Mỗi con người có 03 loại tính cách: tính cách anh ta phô bày, tính cách anh ta có, và tính cách anh ta nghĩ anh ta có.
Alphonse Karr
ePub
A4Chapter 19: Nate
N
ate carried Lily up to his penthouse, the entire time she kept her head pressed into his neck with such force he felt his pulse beat against her.And she hadn’t stopped making that horrifying noise.
The elevator opened at the top floor, his floor as he owned the whole of it.
As if waiting for the sound of the elevator, the lone door in the small but opulent hall opened and Laura stood there. The minute she saw them, or more to the point heard Lily, the blood drained out of his mother’s face.
“Oh my God,” Laura breathed.
Without hesitation, Nate walked passed her, through the living room, down the hall and directly to his bedroom. Beside the bed, he put Lily on her feet but kept her weight braced against him.
“What’s wrong?” Laura asked but Nate didn’t answer, he was looking at Lily and she was wincing.
“No light,” Lily whispered.
Immediately Nate ordered his mother, “Shut the drapes.”
“Pardon?” Laura asked.
“The drapes!” he clipped, his voice impatient and curt.
Laura ran to the windows as Nate’s hand went to the zipper at the back of Lily’s dress and tugged it down gently.
“What can we do?” he asked Lily softly.
“No light,” she repeated as he finished with her zipper and carefully guided the skirt of her dress over her hips. She knew what he was doing and she lifted her arms in submission but he could tell the movement took great effort. “No noise. Noise, very bad. Cool, wet flannel,” she finished.
The room went dark as Laura closed the drapes on the floor to ceiling windows that lined one side of the room. She then rushed to them while Nate pulled the dress free of Lily’s arms, all the while bearing her weight against the length of his body.
“I’ll get something for her to wear,” Laura offered, taking the dress from his hand and throwing it across the bottom of the bed.
“No clothes. Can’t bear it,” Lily muttered and Nate’s hand moved to the clasp of her bra and deftly undid it while Laura gave up on her offered errand and leaned forward and pulled back the covers to the bed.
Nate slipped the bra off her shoulders. “Get a cool flannel,” he ordered his mother and Laura ran to the bathroom.
He set Lily in bed and went to work on her shoes, which, he decided with annoyance, regardless of how sexy they were, could be used by banks to keep money safe, their straps were so complicated. Once he had both off and dropped them to the floor, he pulled the covers over her.
“Do you have any medication?” he asked.
She shook her head and flinched then pressed it to the pillows as she’d pressed it to his neck while he carried her up to the penthouse.
“Nothing works,” she answered.
“The doctor’s coming,” Nate told her as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her hair gently away from her neck.
“Won’t help,” she mumbled.
He felt a frustrated fury surge through him. He realised vaguely that it had been under the surface since seeing her leaning helplessly against his receptionist’s desk but it had, finally, managed to get loose.
He controlled it, but barely.
“Lily, tell me what I can do,” he urged.
“You’re doing it,” she whispered, pressing her head deeper into the pillows.
Laura came back to the room and handed Nate the flannel. He folded it and pressed it against Lily’s forehead and she made a noise, this time not of pain.
“Yes,” she breathed in such a rush of relief, it was as if he’d given her the elixir of life. She lifted her hand and pressed the flannel into her forehead with such force he could see the colour of the flesh of her long, graceful fingers changing from pink to a harsh blush mingled with white.
The doorbell rang and Laura murmured, “I’ll get it.”
Lily whispered after Laura had scurried from the room, “Call Fazire, please.”
“Of course,” Nate assured her quietly.
“Tell him not to come.”
Nate didn’t respond.
“He’ll want to come but tell him you’ll take care of me.” Her eyes fluttered open and slid to him but her head didn’t move. “Tell him I said that.”
Nate should have reacted to the importance her words, wanted to, but at that moment he couldn’t. He heard his personal physician, Dr. Sims coming into the room with Laura.
