“I’ll give them time,” Fazire interrupted.
“You can’t tell Lily right away,” Victor pressed.
“I won’t tell her right away.” Finally in exasperation Fazire snapped, “I’m a genie! I know what I’m doing.”
Really, what could be so bad about Nathaniel? It was obvious to anyone he was a good man. Fazire even wanted to dislike him and he couldn’t hold out for more than a few weeks and Fazire was really good at holding a grudge. He once went three hundred years holding a grudge against another genie. He was famous for it.
Victor interrupted his thoughts and started talking. While listening to the terrible tale, Fazire stopped thinking.
When Victor stopped talking, Fazire said immediately, “I must tell Lily.”
“You tell her, I’ll have to kill you,” Victor threatened and even though Fazire was immortal, he still felt a thrill of fear.
“Why would he…?” Fazire started.
“I’ve no idea,” Victor cut in.
“But it’s nothing to be ashamed –” Fazire continued.
“I know,” Victor interrupted again.
“I can’t fix that,” Fazire admitted and it was true. He couldn’t. No one could fix that.
Except but one person.
“Lily can,” both Fazire and Victor said in unison.
* * * * *
Nate was lying in bed, covers to his waist some papers in his hands he should have gone through that evening rather than taking his daughter and Lily on motorcycle rides.
Instead of reading them, he was thinking about the rides, Tash’s excited babble in is ear, Lily’s body pressed against his.
He was also thinking about the only present he’d ever received from anyone outside his adopted family. A present from Lily. She hadn’t bought him a tie or a watch; she’d bought him a motorcycle. No half measures for Lily, he was discovering.
Lastly, he was wondering if there were blind nuns in the Pyrenees who made tailored shirts out of rare silk and he was hoping Lily didn’t have their phone number.
Lily walked out of the bathroom wearing another pair of short drawstring pyjama shorts, these were light blue with green polka-dots and they were topped by a fitted green camisole. She was rubbing lotion into her hands and arms that made the room smell of almonds. He noticed, and was pleased to see, that she’d gained some weight in the past weeks, her too-thin body filling out into the lush curves he was more familiar with and he vastly preferred.
He watched her walk toward the bed, graceful and unaffected, having no idea that even in her pyjamas, she was more elegant than any woman he’d ever met.
She jumped up and landed on her knees at the end of the bed, sitting on her calves. Her eyes found his and she smiled at him but Nate noticed her smile was warm but guarded.
He gave up all pretence of reading and tossed the papers on the bedside table.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, correctly reading her face.
Her eyes lit with a knowing look, not surprised he surmised her troubled thoughts and asked about them. To Nate’s way of thinking, time was too precious not to cut to the chase immediately, most especially any time with Lily.
She tilted her head to the side and bit her lip.
Then, releasing it, she said, “Promise you won’t get mad?”
Nate wanted to laugh but he didn’t. Lily on the end of their bed smiling at him, however guarded, Tash downstairs asleep and exhausted from an exciting day that centred around Lily’s generosity, his parents in Lily’s old room, now the guest bedroom, with all that, there was practically no way he could get mad.
Of course, after what he expected she considered his irrational response to her giving him a present, a response he knew wasn’t at all irrational, he could understand her concern.
“I won’t get mad,” he assured her softly then, deciding she was too far away, he commanded in an even softer voice, “Come here.”
She shook her head, her smile fading and he felt something constrict in his chest as he witnessed its loss.
“I need to tell you something and I think I better do it from here.”
He kept silent and felt his shields go up as he watched her warily.
She took a deep breath.
“It’s all my fault,” she declared.
He stayed silent at her strange declaration.
She hesitated and then spoke again. “Everything that’s happened to us, it’s all my fault.”
He still didn’t speak, this time because he could not imagine how Lily had turned things around in her head to think that anything she’d done could make what had happened to them her fault.
“You see,” she went on, “these past eight years, I knew I should, I wanted to but something always got in the way but I always knew I should go to Victor and Laura and I didn’t.”
Finally he understood her worry. His shields went down and he broke his silence. “Lily, darling, come here.”
She shook her head again, her red-gold hair brushing her shoulder.
“I need you to know, to say this. Nate, I couldn’t afford it. I could have called them but what do you say? I was ill, at first, but that’s no excuse. I mean, I got better then it was years –”
“Lily –” he interrupted but she was on a roll and getting agitated. He knew this because she jumped off the bed and began pacing.
“I wrote them letters, dozens of them, trying to explain. I thought I could do it better by writing it. I’m a good writer, a long time ago, I even won awards. I never told you that.” She stopped and looked at him as if shy of this admission then she brought up her hands and her fingers started to fidget, clenching and unclenching. “If I’d gone to them, if I’d called, just sent one letter, I can’t even understand myself why I didn’t send –”
Nate decided this was enough. He threw off the covers, knifed off the bed and advanced on her. He was not about to allow her to berate herself for Danielle and Jeffrey’s deception, not after what she’d been through.
