Tonight. I’ll speak with him tonight, I promise.
And he had believed her.
At first, he had done his best not to fall asleep, believing that Rima would come knocking on his door any moment. But the hours went by, and there was still no sign of Rima. When he could no longer bear to wait, Nathan had gone straight to his father’s bedroom, not bothering to knock as he turned the knob.
But the room was empty, and later on, he found out that the couple had taken a cab to the airport at Rima’s insistence. They had flown straight to Nevada and got hitched in Las Vegas.
He had packed his bags and moved in with his godfather, and the next time he met Rima, she had become Mrs. Callis, his stepmother. They had never spoken of that day ever again, never talked about anything related to it---
Until tonight.
Nathan raked a hand through his hair. Why the fuck had he even brought it up? What the hell was he thinking---
“Nathan?”
Whirling around, Nathan was stunned to find Alyx frozen by the doorway, gaping at his presence. She was in another one of her provocative LBDs again, and this one was even more provocative than usual, with the way it scooped daringly over her breasts and was completely backless.
“What are you doing here? Have you been here for long?”
Shoving all thoughts of the past out of the way, he strode towards her with a smile, murmuring, “Welcome back.” Alyx was in the process of taking her heels off when he reached her, and he murmured, “Let me.”
“You don’t have---” But with Nathan already going down on one knee, she could only finish in a slightly perplexed voice, “Umm, okay.”
She balanced herself with one hand clutching her shoulder as he carefully took her heels off one at a time. He could feel her staring down at him all the while, her bewilderment palpable, and he heard himself say, “I missed you.”
And he had.
In the week he had spent in Hong Kong, he had thought about her a lot, and even with Alyx half a world away, she had still managed to make him smile with her little quips over the phone, her adorably argumentative text messages that had one too many swear words in it.
There hadn’t been a night that he had gone to bed without talking to her, and in his last night in Hong Kong, he had even persuaded Alyx to share with him the ways she pleasured herself while he was away.
“But it’s not the same,” she had admitted reluctantly in the end, her voice muffled by the pillow he had imagined Alyx hugging tightly to her. “It’s different when you’re the one…” Her voice trailed off, but the aching note in her voice was more than enough to fill the rest and Nathan had to swallow back a groan of hunger.
“When I come back,” he had promised thickly, “I’ll fuck you.”
Silence.
“I don’t give a damn if you’ve changed your mind. I’ll change it back for you because the moment I step back in Miami – you’re mine. I’ll make you fucking mine.”
And just when he thought she would let their call end without her saying a thing, Nathan had heard her say very softly, “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Nathan.” Alyx’s soft voice brought him back to the present, and when he slowly looked up at her, she asked quietly, “Is anything wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong.” And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Nothing was wrong between them. He wanted her more than ever, needed her more than ever, so why the hell had he even said such a thing to Rima?
As he set her heels aside, he heard her say, “You may look like your usual Mr. Posh self---”
Nathan choked as he straightened. “What the hell does that even mean?”
She smirked. “It’s the new thing they’ve been calling you. Because you don’t usually like to smile in photos.”
“Ah.” Nathan shrugged dismissively, saying, “Since Victoria Beckham already has a husband, I’d rather not be called that.” His gaze turned contemplative, and he suggested, “Maybe you should stop smiling, too.”
“Huh?”
“So you can be known as Mrs. Nathan.”
She choked in response, and the look of surprise on her face was so comical he couldn’t help it. He hauled her into his arms, and she tumbled against him with a gasp, his arms banded around her in a tight embrace.
“I really did miss you, sweetheart.”
“Me, too.” But her voice was gloomy, and when she felt his shoulders rock in ill-suppressed mirth, she said defensively, “You don’t understand. It’s been really horrible.”
“Missing me?”
She nodded against his chest. “I hear voices in my head.” This time, he couldn’t help it, his laughter coming out even as he bent down to scoop her up, and she threw her arms around him, gasping, “Nathan!”