Lily closed her eyes and Nate rose from the bed to allow the doctor access.
“What’s happened?” Dr. Sims asked.
“She says it’s a migraine,” Nate replied, his words clipped.
“Does she have them often?” the physician went on.
Nate couldn’t respond because he didn’t know. And this caused the control he had on his fury to slip a notch. If they’d had the last eight years together, he would have known.
“Yes.” It was Lily who answered.
“How often?” Dr. Sims asked her gently, taking her pulse.
“Not often.”
“Do you know your triggers?” he enquired, his voice soft and low.
“Stress,” she answered and Nate’s fury mingled immediately with a surge of guilt which caused it to slip another notch, “sometimes my period.”
“Are you on your cycle now?” Dr. Sims asked.
“It’s coming. The pain only comes just before,” she replied.
“Let’s get you sorted.” The doctor glanced at Nate then to Laura. His meaning clear, they were to leave.
“I’m not going,” Nate stated firmly.
Dr. Sims moved away and motioned Nate to follow, this he did but halted before they even came close to the door.
“Migraine sufferers need quiet, darkness, rest. I’ll give her something to help her sleep. We’ll talk outside but now she needs to be left alone and we need to get her to sleep. It’s the best thing, sometimes the only thing for it.”
Nate stared at Lily still pressing the flannel to her head and then glanced at the doctor.
Wishing only to speed the process of her recovery, he nodded and walked out of the room. Laura had already gone.
In the living room Laura was gathering her things, she heard rather than saw Nate come into the vast room.
“I’ll go to the shops, get her a nightgown, a change of clothes…” Laura needed something to do and she had nothing therefore she was creating busy work.
Nate stopped her hasty exit. “I need you to call Fazire. Tell him she’s here and she’s not well. Tell him that I’m taking care of her. Please tell him Lily said that.”
At the words “I need you”, Laura’s head jerked around. At the word “please” her face melted and her eyes began to shimmer with tears.
Nate had never said the former to her in his life. And the latter he rarely said to anyone.
She immediately dropped her bag and rushed toward the kitchen saying, “I’ll do that now.” Then she stopped and swung around. “What’s the number?”
He smiled at his mother, feelings of immense gratitude at her being there when he needed her, when Lily needed her, warring with his anger. Nate told her the number he’d only used once but, as per usual, he’d memorised.
She muttered it over and over to herself as she ran to the kitchen.
Nate stopped himself from getting a drink which he very much needed. He couldn’t get Lily’s appalling whimpering out of his head and he couldn’t lose his fury at his feeling of powerlessness. That was not a feeling he was used to and he very much did not like it.
But he couldn’t have a drink. It was before noon and furthermore, Lily might need him.
Laura came back in the room. “Fazire says he wants Lily to call him when she’s better. He wants her to know he’ll take care of Natasha. And he wanted to know why she was here,” she reported.
Nate pulled his hand through his hair and then stopped it at his neck to squeeze away some of the tension that had settled there. “I’ve no idea why she’s here. She showed up at my office and by the time I arrived at reception, she was barely able to stand.”
When his secretary had told him a Lily Jacobs was waiting in reception, he’d immediately thought it was a good sign. She had been consistently adamant they talk through their solicitors. Her solicitor was a pit bull, constant demands, constant threats and Nate was told in no uncertain terms (through his own solicitors, of course) to stay away from Lily.
This Nate ignored.
Lily’s arrival in London was an unexpected surprise.
He knew he’d broken through on the first day with her. She responded to him and what’s more, Tash had, spectacularly.
He also knew by the way Tash talked, a great deal, about what her mother had said about him, that Lily had been pining for a “dead” Nate for years.
And finally, Nate definitely knew that she’d gotten lost in him the last time they were together. One didn’t get as angry as she was without feeling something.
