“Drink your wine,” Reed ordered. “I might need you later.”
She sat back down.
“Where was I?” he asked.
“Are you drunk?” asked Elizabeth, trying desperately to make sense of his behavior. This wasn’t the Reed she knew.
“Oh, yes. Now I remember. The Vances are not going to contest the will.”
Elizabeth was afraid she hadn’t heard that right. “What?”
He nodded his confirmation, slowing down his words. “The Vances are not going after custody of Lucas. And, no, I’m not drunk.”
A pulse of optimism hit Elizabeth for the first time in weeks. “How did you…?”
“Skill, intelligence and guile. Plus a really fast private jet.”
“Quit messing around,” Elizabeth ordered. This was a serious conversation, not a joke.
“Oh, I think I’ll mess around a little longer.” He took another sip of the wine, holding his glass back to study the legs. “Worth every penny.”
“Go, Reed.” Hanna applauded in a reverent tone.
“Thank you,” said Reed. “Now, will you help me convince her I’m worth sticking with?”
“He’s worth sticking with,” Hanna said to Elizabeth.
“Traitor,” Elizabeth muttered, but even she was running out of excuses to leave him. He might have lied about Chicago, and he might have been gone all day long, but he’d done it for Lucas, and he’d done it for her.
“She told me you were great in bed,” Hanna offered.
“Hanna!” Elizabeth was horrified.
“Well, that’s one in my column,” said Reed.
“Damn straight,” said Hanna.
“There’s one more thing.” He sobered, all traces of joking gone, his attention fixed completely on Elizabeth. “I’ll be home evenings from here on in. Or I’ll work part-time. Or I’ll sell my companies. Or we can move to freakin’ Biarritz if that will make a difference.”
Elizabeth’s throat thickened up. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m prepared to put as much effort into my marriage as I put into my business.”
Elizabeth was speechless. Her heartbeat sped up and her chest went tight. She stared at Reed in utter astonishment. “Seriously?”
Hanna stuck out her foot and nudged Elizabeth in the knee. “I think the word you’re looking for is
Twelve
Elizabeth and Reed were on their way to the bedroom when Lucas stirred. Reed went into the nursery to rock him back to sleep, while Elizabeth all but floated into their bedroom.
Reed was staying. They were going to work things out. He’d decided their love was worth fighting for, and if there was anything her husband could do, it was to achieve whatever goal he set for himself.
Though they’d slept in their bed together hundreds of times, she knew tonight was special. It was the beginning of a whole new marriage, a whole new family.
She pulled open the top drawer of the bureau, and her gaze caught on the rosewood coin box. She slowly lifted the lid, pulling out the liberty head, ten-dollar gold coin, and hefting its weight in her palm.
“Heads,” she whispered to herself, “I do it.”
Tails, she’d do it anyway. This time, she didn’t need to flip the coin.
She slipped it back into its holder and pulled out the red silk negligee she’d worn on her wedding night. Appropriate, since this was another new beginning.
She removed her clothes, but as she was about to slip the soft silk over her head, her gaze caught another flash of fabric in the drawer. Lemon yellow and bright blue and purple. The silk scarves they’d bought in France.
Elizabeth paused. She set the negligee aside, fingering the texture of the scarves. And then she smiled. This wasn’t her honeymoon. It was a different beginning, a different relationship, a relationship based on authenticity instead of fantasy.
She wrapped the lemon yellow scarf over her breasts, tying it at the back like a bikini top. Then she fastened the blue and purple one low on her hips, sarong-style, leaving most of one thigh and hip bare. She combed her hair, dabbed some perfume, then waited, standing in the middle of the room.
Reed walked in and stopped, his gaze trailing up and down her body. “We going to Tahiti?” he asked.
She sauntered toward him, walking her fingertips up his chest, snaking her arms around his neck. “I think we’re going to nirvana.”
A gorgeous smile spread across his face. One arm snaked around to the small of her back, tugging her tight. His other hand cupped her bottom through the soft silk.
“I do love you,” he whispered as he bent to kiss her lips.
She tipped her head back, opening her mouth, meeting his hot tongue in a tangle of passion and desire that she couldn’t hope to contain. And she wouldn’t. It was all honesty all the time from here on in.
She pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders, letting it fall to a heap on the floor. Then she attacked his shirt buttons while he nipped and nibbled his way along her shoulder. His hand slipped under the sarong, toying with her heating skin.
He cupped her breast, strumming his thumb over her hard nipple. “I so love these scarves,” he breathed.
“Versatile,” she agreed.
He chuckled low, then his tone turned to a growl. “Nobody, nowhere, no how is ever going to stop us from making love. I don’t care what the science says,
She nodded her agreement, gasping as his finger slipped inside.
“Too fast?” he asked.
“No. Just right.” She grappled with his belt buckle, and he shucked his clothes, pulling her onto the bed in a flurry of caresses, kisses and silk.
When she was naked, he stretched her arms over her head, stroking his fingertips from the wrists all the way to her toes and then back again.
She shuddered at the sensations, freed her hands and caressed the play of his muscles, from his shoulders to his abs and beyond.
He rolled on top of her, settling between her legs, his body teasing her sensitized flesh. He took one nipple into his mouth, drawing out the caress as she squirmed beneath him. Then he laved the other, then moved to her mouth, kissing her long and deeply.
He drew back, gazing down into her eyes as he slowly pushed into her. She felt the pressure, then the heat, then the fullness, and then he stopped. They stared at each other for a frozen moment of perfect communication.
Reed flexed his hips, and sparks shot off in her brain. She tipped her head back, exposing her throat to his kisses. Her hands tangled in his hair, and he murmured her name over and over while time stopped and he drove them higher into the atmosphere, past the moon and the stars, to the outer stratosphere until the entire universe exploded around them.
Elizabeth woke to the sound of Lucas’s gurgles and coos in the nursery. Reed’s arm was across her stomach, holding her firmly back against his body.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he whispered against her hair.
“Good morning, handsome,” she responded.
He planted a series of tender kisses on the back of her neck.
“There’s a baby waking up,” she warned him, the buzz of desire forming instantly in her belly.
“Can’t resist me?” he teased.
“I don’t want to resist you,” she corrected.
