all her needs and desires. Does it matter if I didn’t entirely mean it?”
“Yes. Yes, it does matter.” I can only shake my head, too many confusing thoughts shooting through it. The strangest of them all is that, as cold as what he’s saying is… I kind of get it. In a way, I did the same thing. Even when I was tired of being with Vince, every time I thought about leaving, I would circle back to the uncomfortable thought of never seeing Mateo again. It wasn’t even much, I never thought of it as the driving factor, but it consistently came up. I couldn’t actually imagine his complete absence from my life, even if I only sat beside him at the weekly dinner I attended with someone else.
Mateo shrugs. “We can agree to disagree. I checked all your boxes, no one got hurt, and now we have Rosalie and I finally have an heir. This couldn’t have possibly gone better.”
“You lied to Meg. A lot.”
“I lie to people.” His eyes dance with amusement as he adds mockingly, “A lot.”
“That isn’t something to be proud of,” I remind him.
“I don’t care,” he states, guiding my hand to his chest, placing it over his heart. He flattens my palm against his skin and rests his hand over mine. “Anyway, we don’t have to talk about this. If it’s upsetting you, I’d rather not.”
“I just… this is a lot. You’ve been lying to me, too,” I point out.
That causes him to frown. “No, I haven’t. I’ve never lied to you about this; you never asked. I had to come up with something convoluted because your wish list is so long. If you were less concerned about people, I could’ve accomplished my end a long time ago and just left a trail of casualties in my wake. But then you wouldn’t be you, and I love you. As I’ve said before, you’re worth all the extra steps. I’ve been looking for you all my life, Mia. I finally found you, so I did what I had to do to get you. I always have and I always will. I’m not sorry for that.”
There’s no reasoning with him because he’s already too reasonable. Pushing both of my hands through his hair, I grip his head and stare at it. “I want in here. I want to go for a walk around every devious corner of your complicated mind.”
Smirking, he assures me, “You’d get lost.”
“I’d bring a map.”
“Too dark,” he shoots back. “You wouldn’t be able to see.”
“I’d bring a light,” I reply, quirking a smug eyebrow.
He smiles, bringing a hand up to tenderly caress my face. “You are my light.”