Nate knew a fair few things about anger. There was the mean kind and there was the emotional kind. Lily didn’t have a mean bone in her body. Lily’s anger was emotional, something deep inside her driving it. And whatever that something was drove her to react to his kiss, his touch, in her familiar, uninhibited way.
That something, whatever it was, at this point was everything to Nate.
Nate could work with something.
Furthermore, with one look at their daughter’s hopeful, happy face, she had given into a family dinner. He’d known eight years ago she’d never break up a family and he was betting on the fact that hadn’t changed.
When his secretary had told Nate she was there, he’d wasted no time in going to her. But, regardless of this, the reason for her visit was a still mystery.
It could be a yes or it could be a no. He was counting on a yes.
He dropped his arm and shook off his thoughts. He’d know soon enough and Nate was a patient man.
He watched as Laura glanced at the hall that led to his bedroom then back at Nate.
“Do you think Natasha sees her like that?” she asked quietly.
Nate thought of his daughter and the coat of Teflon that Lily had obviously painstakingly crafted around Natasha to ward off anything that would affect their daughter’s high spirits and good humour. They had little but Natasha needed for nothing and had no idea what she was missing or, indeed, from her personality, any of her mother’s struggles or sacrifices.
He doubted seriously Lily would expose her to what he’d just witnessed.
He shook his head in answer to his mother’s question.
It was then, the doctor entered the room and walked toward them.
“How is she?” Laura asked, her voice coated with concern.
“I gave her a mild sedative. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do but wait it out. She says they go away after she’s had a sleep. It’s just finding sleep through the pain.”
“I’ll check on her.” Laura moved toward the hall but stopped at the doctor’s next words and turned back.
“No, don’t. She needs peace and most of all, she needs quiet. She has to fight this on her own. She told me they only last a few hours, she just needs sleep.”
“What causes it?” Laura asked,.
“A variety of things.” He was efficiently packing his bag. He’d been called away from a hefty patient schedule. However, when Nate McAllister called, anyone who got the call instantly did his bidding even general practitioners.
Laura’s tone was coated with concern when she queried, “Is it… could it be something serious? Something –”
“Mrs. Roberts, it’s likely nothing,” Dr. Sims assured. “She says she’s been suffering them since she was a child. If you’re worried, get her to see a neurologist, get an MRI.”
Nate spoke for the first time since the doctor came into the room. “Set it up.”
Dr. Sims shifted his surprised eyes to Nate. “I’m sorry?”
“Refer her to a neurologist,” he ordered.
“She might have already seen one. Sometimes the pain is stubborn and they might not be able to tell you much. She obviously knows her triggers, how to cope.”
“Do it,” Nate clipped out.
At his tone, and the hard, set look on Nate’s face, Dr. Sims nodded.
“Tomorrow,” Nate demanded.
“Of course,” the physician finished settling his bag, “she should be fine in a few hours. If anything happens, call me.”
Then he was gone.
Laura was back at her handbag, gathering her things.
“I’ll do a little shopping. She should stay with you tonight,” Laura said decisively. “I’ll make sure she’s comfortable.”
His mother walked to Nate and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then she too was gone.
At these sudden departures, Nate found he had time to think.
However, Nate didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to think of Lily alone and battling pain in his bed. He didn’t want to think of Lily suffering that way again, much less that she’d done it since she was a child. He didn’t want to think how little he knew her even though he remembered even the most infinitesimal detail of every moment he’d shared with her.
Therefore, he didn’t think.
He phoned his office and had them courier work to him but told them under no circumstances to ring the doorbell. He took off his suit jacket and his tie, loosening the buttons of his shirt at his throat. He quietly checked on Lily twice, both times, thankfully, she was sleeping. His mother arrived several hours later with enough glossy shopping bags so that Lily could stay a month, much less a night.
And through this time, Nate kept his mind on his work and he waited. And he kept absolute silence. And he kept careful, deliberate control on his fury.
