Текст книги "Lovely Trigger"
Автор книги: R. K. Lilley
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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FOUR MONTHS LATER
DANIKA
To say that our wedding got the royal treatment was a huge compliment to all things royal. The moment James got wind that we were even considering using his resort to say our vows, the diamond encrusted red carpet was rolled out, and the rest was sort of history.
The ceremony itself was held in the Cavendish Hotel & Casino’s world-renowned atrium. The atrium was a huge draw for the casino, so the fact that they roped the entire thing off for three hours just for our vows, was huge. In fact, I’d never heard of such a thing. And what was even more extravagant, James had an entirely new all white garden arrangement put together just for us.
I confronted James directly when I heard a rumor about how much the new arrangement had cost.
He’d just smiled charmingly, and diffused the situation with ease. “We do these floral arrangements all the time, and they’re often expensive. We won’t take it all down right after the wedding. We’ll make full use of it.”
I was appeased, because, grand gesture though it was, at least I could be sure it wasn’t wasteful.
I told all of the bridesmaids that I wasn’t wearing a strapless gown when we went shopping for my dress, but by the end of the day I’d found my dream dress, and lo and behold, it was strapless, and it was just perfect.
It was ivory but the fitted, elongated bodice was so heavily beaded and exquisitely embroidered that the top looked silver. It had a curved neckline that made my curves apparent, but didn’t give too much of a show. It was undecided what was more of a showstopper, that beaded bodice or the tiered ruffle silk organza skirt with a chapel train.
It was the most elegant of princess gowns, and I adored it.
I’d tried on twenty dresses, and the instant I walked out in that one, everyone agreed that it was the one.
The bridesmaids wore white floor-length lace gowns with pale yellow sashes.
Tristan wore a classic crisp black tux, with a white shirt and tie. The groomsmen wore the same, but with yellow ties.
Frankie and Estella, arm in arm, were the first of the bridal party to walk down the aisle.
As the maid of honor, Frankie had tried hard to get me a female stripper for the bachelorette party. She’d only given up on the idea when I’d pointed out that it was clearly a Homer gift.
It hadn’t been a real bachelorette party, anyway. We’d combined with the guys and James had wound up throwing us a party at his house. I thought the guys had gotten the better deal, as there were two hot lesbians making out for half of it.
Bianca and James were next. They didn’t walk arm in arm, but with one of his hands at her hip, the other in the loop in her choker.
Next followed Lana and Akira. Lana had given birth just five weeks before, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at her. She was one of those lucky bitches that bounced back right away.
Even as they walked, I saw them both steal a peek at the row where Tutu sat, holding their new son, Kaiko. I’d gotten to hold him earlier. He was calm and already clearly took after his father in looks, except for his blue eyes, though it was too soon to tell if those would change.
Dahlia and Adair were next. They’d eloped about a year prior, and seemed to be doing well. Stephan and Javier walked down together. Todd and Trinity, two of Tristan’s very close support group from rehab, walked next. Cory walked down alone, since the numbers were uneven, and Kenny paired up with Bev, since Jerry was walking me.
Bev gave Tristan her blessing after one tense lunch at her favorite Italian restaurant. The mob place. And while Jerry and me watched as Bev interrogated Tristan for a solid hour, a few tables away from the godfather, I’d of sworn she was the scariest person in the room.
But it had all turned out well, and she hadn’t hesitated to join the wedding party.
It was a very long aisle to walk and a beautiful one. Big heaping bouquets of every white flower imaginable lined the pathway, dwarfed by colossal white vases filled to brimming with even more painstakingly arranged bouquets.
I clutched Jerry’s arm hard, but that was for emotional support. I didn’t need to use him as a crutch. After having partial knee replacement surgery over five months ago, my gait was smoother than it had been since the accident. I’d never be taking up ballroom again, but I could take a turn or two around the dance floor now, which would surely come in handy later.
It would never be perfect, but it was better and close enough for me.
The minute we began to walk, a soft guitar began to play, followed by Tristan’s voice, singing our song. Incidentally, it’d been the biggest hit off their latest album.
I met him and his devastating smile at the altar, and we said our vows again.
I didn’t hope, but knew, that this time would be different from the first.
ONE YEAR LATER
It was the longest flight I’d ever taken. Well, at least it felt that way. I’d actually taken the exact same route twice before, but this time was different.
This time that flight felt like the longest thirteen hours of my life.
It didn’t help that it felt like Tristan wasn’t even sitting next to me. When booking the flights, the idea of first class was all well and good. A rip off money wise, but I’d been excited to experience it again, as we had on the first two trips.
