The Arrangement (30 page)

“Come to bed, please.”

A simple shake of her head had him sighing. “What about you, Anton?”

“I’m going to shower and then, if you want, I’ll join you.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh.”

His heart kick-started with another painful rhythm.

“Just … when did you know?”

His lips wet under his tongue. It was the truth he’d been avoiding even more than the history of her paternity. “That morning you left Barbados. I couldn’t figure out why Nicoli was so fucking mad at me. Roman, I got. He was your dad and there was that tiny spot of blood on my sheets that said what I wouldn’t. But, Nicoli? I couldn’t get it to click. And he slipped … in his anger, with his Russian. I heard my father kind of choke and my mom just made this awful sound. I got it then. His
princess
, he’d said. My dad called me the little prince my whole life, Vine. I knew what he meant when Nicoli said that about you.

“And then he went really quiet, but I finally recognized the eye color when he just sat there and stared at me. Nicoli didn’t ever show his emotions, but the pain in his eyes was unbearable,” Anton admitted, frowning. “He was so torn because I was finally getting it together. I was happy, healthy, and I wanted you, but I’d disappointed him because I’d taken something from his
daughter
. It didn’t matter that you were going to be my wife, in his eyes, what you gave to me wasn’t mine to take at that time.”

Her voice was just a breath when she said, “That long.”

“It didn’t matter to me,” Anton rushed to say. “I already wanted you. I wanted you because I loved you. But Nicoli was clear and so was Roman, I couldn’t tell you. Neither of them wanted you to know, unless there was no other way around it, but there was the big issue of safety, too. They just wanted you to love the life you already had, not the one you could have had. I decided after Sonny made it pretty obvious that he wanted to all but eradicate the truth of his involvement in hiding your paternity that when the time was right, and we were safe, I would tell you.”

“But … I do.”

That time, it was his head that jerked up. “What?”

“My life, I did love it. Loved Roman so much. And I love the life I’m just beginning to build with you.”

Anton felt frozen at her words, and when Viviana finally stepped close enough to pat his chest, all that pressure and pain he’d been fighting off ceased to exist. He could breathe. His heart continued to beat. When her fingers fisted in the blood-stained silk shirt he wore, she stepped to his side.

“I’m going to go to bed now.”

“Okay,” he murmured, not sure what else to say.

“Please be there for me to wake up to in the morning. You promised.”

“If he is, that means something’s about to happen, man. You need to keep a keen eye out and be careful. Get those bulls of hers on a closer detail for a little while. Rocco shouldn’t be left at home, ever. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, point being
if
he’s gone into hiding, though,” Anton said, tilting his head back to blink up at the ceiling. “And we don’t know that Sonny has, Ivan.”

“Hard to say,” his lawyer agreed, “given his wife didn’t follow along. I’d take my fucking wife.”

“Do you think he loved me?”

The phone nearly fell out of Anton’s hand as his boots dropped off the shelf he’d propped them up on. Slowly, he turned to face Viviana who stood looking almost resigned in his office doorway. The nervous action of her hands wringing had him swallowing back rising emotions.

“Ivan, I need to go. Call me back immediately if you find out more.”

“Everything okay?”

Anton didn’t answer the man. He dropped the phone with a loud clatter to its receiver. One week. It had been one week since the crapshoot his birthday had turned into, and Viviana hadn’t said a single thing about anything come the morning after.

Those early morning hours after he’d crawled into their bed, however, had been a different story. Over and over again she’d stirred, her tears falling and soft cries waking him up. Anton hadn’t known what else to do but let her cry it out and hold her all the while, and when she reached for him in a whole different way, he gave her that soft and slow, too.

Then, she’d finally fallen asleep. In the morning, she went on like nothing was amiss. When asked, everyone had the same report: Viviana wasn’t talking about it.

Anton didn’t know what to think.

Maybe he thought she wanted to move on, forget it. That didn’t mean he thought it was a healthy way to go, but it was up to Viviana to figure out what it was she wanted or needed from it all. So, just the fact that she was standing in the doorway asking a question like that was a huge leap forward.