Hours later, he walked away from the dining room table where he’d set up his temporary office rather than working in his study which was on the other side of the apartment and too far away from Lily. He went into the bedroom to find a change of clothes, hoping Lily would now sleep through any noise.
When he arrived, the bed was empty. Lily was gone.
He stood stock-still in the door, a strange sense of unease filling him even though he knew she couldn’t have really gone.
Then he heard a noise and his head jerked around.
She was wearing his dressing gown and standing in the doorway of the bathroom. She was leaning against the doorjamb, the balls of one foot pressing against the top of the other.
He remembered her standing exactly like that eight years ago. Nate had remembered that vision of her, their first night together, time and again over the years.
That once painful memory sliced through him. If Lily was in London to tell him “no” then he’d have this memory to add to his tortuous inventory.
With determination, he set that thought aside.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked in a quiet voice.
She nodded, pushed away from the doorjamb and walked to the bed.
He walked toward her and while he did so, he spoke. “Is the pain gone?”
“Yes. I just feel weird afterwards. Exhausted but able to function. I don’t know, it feels like I’ve been in some kind of battle.”
She stopped by the bed, leaned over and grabbed her dress. He stopped by her, reached out and gently pulled her dress from her fingers.
“You have,” he stated matter-of-factly.
She was staring at her dress in his hand and, at his words, her eyes lifted to his.
“I haven’t. It’s no big thing, it’s just a headache.” She was trying to pass it off as if it was nothing.
Nate never forgot anything but even if he had that luxury, he’d never forget the sound of her keening.
“Trust me, you have. I saw you do it.”
Clearly not wishing to argue, she changed the subject and asked quietly, “Can I have my dress please?”
He tossed it on the bed deliberately out of her immediate reach. She watched it land and made no comment. It was then Nate noted that she looked slightly dazed.
“Laura bought you a nightgown, or, if the bags in the other room are any indication, twenty of them,” he told her.
A ghost of her quirky smile played about her lips and Nate registered it in his mind as his body instantly reacted to the sweet, familiar sight of it.
“Laura does like to shop, doesn’t she?” Lily whispered as if to herself and her words sounded almost fond.
She didn’t expect an answer to her question and Nate, unable to control himself any longer, pulled her cautiously toward him and slid his arms around her.
Her head tilted back but, surprisingly, she didn’t resist his embrace. Instead, she lifted her hands to rest on his biceps.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes peering closely at him through the darkness of the room.
“No, I’m not all right.” He surprised himself by answering honestly.
She sucked in her breath sharply then enquired, “What’s the matter? Is it Tash? Fazire?”
He interrupted her. “It’s you.”
“Me?” Her eyes widened.
At her response, he let out a low, humourless laugh which caused her to come closer to him, her face changed as worry filled it.
“Nate?”
“Why are you here?” he asked suddenly.
She wasn’t following, her worry turned to confusion. “Here?”
“In London, why did you come to see me?”
Again, her face changed, this time to a sort of sadness.
“Nate, I think you’re changing the subject.” Her voice was so soft, if she was any further away than in his arms, he wouldn’t have heard her.
He didn’t answer.
“You said you aren’t all right,” she reminded him. “Why aren’t you all right?”
He still didn’t answer. Something stopped him. He didn’t know what it was but whatever it was always stopped him. It stopped him from speaking, stopped him from letting anyone close, stopped him from trusting anyone with his thoughts, his feelings, anything about him.
Even Lily.
She waited. Her patience thinned and he watched it in silence.
Then she exploded, “Damn it, Nate, talk to me! What’s the matter?”
At her outburst, the sudden loudness of her voice after he’d placed such a high price on silence because of her pain, not to mention the fact that he felt, after the episode of hours before, as if she could shatter into a million pieces and be lost to him again but this time forever, he admitted tersely, “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her face changed again, this time to understanding. And she didn’t pull away from him. He thought she would at his admission but she didn’t. Her fingers tightened on his arms reassuringly.
“Oh Nate, it’s just a headache,” Lily whispered.