At the moment, I’d rather have been in coach sitting next to him, instead of in an isolated pod, feet away. We couldn’t even touch. The best we could manage was to talk through a lowered partition.
Our pods were at least next to each other, and we were face to face. Still, I felt restless and antsy, and I knew that if we’d been sitting together, if I could have just held his hand, it would have helped.
He was reclining, his eyes closed. I didn’t understand how he could be sleeping at a time like this.
I wanted to shake him awake. I needed company right now.
“Psst,” I called to him.
He smiled, eyes still closed. He hadn’t been sleeping.
I looked around, grabbed a grape off my fruit plate, and threw it at him.
He laughed, opening his eyes. He looked so relaxed and happy. I had no idea how he could be so calm.
I reached for an almond, and beaned him in the forehead with it. He just kept laughing.
“What if we can’t…? What if they won’t…?” I was speaking in a furious, agitated whisper, so stressed I couldn’t even get the full questions out.
He moved his chair until he was sitting up, giving me the Troublesome smile. The one that had changed my life.
“Come over here,” he said softly.
I looked around. “I can’t. We have to stay in our assigned seats. And besides, there’s no room over there.”
“Come over here,” he repeated softly, his smile even softer.
I glanced around, saw that the two flight attendants in our cabin were working in the galley, then moved quickly around until I was standing in the entrance to his pod.
He didn’t hesitate, pulling me down to sit on his lap.
“We can’t do that!”
He shifted until I was squeezed in next to him, his arm thrown over me. It was a very tight fit, but I felt instantly better.
His free hand reached for mine, and he threaded our fingers together while I burrowed my cheek into his strong chest, breathing deep as I listened to the steady thud of his heart.
“Stephan told me the trick to having sex in an airplane bathroom. I think the flight attendants are too busy to notice us. Whataya say?”
I elbowed him hard in the ribs.
He grunted then started laughing. “Not the time, huh?”
He stroked my hair for a while before he spoke again, voice serious now. “Everything is going to work out just how we want it to.” He said it softly against the top of my head. “In just a few days, we’ll be flying home as different people. Everything is about to change. It’s going to be everything we’ve talked about, all we’ve dreamed of.”
I squeezed his fingers until mine turned white. “I’m just so afraid we won’t get to—”
“We will. I promise you this: We’re not going home without her, not this time.”
“She won’t understand us. What if she doesn’t like us?”
“Love has its own language, sweetheart, and of course she’ll like us. We’re her parents. It might take some time, but we’ll teach her what that means. It’s going to be just perfect. You’ll see.”
Her name was Ming, and I loved her before I ever met her.
I fell in love with a picture, and it was true love. The unconditional kind. I didn’t get to take her home with me until she was nine months old, but that didn’t make me any less her mother.
It wasn’t blood that created a mother. It was love. Ming taught me that.
Tristan and I clutched hands as we entered the orphanage. I recognized her instantly. They had her in an outfit I’d sent her, a little dress with strawberries all over it. They’d even put her in the matching ruffled shorts and bonnet.
I started crying, but Tristan kept pulling me along.
“I’m a mess,” I told him, patting my cheeks.
“You’ll be fine. And don’t cry. I’m not even proposing to you today.”
It helped. I laughed.
Ming looked right at me, blinking her big dark eyes.
Tristan got to her first.
I hung back, watching.
He crouched down in front of her. She was being held by one of the ladies that worked there. Ming seemed attached to the woman, clinging to her.
Tristan held out his arms to our daughter, his smile so tender it made my breath catch.
Ming touched his hand, studying him. He had to be the biggest person she’d ever set eyes on, but she wasn’t scared. She looked fascinated by him.
“Hi Ming,” he told her very softly, his voice rough with emotion. “I’m your daddy. You have no idea how long your mommy and I have been waiting for you.”
She was too young to understand, and even if she’d been older, she had very little exposure to English. Still, some communication seemed to make it through to her, and she launched herself at him. He hugged her tight, straightening. Her little head looked so perfect, so trusting, laying on his strong shoulder.
Like they’d done it a thousand times. Like it was fate.
His tender eyes swung to me, and they were bright with tears. He smiled at me, biting his lip. “Come here, Mommy.”
I moved as if in a dream, touching her little back, stroking her short black hair.
She pulled away from his chest to look at me, her little face so solemn.
“Hello Ming,” I choked out. “I’m your mommy, and I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you.”
She touched my face, running her tiny fingers over my brow, my nose, over my tear-streaked cheeks.
I held my arms out to her, holding my breath, and after one endless minute, she launched herself into my arms.
I held her tight and never let go.
We sat in economy class on the way home, as babies weren’t allowed in first class. We sat side by side, and Ming was our lap child. I couldn’t have been happier.