She didn’t retreat but when his arms went around her, she kept her hands between them and pressed them against his chest. She tilted her head back and looked at him, her eyes were tormented. At the sight, he felt fury blaze through him but, as he’d promised her, he kept it firmly under control.
She went on quietly. “I thought they knew about my parents dying, I thought they knew and they didn’t care about me enough to –”
His arms tightened but her hands pushed against him to keep some distance.
“Lily, I don’t want to hear –” he started.
She shook her head again. “You have to know that’s what I thought, even though it sounds awful. I thought they might be like Jeff and Danielle, I know it wasn’t right but part of me –”
He saw the tears spring to her eyes and he decided it was a good thing he’d likely never see his sister and brother again for he would not be responsible for what he did.
“I need to explain to them, I need to apologise,” Lily went on.
His arms went from around her and he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling her hands from between their bodies, he gently manoeuvred her against the length of him. When he released her, she slid her arms around his waist and leaned into him and he framed her face with his hands.
“Let it be,” he said softly.
“I can’t,” she replied. “They have to be wondering. Nate, it was seven years I had their granddaughter and I haven’t even told you about my wish yet. When I do, you’ll understand, it’s all my fault –”
At the torment in her eyes, Nate wanted to throw something across the room. He wanted to do someone (and he knew exactly who) bodily harm. Instead, he kept careful control of these reactions and he hushed Lily by touching his lips to hers.
When he’d moved an inch away, he looked deep into her eyes and repeated, “Let it be, Lily.”
She was, he noted, not ready to let it be.
“I can show them the letters. I still have them, ever
y single one. And I have to tell you about Fazire, what I wished, how this all comes down to me.”
One lone tear slid down her cheek. Nate brushed it away with his thumb and decided their conversation was finished. He wasn’t going to allow Lily to blame herself for their loss and he was definitely not going to stand there and watch her cry.
“It’s over, everyone is moving on,” Nate explained quietly. “There’s no reason to go back. Just let it be.”
Her eyes changed in a way that he could swear barely masked fear. She leaned into him further, her arms tightening around him.
“Will you?” she asked.
“Will I what?” he returned.
“Will you let it be? Will you stop working yourself to death to prove to everyone you’re sorry for something you didn’t do? Will you stop taking care of everyone and realise we’re all in this together? That we’re all supposed to take care of each other? That we’re a family, you and me and Tash. And your parents. And Fazire. Do you know it’s over and we’re moving on? Will you let it be?”
Unusually for Nate, he hadn’t seen it coming, he hadn’t realised she was negotiating him to this pass. He hadn’t noticed her bringing his guard down, battering his shields and going in for her soft, tender kill.
“Lily –” His voice sounded rough to his own ears and he felt his chest begin to expand and relax. He’d never had a family, a functional unit where people took care of each other. He had Laura and Victor, but he owed both of them his life and everything he was. Jeff and Danielle had never been family.
But, or course, he couldn’t tell Lily any of this.
“Please don’t transfer the money for your cycle into my account, Nate,” she whispered, cutting into his thoughts. “Please let me do something nice for you.”
Instead of speaking his answer, he tightened his hands on her face and she showed she understood his non-verbal assent by tightening her arms around his waist.
She came up on tiptoe and, her mouth against his, in a voice so soft he could barely hear her, she murmured, “For a lot of reasons, because there are a lot of reasons, I love you, Nate.”
He felt and did everything at once.
A surge of joy flew through him so strong he thought it had to have burned a path through his gut straight to his heart.
Before it could bring him to his knees, he bent and slid an arm under hers. Lifting her, he carried her to the bed, his mouth taking hers in a hot, demanding kiss.
At the same time, of their own accord, his battered shields slammed up and locked into place.
Her arms went around his neck and she kissed him back as he planted her in their bed, coming down on top of her.
When his mouth moved to her jaw, ear, neck, she repeated, “I love you, Nate.”
The words tore through him and he silenced her with his mouth, yanking at her clothes, pushing them down, pulling them up, throwing them aside.
When he was done, she pressed her gloriously naked body into him, running her hands over his fevered skin, wrapping a leg around his hip, sliding her lips across his jaw, nipping his shoulder with her teeth.
“I love you,” she said against his neck.
“Quiet, Lily,” he growled, taking her mouth in another hard kiss, working her with his hands and fingers, bruising her lips with his own, forcing her silence. When she was squirming underneath him, her fingernails on one hand scraping the skin of his back, her other hand moving between them to wrap around him, it was then he thought it was safe to take his mouth from hers and he used his lips, teeth and tongue in ways he knew would send her soaring.
“Nate, I love –” His mouth came back to hers to stop her words. To assure her silence, he spread her legs, positioned himself and slammed into her wet softness. She gasped against his tongue at the sudden, savage invasion but her body instantly began to move with his. She dug her heels into the bed to lift her hips, inviting and absorbing his violent thrusts.
He knew it was happening, felt it building in him as it built in her, he felt her tighten around him, her breath coming in short, quick pants, her arms holding him close. He experienced another kind of joy as he heard her cry out his name when she climaxed. Only then did he let go the control he had on his body, grinding into her sweet softness until he found his own release.
