Romi’s smile was too sweet in the current situation. “I like it.”
Maxwell stared between the two women. His mother was staring at Romi with an unexpected measure of respect. What had just happened?
Maxwell looked around the table to see if the others seemed to have more of a clue than he did. Viktor gave him a commiserating look tinged by clear confusion.
It was good to know Maxwell wasn’t alone in his reaction to Romi.
Madison didn’t look bewildered at all. Romi’s sister-by-choice looked ready to strangle his mother.
And he couldn’t blame her.
“I apologize if what I said offended you,” his mother offered to Romi with the first sign of real warmth that evening.
“It did, but then I consider the source.” Romi’s words took a second to register for both Maxwell and his mother.
She gasped, but instead of getting angry as he expected, she smiled. “Touché. He is my baby, even if he is a business tycoon.”
“Corporate Tsar. It’s more fitting, don’t you think?” Romi asked, no anger in her tone.
“He can be very imperious.” Natalya looked at him with an expression that said maybe he was being that right now.
“I’m sure he doesn’t get it from a stranger.” Romi’s smile took some of the sting from her words, but not all. “There’s more than one flaw floating in our gene pool I guess.”
Incredibly, his mother laughed.
Romi reached out, took his wrist and tugged. “Sit down, Mr. Tsar. Your mom will behave and we’ve got wedding plans to make.”
“Your fiancée is a very confusing woman,” his mother said. “I like her.”
“I do, too. Very much.”
“More than that, I think,” Viktor said with that smug superiority Maxwell always wanted to knock off is his face.
Surprisingly, Mama didn’t start in on one of her antilove tirades. She was busy asking Madison where she thought they should go shopping for Romi’s wedding gown.
“I’ve asked our favorite boutique to get in a selection of vintage bohemian chic.”
“You are not going to wear your mother’s gown?” Viktor had asked what Maxwell wanted to.
Admittedly, he knew little of this type of thing, but Jeremy Archer had happily proclaimed to anyone who would listen that Madison was wearing her mother’s wedding dress.
“Maddie’s dress is a family heirloom,” Romi explained. “My mom’s was a typical 1980s monstrosity. Poufy sleeves, layers and layers of polyester lace and about four inches too long for me.”
“Oh,” Max said as if he’d asked the question.
“It’s really not Romi at all. Besides, her dad doesn’t need the reminder,” Madison declared.
Romi grimaced and Maxwell reached down to squeeze her thigh in support. “He will be delighted to see you in your finery, whatever it ends up being.”
Her smile in appreciation of his support was worth any amount of firm talks he would have to have with his mother.
“Where are we having the reception?” Natalya asked.
“We will host it, it’s the bride’s family’s prerogative,” Madison replied with no room for question.
“You and the Graysons are related?” Mama asked.
“She’s my sister-by-choice,” Madison said firmly.
Romi nodded. “We chose each other before we knew people didn’t just get to pick their family.”
“They do if they want,” Madison opined.
“I would have liked to have chosen my family,” his mother said with more feeling than she usually showed. “Mine soured me on any familial relationships but mother and son.”
“Do you miss them?” Romi asked.
“I do.” His mother’s face took on a faraway look. “I didn’t realize that neither of us was all wrong or all right until Maxika was a boy in school and I was too proud to write and tell them where I was.”
“So, they don’t know?” Romi pressed.
His mother shook her head. “I will never know if my own mama could forgive me and accept the woman I have become. She would have been proud of Maxika in any case.”
“I’m sure your whole family would admire the man Little Max has become.” Viktor’s tease on Maxwell’s other nickname didn’t negate his words.
And Maxwell found himself oddly moved by the other man’s approval.
“As your family is,” Natalya said with a pat to Viktor’s hand. “To think you two were once little boys together.”
“It’s hard to imagine either of them as little anything,” Madison said with a laugh.
Romi gave them a droll look. “For me, too.”
“I assure you. While he’s always had a voice worthy of the little bear I called him, my Maxika was a small baby.”
“His dad must have been a giant,” Romi said with a smile for his diminutive mama.
Large in spirit, at a scant five foot nothing, her stature wasn’t nearly as imposing.
“Oh, he was. In so many ways.” Natalya winked at Romi.
And Maxwell started wondering again about how soon he could take her home.
“He would be so proud to know how well our son turned out.”
“You never said that,” Maxwell blurted before thought.
His mother looked more shocked by his blunt admission than he was by her forthright speech.
She reached out to pat his hand. “I never saw the point talking about a man you could never meet.”
Maxwell was surprised when not a single person at the table asked why he couldn’t meet his father.
“I’m sure he would be proud,” Madison said.
It was Romi’s turn to offer comfort with a caress on his thigh. “I think you got the best of his gene pool anyway.”
He grinned down at her. “I am glad you think so.”
“Oh, he did. My Maxika, he is a son to make any mother proud.”
“He’s always been a good stick to measure my own success by,” Viktor said.
And Maxwell felt the first blush in memory heat his face with uncomfortable prickles. “It has been mutual.”
And that was enough admissions for the night. Week. Month. Year. Lifetime maybe. “You wish to host the reception?” he asked Madison.
“Definitely. Have you two chosen accent colors?”
“Blue,” he said without hesitation.
“And I bet I know just the shade,” Natalya said indulgently as she looked at Romi.
“We could do a metallic pewter with the blue,” Madison offered and Romi nodded, looking unaccountably emotional.
Pewter was close enough to black that Maxwell approved the choice. They discussed wedding and reception plans late into the evening.
Maxwell found the domestic scene unexpectedly enjoyable.
* * *
Romi couldn’t believe how quickl
y the time leading up to her wedding flew. She, Maddie and the often acerbic Natalya Black went wedding-dress shopping, met with the caterers and tasted more cakes than Romi knew had flavors.
Max was often too busy with work to involve himself in the day-to-day preparations for the wedding. However, he had surprisingly strong opinions on things like whether she wore a veil—he wanted her to wear one—or if there was a ring bearer: Max insisted on one as well as a flower girl.
Romi’s oldest cousin’s children were going to fulfill the duties. Her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles and their children were coming to the wedding despite the short notice.
Romi was delighted, but sick with nerves at the thought of promising love and fidelity to a man who wasn’t making the same lifetime commitment.
She clung to the memory of that one night when he’d said there was no expiration date.
It was easy when he held her at night, or made love to her. During the day while she and Maddie worked on bringing their dreams of a charter school to fruition or the wedding plans, and he was too busy to meet them for lunch or attend yet another cake testing—she hadn’t found the right flavor yet—it wasn’t so simple.
Her dad was doing well. They’d spoken on the phone again and he sounded so much like the dad of her childhood, she’d cried for an hour after hanging up.
Max had found her and seduced her tears into passion.
She still hadn’t brought the blue silk scarves out, but he never mentioned them. There was a little part of her brain that said she’d let him use them after he told her he loved her.
Then she could trust him completely, right?
And she just wasn’t sure those blue silk scarves were ever going to see the light of day.
Their sex life was plenty exciting without them anyway. Max wasn’t complaining and neither was she.
She had asked him about the fact that Maddie’s shares would only revert to her father if Grayson Enterprises was under threat from AIH.
“Jeremy Archer had already begun the initial steps of the takeover. It would have taken some effort on my part, but it could have been manipulated to look like he was the one threatening Grayson Enterprises.”
“You’re so Machiavellian, it’s scary,” she said, not sure if she was impressed, or horrified.