We took turns holding her. I couldn’t stop staring at her, even when she slept.
“Pinch me, Tristan,” I told him quietly, as we just stared at her in wonder. “I must be dreaming. This little angel can’t be ours.”
He actually pinched me.
“Ow!” I said, giving him a dirty look. I didn’t dare punch his arm with the baby.
His smiling lips moved close, kissing the corner of my mouth. “This is real, and you aren’t dreaming.”
TWO YEARS LATER
James let us borrow his private jet and crew for our trip to Sofia, Bulgaria. It was a Godsend, with Ming, now a precocious toddler, literally climbing the walls. The flight time was fifteen hours and counting, and it would have been miserable, if he hadn’t done us this huge favor.
“Nikowash,” she said, for maybe the hundredth time. She was practicing.
“That’s it. Very good,” I told her.
“My brover.” She jumped up and down, the yellow ruffles of her dress bouncing. Her hair had gotten quite long, and I’d smoothed it into two pigtails that bounced as much as her dress.
Of course, I was biased, but she was the most beautiful little girl in the world.
“Yes, yes he is,” I assured her.
Tristan plucked her from the aisle, settling her in his lap. “Your baby brother. Trust me, you’re going to appreciate the distinction as you two get older.”
“Baby brover,” she repeated dutifully. She was very much her daddy’s girl.
His name was Nikolaj. He had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
He was born in Bulgaria and dropped off at an orphanage by his biological mother at two weeks old. We were extremely lucky to take him home at just ten months old. He wouldn’t let go of Tristan’s neck for the entire plane ride back to Vegas. Ming kept crawling onto her daddy’s lap and giving her new brother kisses on the cheek. She must have done it a hundred times. We couldn’t stop her.
He was ours.
Even our little Princess Ming knew it.
I was no more controlled, stroking his back, his little hands, bending to rub my lips on his slumbering, baby soft cheek.
Tristan held him without complaint, often shutting his eyes and pressing his cheek or lips to our baby boy’s head. It was official. We’d been through hell, but here we were, in our own little slice of heaven.
TWO YEARS LATER
I had the kids over at Bev’s house for some girl time. Nikolaj was climbing all over Bev, and Ming was getting her hair braided by Frankie. It was a pretty typical Thursday afternoon for us all.
Except that it suddenly wasn’t. Frankie had just asked me the strangest thing, and then Bev’s response had absolutely floored me. I just sat there in stunned silence for a while, trying to figure it all out.
Frankie and Estella wanted a baby, but they were missing one of the important ingredients to make one, so they were in need of a donor.
“Estella wants to breed a linebacker, I think,” Frankie joked, but she looked ill at ease. This couldn’t be an easy thing to ask somebody.
And…”why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you be asking Tristan about this?”
“No, I think this is the proper course of action,” Bev butted in. “What could he say, without your permission?”
She had a point.
“But now I just need his permission,” I said numbly.
“If you told him you were okay with it, he’d do it,” Frankie pointed out. And she was right.
“Which one of you wants to carry the baby?” Bev asked her.
Frankie’s nose wrinkled up. “We’re working that out. You’re going to think we’re demented, but we both want to get pregnant.”
Bev nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I do think you’re both demented. Danika, aren’t you guys trying to adopt again?”
I nodded. “Yes. Domestically, this time. You know how it goes, though. A lot of waiting. We are very lucky we got our first two babies as fast as we did.”
“I might have an idea that will give both you and Estella a chance to go through a pregnancy,” Bev said quietly to Frankie, as sweet Nikolaj kissed her all over the face. He was the most affectionate boy.
That stumped me, and I just stared at her.
“Oh yeah?” Frankie asked her, sounding just as stumped.
“One of you can get inseminated, and the other can act as a surrogate for Tristan and Danika. A baby for everyone.”
Cue the long pause.
I blinked. Several times. “Bev, you know I had a hysterectomy.”
She was unfazed. “I also know they were able to leave your ovaries intact. There’s a chance you can still produce eggs, my dear. And eggs, combined with sperm and a surrogate makes baby. And these two lunatics want to get pregnant. There are no certainties, but it’s certainly worth looking into. The stars seem to be aligning for this.”
“I feel a double pregnancy coming on,” Frankie said, looking just thrilled about it.
I felt like an idiot. I’d heard the lingo, but I’d never even realized that you could produce eggs after a hysterectomy.
After the idea was presented, I was afraid to even give it too much thought. Though I did tell Tristan, the moment I saw him.
“Frankie and Estella want your sperm for their baby,” I began.