“Stop saying that, Lily, it isn’t just a headache. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
She, to his complete astonishment, tried to tease. “Then you must have lived a very sheltered life.”
“No, Lily, I haven’t,” Nate returned instantly, each word clipped and she immediately realised her mistake but he didn’t allow her to dwell on it or remonstrate herself for it. Instead he informed her, “You have an appointment with a neurologist tomorrow.”
“I do?” This time, her expressive face filled with surprise.
And it was then, unusually belatedly, that it dawned on him that her face was expressive again. Her guard was down, she was standing in his arms lightly pressed against his body and not trying to pull away.
She was talking to him and hadn’t once mentioned the name “Alistair”.
His arms tightened, bringing her deeper into his body.
“Yes, you do,” he said softly, feeling it rather than knowing it. The reason why she was there.
“Why? There’s nothing they can do. I’ve been to doctors,” she told him.
“Humour me,” he returned.
“Nate –”
“Do it for Tash,” he muttered, bringing his hand up to tuck a heavy sheaf of her extraordinary hair behind her ear.
“I don’t have to, Nate. I’ve had the headaches since I was a little girl, just a few then. They came more often when I started my period. Every other month before my cycle and any time I got over-stressed.”
“Lily?”
“Yes?”
“This discussion is over,” he stated flatly.
She stared at him, her expressive face turning rebellious and he realised then how much he missed her.
He knew he missed her. He knew it. He’d lived with it for years, most especially the last couple of weeks.
But now that she was back, now that she was truly Lily, her smile quirked, her face telling him exactly what she was thinking before she opened her mouth to speak, he felt her loss like a blow.
And her return like a blessing.
He bent his head to brush his lips against hers and she only stiffened slightly in his arms.
Progress.
“Let’s talk about why you’re in London,” he suggested in a tone that said it was anything but a suggestion.
“Can I get dressed?”
“No.”
She gasped.
Then, a moment later, she sighed.
“Can we do it in another room?” she asked huffily.
“No.”
“Nate –”
“Now you’re avoiding the subject.”
Her lips puckered and her eyes slid away from him.
Any residual fury at his ineffectiveness in the face of her pain ebbed out of him as he sensed victory.
“Before I say what I’m going to say,” her eyes came forward and her hands came between them to fidget together against their chests, “I’m going to warn you that I have certain conditions.”
His arms moved from around her, he took hold of her hands in his and he pulled them gently behind her back, pressing her soft body fully against his.
“Nate!” she exclaimed.
“Just say what you have to say Lily.”
“Let go of my hands.”
She was avoiding the subject.
“You were fidgeting,” he informed her.
“So?”
“It was distracting.”
“Trust me, you’ll listen to what I have to say.”
“It wasn’t distracting me, it was distracting you.”
Her head jerked sharply, she stared at him a moment and then the quirky smile played about her lips but didn’t come out in full force.
“You’re too perceptive for your own good,” she grumbled but didn’t mean it, there was a hint of admiration to her words and at any other moment in his life he would have allowed himself to feel pleasure at it.
Not at this moment, however. This moment was too precious to allow his mind to wander to anything but her.
“Lily.” His voice held a warning.
“What now?” she asked.
“You’ve something to say?” he prompted.
“All right, fine,” she mumbled but then didn’t say anything.
He waited. She kept her quiet.
He waited. She puckered her lips and slid her eyes away again.
He waited. She slid her eyes back and looked at him, opened her mouth then closed it again.
“Lily,” Nate repeated then he couldn’t help himself, he felt his body begin to shake with laughter.
“Are you laughing?” she groused, locking onto another subject to dodge the one she was avoiding.
He released her wrists but held her where she was with his still about her. He bent his head and buried his face in the fragrant hair at her neck.
“Just tell me you’ll marry me,” he demanded against her neck, his voice filled with amusement, his body shaking with it and something very close to the feeling he’d had when his daughter first threw her arms around him stole into his heart.