“Who, baby?”

Viviana took a hesitant step into the room, pursing her lips. “Roman. I mean, would it be so terrible to believe that he did?”

“No, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. Of course he loved you, Vine. Why would you think that he didn’t?”

“Because I was the child of another man. Every time he looked at me, how could he not see someone else staring back? It wouldn’t be a crazy assumption on my part to believe he might have resented me in some ways. Sure, he and Mom put on a good act all those years we were growing up, but that had to have been all it was.”

“It wasn’t. They very much loved each other, it just took a while to get them both to a healthy place. I don’t know how that all came about; that’s their own story, I suppose. One Roman didn’t share with me when we sat down and talked in Barbados, but I think that might have had a lot to do with the fact that the man who slept with his wife was just feet away.”

The heavy sigh she released sounded shaky. “How could they even stand to be near one another? Roman was a jealous man who would have put you to shame, Anton. I don’t get it.”

“Nicoli knew he’d done wrong. He took another man’s wife to his bed, even if he hadn’t known she was married. When it came to Roman, he took a step back and let him be because what the hell else was he supposed to do, really,” Anton replied, laughing bleakly. “There was a lot of respect that went around when so much disrespect had already been slung out. It wouldn’t have worked between them otherwise. Both of them were dangerous, charismatic, and intelligent men. It couldn’t have been easy to just sit there like Nicoli did and swallow his pride, just like it couldn’t have been easy for Roman to sit across the table from him and not kill him. They fucking deserved medals.”

When she didn’t speak again, Anton drummed his fingers on the oak desk.

“I know he loved you. You, out of everyone in the whole situation, were the only innocent one. Didn’t ask to be born. Didn’t choose your parents. Are you going to fault him for never wanting you to feel like you do right now?”

The saddened look that widened her eyes and had her plump bottom lip drawing between her top teeth had Anton backtracking instantly. “Shit, that’s not what I meant, Vine.”

“Yeah, I think it was,” she whispered.

Anton scowled when she refused to meet his stare. “You’re right. It was.”

“Ouch.”

“That man loved you. The one you didn’t know loved you. Your mother loved you. I won’t sit here and let you try to convince yourself otherwise. That’s ridiculous. I don’t know if this is your way of dealing with all this crap, but screw that. I’ve sat back and let you have your self-imposed gag order about all of this, Vine, but in no way will I allow you to believe that kind of bullshit. Not going to happen.”

“Where do you get off—”

“Because I love you, too!” Anton shouted, standing from his desk instantly.

She flinched from the level of his voice. His knuckles that were still sore from the week before cracked against the hard oak, splitting the healing wounds open all over again. It barely even registered over the thrum of anger that simmered under his skin.

“That’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to Roman after he raised you and never once gave you any indication you were worth any less than your brother. Or Nicoli … not after he sat back for all those years he knew you were alive and let you be raised by another man, one he knew would love and raise you well. While I’m at it, I ought to just shove Christina in the bunch, too. She could have aborted you before anyone even knew you were there and simply went on like nothing was different, but she didn’t. Don’t do that; don’t assume that of them. That’s not okay, Viviana.”

Her eyes flickered with emotions. He didn’t even think she’d taken a breath since his voice raised, considering her chest wasn’t moving and she all but stood like a statue with shaking hands.

The silence that ensued had his lungs hurting. Not five seconds later she turned and left the office without even glancing back. The quiet clatter of Rocco’s paws down the hallway followed instantly.

“
Fuck
.”

Once more, his fists hit the wood, splitting the wounds wider before blood seeped to the surface. At least the sting of the old injury opening up was enough of an ache to let him forget about the sudden rise of remorse in his heart.

But only for a moment.

Just as quickly, he was jogging around his desk and following the path she took down the hallway. She hadn’t barricaded herself inside a room again, considering their bedroom door was wide open and Rocco sat in the entrance, his tail wagging. Leaning in the doorway, Anton placed his hand on the pup’s head, scratching gently as Viviana paced inside the room.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was insensitive of me.”

