“Do you have a problem with cars?” he asked.
“It’s nothing—an irrational fear. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ruin your upholstery,” she teased as she flinched when they drove over a bump.
Vincent pulled up the drive to the house and parked in the garage. “We’re here. You okay?”
She nodded and blew out a few breaths. “Yep, right as rain.”
“Good,” he said and stepped out of the truck. He opened her door again for her and led her inside the mansion he’d owned for the past ten years. “Welcome home, Lana.”
She stepped away from him, her jaw dropping as she walked further into the kitchen. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “This is incredible. Did you do all the work yourself?” She ran her hands along the dark wood cabinetry and admired the state-of-the-art appliances. Her eyes caught every detail down to the stone floor beneath her feet. She kicked off her heels and wiggled her toes against the cold stone as he watched.
“If this is how you react to a kitchen, I can’t wait to see what you do with the rest of the house,” he said through his laughter.
Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she peered out of the kitchen. “May I?”
“This is your home now, too,” he told her. “Please, feel free.”
Lana rushed out of the kitchen, and he heard her cursing in amazement as she explored the first floor of the house. He drew out a bottle of champagne, popped the cork, and filled two glasses before he tracked her down at the bottom of the staircase staring up at the antler chandelier hanging overhead.
“What do you think so far?” he asked as he handed her a glass.
“I think I am not going to regret living here, for starters,” she teased and they clinked their glasses together. “Cheers.”
They sipped their champagne as Vincent studied the woman standing in front of him. She was everything he imagined after chatting with her that first night, but for some reason, she seemed to act in complete opposite of the profile he’d read on the website. The way she acted was not like any paralegal he knew, nor did he expect to spot the many holes along her right ear lacking earrings at the moment. When she turned, he also spotted black ink curling up along the back of her neck, almost hidden by her dress and hair. Her profile said nothing about tattoos and piercings.
“This feels so surreal,” she mumbled, tilting her head back as she spun around slowly. When she came to a stop facing him, some of the light disappeared from her eyes filled with sudden worry. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this will disappear. Or worse, that I’ve somehow created this alternate reality where everything is perfect and with one wrong move, it will implode.”
“Alternate reality?” he repeated, smirking. “You sound like a Trekkie, my dear Lana.”
Her face paled suddenly, and she shrugged. “Eh, my sister and I watched it a bit growing up. Some of it stuck with me, I guess.”
Why does she seem so nervous all of a sudden? “Well, as far as I can tell, this is real. Why don’t you explore the rest of the house and I’ll get us more champagne?”
She drained the rest of her glass, and as he turned to the kitchen, he heard her bare feet walk up the hardwood steps. He refilled the glasses with more champagne but didn’t hurry after her. His stomach clenched, but not out of nerves. He sensed something was wrong. All his hopes of this day running smoothly slipped away each second his mind ran through every possible scenario.
What happened between the courthouse and his house? He assumed something as major as an irrational fear of cars would have been on her profile, not to mention the tattoo she hid on her back and who knew where else.
He remembered his conversations with Billy over the week about ensuring no one caught wind of this ceremony, but what if she sold him out and that’s why she looked guilty? Was she being paid off by another politician? The idea pissed him off that someone would stoop so low as to make a scandal out of his life, and even worse, the idea that the woman he spoke with—that he felt such a strong connection with—was there under false pretenses.
“Stop it,” he muttered to himself. “You’re freaking out over nothing. Now go track down your wife and stop being so damned paranoid.”
His scolding didn’t help much, and by the time he reached the second floor, his emotions were in turmoil. He wanted to go back to the moment when she walked in the room at the courthouse. He walked around the upstairs, looking for her, until he spotted her standing in the doorway of the master bedroom. Vincent stopped abruptly, careful to be quiet as he stared at her face and the uncertainty there.
Maybe she’s just nervous about your expectations with sex, you idiot, he told himself sternly.
“So what do you think?” he asked as he approached her.
She jumped and her eyes widened. “About what?”
“The house.” He held out the glass of champagne and she took it, her hand shaking. “You can go in and look around if you want. There’s nothing weird in there, promise.”
Timidly, she stepped into the bedroom and circled the king-sized bed. “You have a very nice house. It’s great.” She licked her lips, and Vincent remembered what they felt like against his own. “I just…uh, I’m just a little out of sorts, I guess.”
“Lana, we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, especially not on our first day together.”
She drained her champagne glass and set it on the chest of drawers beside her. A hand went to her mouth, and she shook her head, drawing down the curls and letting them fall over her shoulders as she removed the headband too, setting it and the pins by the glass. “That’s not it. I…I don’t think I can do this.”
He stepped back, confused by her words. He just told her they didn’t have to. “So you’re saying you didn’t feel anything when we kissed?” he asked, trying to better understand what was going through her mind as the annoying voice in his mind warned him something was off about this woman.
“No…no, I definitely did,” she whispered and smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes, eyes so different from the picture he knew by heart.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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