“I’ll marry you,” she whispered and his arms, already around her, tightened like steel bands.
Something powerful and innate surged through him, something enormous and profound and unbelievably pleasurable. Better than the most intense orgasm he’d had (a climax he’d had with Lily, he remembered it clearly, the fifth time they’d made love).
“But I have conditions,” she informed him.
He lifted his head and stared down at her already deciding he’d be willing to give anything.
Almost.
“We’re not moving to London,” she stated, “you’ll have to move to the house in Clevedon.”
Without hesitation, Nate replied, “Done.”
Lily seemed surprised at his quick agreement and it threw her off for a moment but then she recovered. “You have to accept Fazire, no matter what.”
This time he hesitated and she opened her mouth to speak but before she could say a word, he bit out, “Fine.”
“And he lives with us.”
Nate nodded. He’d accept her strange friend Fazire. He’d live with the entire British Army camped in his living room if it meant being with her, having her in his bed and having his daughter just down the hall.
“Say it,” she demanded.
“Fine,” he allowed.
“And if anything ever happens to me, he stays with Tash as long as Tash wants him.”
Nate watched her closely. He found this demand more than a little strange as if Fazire was a possession to pass along. Correctly reading from her face this meant a great deal to her, he agreed with another nod.
At that she relaxed against him.
“That’s it?” he enquired, finding himself relieved. She could have asked for more, much more, diamonds and pearls, jet-set holidays, mountain chalets in the Alps.
But she didn’t ask for any of that and this time she nodded.
“Now we’ll discuss my condition,” he told her.
Lily tensed again immediately. “What conditions?”
“Not conditions, condition,” Nate replied, “I only have one.”
She stared at him, her widened eyes had narrowed.
Nate carried on. “No more children. If you want another baby, we’ll adopt.”
Her eyes instantly grew wide again. “Nate, it was just a bad pregnancy. There’s no reason I can’t –”
He cut her off. “Just a bad pregnancy like your migraines are just headaches?”
Her mouth snapped shut and she pursed her lips.
Then he asked suddenly, “Are you on birth control?”
“No.”
This announcement shocked him. “Do you use another form of birth control?”
She was beginning to squirm and looking more than a little uncomfortable.
He couldn’t care less about her discomfort. “Answer me, Lily,” Nate demanded, giving her a mild shake.
“No.”
“Why the hell not?” he snapped.
She glared at him but didn’t answer.
“Answer me.” Nate was beginning to get angry.
She’d graduated from Oxford, for Christ’s sake, she wasn’t stupid. She’d nearly died during her last pregnancy, hell, she did die. She should be protecting herself.
He hated the idea of another man touching her, especially since, in the beginning she had only been his. But as much as he detested it, he understood he had to let go of that now. She was back, Natasha was theirs, his entire focus was on their future.
“Did they use it?” he asked, not exactly thrilled about talking about her lovers but he had to know.
Consideration to contraceptives wasn’t something he’d taught her in the brief time they’d had together, indeed, he’d avoided it with calculated purpose but he could imagine she’d learned a great deal in eight years.
“Who?” she queried, looking mystified.
“The men you’ve been with.”
Even in the dark room, he saw her face pale.
She kept her silence for a moment and then said, “Nate, I really don’t think it’s any of your –”
He shook her again, this was slightly-more-than-mild.
“Nate!”
“Lily, you’re going to be my wife. Considering my condition on our impending nuptials, this subject would eventually come up.”
“I didn’t agree to your condition,” she told him.
“You aren’t getting pregnant again,” he retorted.
“Really, I –”
He interrupted her. “We’ll get you to a GP tomorrow as well and get something arranged.”
He had decided to give up. She was definitely more stubborn than he remembered and there were other ways he wished to spend these moments, vastly more enjoyable ways, not arguing about birth control and definitely not thinking about her other lovers.
Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “It’s stunning, someone as obviously intelligent as you would be so immensely dense about protecting herself with contraceptives.”
She stiffened in his arms. “I am not dense.”
“Considering the fact you nearly died in childbirth, yes, I’d say you were dense,” Nate bit out curtly because the subject was so important, considering what happened with Natasha, and Lily’s nonchalance about something that important intensely annoyed him, therefore he instantly decided he liked the idea of arguing about birth control.
“I hardly need to fill my body with pills or be fitted with… with… some sort of apparatus if I wasn’t taking anyone to my bed!” she snapped her eyes firing and a blush so fierce he could see it in the dark crawling up her cheeks.
His body stilled and his arms tightened. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“All right, I’ll ask another question. What did you mean?”
She seemed at a loss for a moment, clearly her agitation and her recovery from the migraine were slowing her processes. Then she caught up.
“You’re too smart for your own good, do you know that?” she enquired irritably.
“Don’t change the subject and answer the question.”
She looked skyward and for the first time she pressed against his arms to get away.
“This is mortifying,” she told the ceiling.
Then he knew.
He couldn’t believe it but he knew. It was nearly as unbelievable as the fact that she hadn’t been touched when he first had her. This was impossible to believe.
“There haven’t been any others,” he stated and her eyes flew to him. “Have there?” he asked softly.
She hesitated for a moment and then she said, “I know you think I’m the most, well, that I…” She made a strange, frustrated noise then burst out, “there just wasn’t time!”
He realised she was making excuses like this news was a bad thing. Like this wasn’t a gift from the gods, like her return, like Natasha, like the fact she just agreed to marry him.
“Lily.” His voice was low with meaning but she was beginning a roll.
“There was always something. When Tash was young, I was recovering then after that, I was just too tired. Then there was work, laundry, Tash, Fazire, the damned car. I mean, there wasn’t time.”
Nate tried and failed to cut in patiently by murmuring, “Lily.”
She talked over him. “And then there’s finding someone. I mean, Nate, there are a lot of losers out there. A lot. You would just not believe.”
She was underlining her words again like he remembered she’d do when she was agitated. It was so very Lily, not meek, mild, world-weary Lily but his Lily, spirited and hilarious.
Nate’s body started to shake with laughter and relief and what he’d felt before, something he didn’t recognise but now he knew was triumph mingled liberally with joy.
“Lily.” His voice was suffused with mirth.
She ignored him and her eyes rolled to the ceiling. “And some of the things they said. One guy even told me I had nice breath! He complimented my breath as a pick up line. Please tell me you’ve never done that.” Her gaze came back to him at her query, she finally felt his body shaking and her eyes narrowed. “What’s funny?”
He decided he didn’t want to read her thoughts in the darkened room and with effort he let her go but laced his fingers in hers. He walked to the window, dragging her with him and threw open the drapes. Then he immediately pulled her back into his arms.
“I asked, what’s funny?” she demanded.
He smiled down on her and her face changed when she saw it. He noted some of the old expression she used to wear when she looked at him shone through and the joy he was feeling intensified exponentially.
“Darling, as much as I hate the thought of you going it alone with Natasha for eight years, I hate the thought of you with anyone else more. So, I hope you’ll forgive me when I tell you I’m glad you haven’t shared your beautiful body with anyone but me.”
“Well!” she huffed, clearly at a loss for what to say and she turned her face away from him so he couldn’t see her expression.
He tilted it right back with a hand at her jaw and he saw confusion in her eyes, confusion and relief. “Now that that’s out in the open, do you agree to my condition?”
Again she looked adorably confused when he switched to an earlier subject and he noted for future reference that she was foggy after a migraine.
Then her expression cleared.
She sighed. Hugely.
“I suppose,” she gave in.
His arms tightened and his head descended.
“If we can adopt,” she interrupted his descent.
“We’ll adopt,” he said against her lips.
“Okay,” she whispered, her body melted into his and, finally, gratefully, he kissed her.