“And downright ignorant.”

“Okay, now that’s arguable. I think out of the two of us, I have a bit more insight to all of this than you do, considering you won’t even speak about it.”

“I meant ignorant of my feelings, Anton. You’re being an asshole. An
insensitive
one.”

“Stop trying to pick a fight,” he snapped.

“You already did!”

Damn it. Why couldn’t she just listen to him?

“Is that what you thought I was doing, Viviana? Instead of listening to what I said, because it damn well made sense whether you liked it or not, you turned tail and ran again.
Again
! You don’t want to hear it. None of it. You just want to pretend like none of it even happened and you can’t do that.”

“No, correction, Anton, you only want me to hear what you have to say. You don’t want me to feel anything that might shine one of them in a bad light because heaven forbid I be angry at people who just chose all of this for me instead of letting me decide for myself.”

Instantly, he jerked at the accusation she tossed back at him as if it’d been a knife she threw in place of words. They stung like nothing else. Was that honestly what she thought?

“I didn’t mean—”

“Well that’s how it feels!”

Anton forced himself to swallow back the anger he’d previously felt. Maybe she was right. His view on the whole thing had been one-sided. He’d never stopped to consider that everything she thought before about the arrangement and her parents would be totally turned upside down and ruined, leaving her in the same state. Of course it would … who wouldn’t see it that way?

“Okay.”

Taking one step inside the room, he turned to hold a hand out when Rocco tried to follow, stopping the animal up short. When he was sure the pup would stay out in the hallway, he closed their bedroom door and turned to face a teary eyed Viviana. The confused look she gave him had Anton offering her a small smile in return.

“What are you doing?”

“Okay,” Anton repeated, his tone turning thick as he nodded at the bed for her to sit. When she did, he leaned back into the door and crossed his arms. “Whatever you need, baby. Whatever you want to say. It’s just you and me. Fuck them, my opinions, the outside world, the crap I have to handle for my guys before we go to bed … fuck it all. Right now, I just want to hear you talk.”

Viviana looked up through wet lashes, finally starting to look more like his girl. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Why now?”

Anton crossed the space, kneeling down and placing his hands on both of her jean covered thighs. Straightaway, she sunk into his touch. Tears slipped down to her wet trembling lips, but for a moment she seemed calmed.

That was why
, he thought sadly.

Viviana might have not been speaking, and when he talked, Anton thought she wasn’t understanding. But he had been the one who wasn’t
listening
. All week she’d been stuck in silent screams that all but begged for him to just listen to her, and he hadn’t.

“Because I wasn’t hearing you. I am now.”

Her voice was just an echo when she hushed out a quiet, “Thank you.”

• • •

“Did you like your childhood?”

Viviana didn’t miss the surprise that flitted through his eyes at her random question. They’d been quiet for awhile, given he let her talk so damned much without barely saying a thing back. And when he did talk, he managed to keep those opinions of his out of it. She was grateful; she didn’t know she needed it until he gave it.

“What do you mean?”

Crawling up to his spot against the headboard, she was quick to find herself in his opened arms and leaned back into his muscular chest. Anton used her propped up thighs to set his weapons magazine on. Flipping to a new page, he hummed an appreciative sound in her ear over a vintage revolver that had one entire spread in the centerfold.

“I only have one of these,” he said offhandedly. “I need another few and I’d be happy. They’re mighty hard to get a hold of, though.”

“You like guns far too much for it to be healthy.”

“I beg to differ. It’s very healthy given my lifestyle. I know guns better than most. After all, I am a weapons tra—” Anton stopped short suddenly. His next statement could be something Viviana would be forced to use against him in court if they weren’t married. “Yeah, I have a
thing
for guns, baby. Don’t judge me.”

“So, my question …”

“Again, explain.”

“Just your upbringing in general. How do you think it was, good or bad?”

“How do you think yours was, Viviana?”