He blinked, then bent down and kissed me on the nose. “Will they buy me dinner first?”
I rolled my eyes and tried to stifle a smile, then waited patiently while our children mobbed him. He had one smiling child on each hip when he looked at me again. “How do you feel about this?”
I chewed on my lip, but this was the easy part. “I’m okay with it. I’m excited for them. I want another baby, too. For us.”
Ming chimed in loudly that she would also like another baby. She was baby crazed.
“Well yeah. We’ve already decided we’re having at least two more. We just have to be patient.”
I didn’t bring up the second part until the kids were sound asleep in their rooms, and we were in our kinky bed.
I was naked and straddling him. I’d just given him a hell of a ride, and we were both still panting from our efforts.
He was rubbing the side of my thigh with one hand, my bad knee with the other, and looking at my body in a way that let me know he was quickly going to be ready for a second round.
“There’s a chance I can still produce eggs,” I told him.
He sat up, then flipped us both until I was on my back, and he was looming over me. “I don’t understand.” He started playing with my clit, watching the action with enthralled attention, still half buried in me. Clearly, this was not the best time to bring it up.
“Frankie said she’d be a surrogate for us, and there’s a chance I can still produce eggs.”
He pulled his hand back, looking confused. “I don’t understand.”
“I guess they were able to leave my ovaries intact with my hysterectomy.”
“I didn’t know they could do that.”
“Yeah, me neither. What do you think? About giving it a try?”
“I’m happy with whatever makes you happy. I want more kids, but I’m not at all picky about how we get them.”
God, I adored this man, every single inch of him.
Though a few minutes later, I might have loved several specific inches of him best.
Of course, there were a million ifs and plenty of odds not working in our favor. All three of us were over thirty. After a lot of stressful doctor’s visits and nerve-wracking test results, Estella and Frankie wound up being pregnant at the same time. They even wound up with close to the same due date.
Frankie was carrying our baby, Estella theirs. And coincidentally, Bianca and James finally decided to get pregnant around that time. There were a solid twelve months in there where the four of us couldn’t be in the same room without talking about all things baby. I loved it.
Jared Jeremiah Vega was born huge and healthy.
Tristan couldn’t stop crying when he wrote that name down on the birth certificate.
He was born only five days past his due date, but weighed in at a whopping eleven pounds. Frankie blamed Tristan one hundred percent for that, and cursed him up and down every single time she saw him for nearly a year.
Maria Sosa-Abelli was born just days after Jared. She was only five pounds, but healthy and beautiful.
Ming was in heaven. “We have so many babies now!” she said, twirling her pink dress around like a mad woman.
None of the adults in the room could stop laughing about that.
Nikolaj didn’t care for the hospital, but agreed that his little brother was, “Pwetty cool.”
We’d had to buy a mini-van. I was in heaven. We had so many kids that I was officially a min-van mom. We loaded them all up and took our Jared home.
We didn’t sleep the first night. When I say we, I mean all of us. Tristan and I couldn’t tear ourselves away from the nursery, and Ming wouldn’t stay in her bed. Even Nikolaj couldn’t stop coming to check on his new brother.
“Why did we name him Jared, Daddy?” Ming asked between adoring glances at her baby brother.
He got choked up at the question, but eventually, haltingly, he started to tell our Ming the story of his brother, Jared. It was an important story, and though she wasn’t old enough to really understand it now, I knew that we would be sure to teach her that, though those we loved may die, our love could keep them close to us forever.
Ming fell asleep halfway through his story, sitting on his lap in the rocking chair. He just held her closer, kissing her on the top of the head. Nikolaj had fallen asleep in his other arm a while back.
I was sitting in a rocking chair facing his, cradling Jared in my arms.
We shared a look. What a journey it had been. I had a whole lot of happy under my belt these days, but never in my life had I been so happy as I was in that exact moment.
“I love you,” I mouthed at him.
He flashed one ruinous dimple at me. “Love you more.”
BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY
IN FLIGHT (UP IN THE AIR #1)
MILE HIGH (UP IN THE AIR #2)
GROUNDED (UP IN THE AIR #3)
LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR NOVELLA)
BREATHING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #1)
BAD THINGS (TRISTAN & DANIKA #1)
ROCK BOTTOM (TRISTAN & DANIKA #2)
LOVELY TRIGGER (TRISTAN & DANIKA #3)
AND COMING SOON…
THE WILD SIDE (A NOVEL)
CROSSING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #2)
MR. BEAUTIFUL (UP IN THE AIR #4)
Thanks so much for reading this series! Keep up to date on all of my current and future projects at www.rklilley.com, and if you liked this book, please, please, please, review and tell all of your friends!
