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“Our mother”—I cough before correcting myself—“mymother is threatening to make it a public announcement if I don’t…”
“Stay away from me?” Mara fills in when my anger has words eluding me.
I nod, the fury pumping out of me turning the icy water to lukewarm.
Mara looks like she hates herself more than my mother when she suggests, “Then why don’t we keep this between us for now?”
“No,” I immediately respond. “I’m not playing by her terms anymore. I can’t ask you to be my wife, then hide you away like a dirty secret. I want you at my side.”
She looks torn between kissing me and slapping me. I learn why when she whispers, “I’m not asking solely for Riley, Ark.” The love her eyes have been rarely without the past twenty-four hours lowers a smidge when she says, “I’m not ready to tell Tillie just yet. I need m-more time.”
Her stutter breaks my heart.
I did that. I brought that edge of desperation to her voice. The panic.
My insecurities brought her down to my level, and it is the last thing I want.
I lift her downcast head, re-aligning our eyes. “You have time.”
“Not after I stand at your side.” I realize my effort to keep her as far away from my mother as possible was fraudulent when she says, “They’ll want to know why you picked me, and the stuff they will find could tear our relationship apart.”
Her words echo cautions my mother made numerous times over the past two weeks, but I’m not worried. I’ve done my research. I know what I’m getting into. The journalist who met with me yesterday afternoon knows how hard I will persecute anyone stupid enough to strip the privacy of a minor or a victim of a crime.
I’ve also never been more honest with anyone in my life. Mara knows all my secrets, yet she is still here, peering up at me in awe. Nothing they could unearth will change how I feel right now, holding her in my arms.
“Trust me when I say I will destroy any media outlet stupid enough to run Tillie’s story or yours. Tillie is a child, and her rights are protected by a law I will uphold to its full degree on anyone who dares to test me.”
My cock turns to stone when she says, “I trust you.”
I hear a but, so I vocalize it. “But…”
Her words are like a punch to the gut and remind me again of how selfish I am being. “Riley is an adult. Her privacy will be nowhere near as sheltered as Tillie’s. She deserves to find out how she was conceived with dignity and respect.” Her wet eyes bounce between mine. “And she needs it to come from someone she trusts. It needs to come from you, Ark.”
Since I don’t disagree with her, I remain quiet.
The silence should aggravate the tension hanging thickly in the air. It doesn’t. It doubles the chemistry my greatest fears couldn’t hold back and has me remembering the question I asked her when she entered the bathroom.
“I am willing to consider keeping things on the down-low on the agreement you become my wife the instanttheyknow the truth.” I say “they” in a manner she can’t mistake. This is for both Tillie and Riley.
Mara’s smile…fuck.I’ve never seen such an exotic image.
“Can I think about it?”
Her lips part to make way for a giggle when I say all caveman-like, “No. You cannot. That’s not how marriage proposals work. I ask, you say yes.”
There’s no heat to my tone, no malice. It is as cool as the water I guide her under before I reacquaint our lips, certain I will never take a full breath again without her mouth on mine.
35
ARKADIY
Istop admiring the rosy glow Mara’s cheeks get after multiple orgasms when my cell phone rings. I have every intention of ignoring it until it buzzes immediately after it stops ringing.
Only my direct team has my number, and they know not to contact me unless it is urgent.
This must be urgent.
“Stay,” I demand when my steps to my phone have Mara’s automatically veering toward the bathroom. “Anything my team needs to say to me, they can say in front of you. It isn’t like you haven’t already sniffed my dirty laundry.”