He allowed her to take his weight for brief moments, staying connected to her intimately, carefully filing away the feel of her under him, wrapped around him, before he rolled away.
Nate heard her soft mew of protest as he pulled out, something she did every time as if the loss of him tore an important part of her away. He catalogued the sound amongst his many memories as he gently arranged them in the bed, yanking the covers over them and holding her close to his side.
She didn’t speak, so he did.
“I won’t transfer the money,” he allowed, giving her that one thing as he’d be taking away everything else.
He felt her smile against his shoulder and she snuggled closer. He knew she thought she was closing in on sweet victory of the war she’d been waging for the last month.
“Thank you,” she whispered and, by the tone of her voice, Nate understood it meant the world to her.
He also realised that he’d made a colossal mistake.
Nate had been selfish. He’d wanted it all even when he knew he couldn’t have it, shouldn’t have it, but he took it anyway. He knew it the minute he’d watched her walk down Laura’s stairs to talk to the police after the man had tried to snatch her purse. He knew she was not for the likes of him.
He knew it then and he knew it now.
She thought their eight year drama had all been her fault but he knew she’d been a trusting innocent, a virgin, an Indiana girl who’d never even had a boyfriend.
It was Nate who’d taken all she was willing to give and all she was willing to give was everything. He’d forced her to sleep with him on their first date, forced her to move in with him after one night, purposefully made her pregnant to bind her to him then left her to face the consequences of his actions on her own. Then, when he found her again, he forced himself into her life, her home, her bed, her family and took even more.
Now he had it all and he wasn’t worthy of it.
He should have set up visitation with Natasha. He should have taken only what Lily was willing to give and allowed her to keep him at arm’s length. He should have worked at shielding her heart instead of letting her fall in love with a man who didn’t exist. A romantic hero, in her mind, who was, Nate knew, no romantic hero at all.
Now she thought she was in love with him but she didn’t know who he was, what he was, where he came from. When she found out, and eventually, Nate knew with certainty, she would, it would be all the more devastating to her.
Therefore, he had to commit one final act to take care of her, protect her and their daughter.
He felt Lily’s weight settle into him but Nate didn’t sleep that night. Instead he lay awake, feeling her soft, warm body pressed into his side, listening to her breathing, stroking her skin and hair and purposefully creating one last, precious memory.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lily
Lily was terrified.
It was the day before her wedding and everything this past week between her and Nate had gone wrong, terribly wrong, completely wrong, cataclysmically, heartwrenchingly wrong.
“Has Nate arranged somewhere else to sleep tonight? It’s bad luck to see the bride on the wedding day,” Maxie said, wearing another flowing, amethyst caftan, this one threaded across the front with matching beads. She was smiling, but cautiously, unaware of the content of Lily’s rampaging thoughts but knowing they were there.
“Yes,” Lily answered quietly, averting her eyes but feeling both Maxie and Laura’s on her.
“Lily?” Laura asked carefully.
Lily jumped up from the couch in the front sitting room and started pacing, having no idea her habitual practice of pacing when she was anxious was speaking more than a
million words, and not that she was having the usual pre-marital jitters, but something far more dire.
“Nate’s made arrangements,” Lily announced. “I’ve insisted he take Tash with him. They’ll meet us tomorrow at the Registry Office in Bath.”
“Tash is going with Nate?” Maxie asked slowly.
“Yes, I think it’ll be good for them to have this time alone together. Though Fazire is also going with them,” she contradicted herself and then remembered Victor’s announcement upon news that Nate was staying elsewhere that he’d accompany him as well. “And, as you know, Victor is going to be with them too so, really, Tash won’t be alone with Nate, as such.” Now she was both rambling and making little sense.
Maxie and Laura looked at each other.
“Fazire. Why?” Laura asked.
Lily didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to tell Laura that she didn’t need Fazire right now. She could barely cope with Maxie and Laura’s gentle concern. Fazire was chomping at the bit to speak to her. He’d been waiting for his moment for a week, finding Lily closing him down at every turn. Lily knew his patience, what little there was of it, was running out.
But Lily had made up her mind, she was going through with this and she didn’t want Fazire to talk her out of it.
* * * * *
It had been over a week since she gave Nate the motorcycle. Lily had been so certain she’d made headway that day with the way he’d reacted to her saving money for Tash’s school and the violent, stormy, uncontrolled way he’d made love to her after she’d told him she loved him. Then he had given in and let her buy him the bike without paying her back.
She’d been so certain she was melting his heart.
She’d been so certain she’d torn holes in his armour.
However, the next morning, everything changed.
Drastically.
He’d kept his normal routine, waking Tash, having breakfast with them but he was removed, more removed than his usual, he was entirely removed. Lily felt it, she saw it and it sliced through her.
Before leaving, he’d picked up Tash for their daily, Tash-wrapped-around-Nate-smack-on-the-lips good-bye, giving their daughter a warm smile. Then, unusually, he’d given Lily only a peck on the cheek. Even that, Lily had the uncomfortable feeling, was done for Tash’s benefit.