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Not much had changed in the office since Mika had been gone. Lt. Vickers didn’t disappoint, riding her ass all day. In a strange way, it brought comfort. Earning three thousand dollars a month, she planned on giving Cain back some money for her mom out of each pay check. Because of that, she quietly accepted Vickers diatribe on how she needed to tighten up the project she’d been given. Losing herself within her work helped. When four o’clock came, she grabbed her bag and walked out as numb as when she’d walked in.
Mika stopped at the nursing station of the Golden Years. “Hi, Andie,” she greeted. She’d come to know all the staff, but she especially liked Andie.
Finishing an entry in a big binder, she raised her head. “Hi, Mika. Your mom’s doing okay today,” she said with a smile. “Cain’s a little late, think you’ll catch him in there.”
“Cain?” Her brows pinched together.
Andie turned her wrist to check her watch. “Usually he comes in at around one o’clock, but he’s late today.”
“How many times has he come?”
Andie shrugged. “Lots. Every other day.” She gave her an odd look, as if she should know that. “He sits with her for an hour then leaves.”
“Thanks.” She walked down the corridor to her mother’s room. The door was open a crack, and she peeked in. Cain sat beside her bed, her mother’s eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. It still broke her heart to see her this way, but Mika had gotten used to the vacant stare.
Cain cupped her mom’s hand in his, pressing it against his cheek. “I wish you could talk some sense into your daughter,” he said. “Mika loves me, but she’s so afraid to trust her own heart.” He gently brushed the hair from her mother’s forehead. “I’m lost without her. I feel like I’m walking through a wasteland far emptier than the one she drew me from. How the hell am I supposed to live my life without my mate?” His words choked to a stop, and Mika realized he was crying, his shoulders jerking with sobs. Cain raised his face, his expression twisted with emotion. “I love your daughter. I want her beside me forever because she’s perfect. In my eyes she’s perfection.”
Mika backed away from the door and hurried down the hall. Driving home, she kept wiping away the tears as they continued to fall. When she got to the cottage, she wrapped herself in a blanket, cocooned by Cain’s words. Why would he forsake his life and a chance at happiness to be with her instead?
The room was dark when she opened her eyes again, but she wasn’t alone. A wet nose pressed against hers. Unfurling her arm from the blanket, she ran her fingers through Breeze’s soft fur.
“Hi, girl.” Something hung from her collar, and she undid the ribbon, rolled around a piece of paper.
Meet me tonight. Eight o’clock. The corner of Belleville and Menzies. You asked for a commitment, and I’m ready. Bundle up. It’s cold outside.
Cain.
Mika parked her car and gazed across the Victoria waterfront. The Empress Hotel sat majestically decked out with Christmas lights. Couples snuggled together as they walked down the sidewalks. Large candy canes hung from the five-globed lamp posts lining the street. The dry arctic air pushing in from the north, smelled as if it might snow tonight.
She rounded the corner and saw Cain standing on the sidewalk by a horse-drawn carriage. He watched her approach, his handsome features twisting her heart when a small smile curved his lips. Cain’s strong physique and confidence surrounded him. She missed everything they had, and it broke her heart that she caused him any pain.
“Hi,” he said, staring down at her, his eyes unreadable.
“Hey. What’s this all about?”
His warm hand cupped her jaw. “I thought that maybe my best friend needed me. She’s hurting right now, and I need to tell her something important.”
She bit her bottom lip, trying not to cry. Cain opened the door to the carriage. The driver looked ahead with the reins hanging loosely in his hands. She nodded and Cain helped her inside. Sitting beside her, he pulled a large blanket over them. With a quick look over his shoulder, the driver made a little sound, and the four large horses began to pull, the clip clop of their hooves echoing in the crisp air.
Under the blanket, Cain slid his hand over hers. She always wore gloves to hide her hideous skin. Cain pinched the leather and removed the gloves. When she resisted, he gently clenched her wrist then thread his fingers with hers.
“I went to visit your mom today. When I’m with her, it reminds me that no matter what’s around the corner for us in this life, there are certain things we get to choose and other things we just have to accept because they’re unchangeable. Sometimes, they’re the same thing.”
Cain’s handsome face angled toward her, and the desire to kiss him yanked at her heart.
“I can’t make you trust me. All I can do is tell you the truth, which I have always done.” He drew her closer and tucked his chin against her head. “I never believed I could fall in love. How could I, considering what I did. My clients...” He paused, his jaw clenching. “My clients paid me to make them feel special, make love to them and fulfill a fantasy. I never made love to any of them because I wasn’t in love. I don’t know if you’ll ever understand this, but flesh is just flesh when you’re fucking it. The act means nothing. It has no value. There’s no depth or emotion other than lust. When you showed up on my front doorstep, you drew me from a dark place with your smile. Your eyes were so shiny, they sparkled. I could see your soul. An incredible, beautiful soul.” He took in a quick gasp of air, and his head turned away from her.
She didn’t want him to stop talking, so she wrapped her arm around his waist and held him tight.
“Just after you’d moved in, I left to see a client. I was standing out on the balcony in the middle of the Fijian Sea looking at the heavens filled with stars, and I reached for my phone. I needed to hear your voice. It was a balmy night in paradise, but I was cold until you picked up. That was only a short time after knowing you. I made an excuse and came home early because you were here, and I was too far away.
“I waited impatiently for four-thirty every day, when I knew I’d have an excuse to spend an hour with you and we’d run. For the longest time, I didn’t want to admit I was falling in love. I didn’t deserve you after what I’d done, but even when you knew what I was, you didn’t criticize me. You accepted me. Somehow, you put an invisible marker at the point we met and didn’t look back. Love, Mika, is more than skin deep. It has nothing to do with flesh and everything to do with what the heart desires.” Cain drew away and looked straight in her eyes. “I have never had, nor will I ever have, a desire as deep as I have for you. I need you in my life because I want to give you the best moments in yours. My passion comes from my heart, and has nothing to do with your skin. You asked me for a commitment, and I intend to keep it. My heart is reaching out and asking if you will be my wife and partner for as long as we live.”
Tiny snowflakes began to fall and Mika looked into the night sky. “Have you considered you’re doing this to pay a penance?”
Cain unfurled his hand, revealing an open velvet box. The diamonds caught the lights and twinkled like stars. “You mean a hundred different things to me, but don’t you ever call yourself that again or so help me God, I’ll spank your ass red.” The corners of his eyes creased. “You can stall all you want, because I have enough money to pay this gentlemen to keep going for the next sixty years. But I’d prefer you admit you love me and accept me with all my faults, so I can put this ring on your finger, and tell the Wyatts and Bens of the world that we will grow old together.”
Of all the scenarios and all the dreams she’d ever had, none of them dared to hope the most handsome, honorable man she’d ever met, would propose to her this way. He waited, his brow taut, his eyes hopeful.
“This isn’t real.”
He twirled his finger in a curl of her hair. “This is as real as it gets. I’m going to take care of you, and you’re going to take care of me. That’s what people do when they love each other.” He paused, then raised his brow. “So stop pissin’ around. Let me put this ring on your finger because it’s never coming off.”
Her lips twitched. “If I say yes, I won’t be able to call you Hooker Boy anymore.”
A grin slipped across his delicious mouth. “No, but Hot Buns works.” He brushed a kiss across her lips.
She tried to deepen it, but he pulled away.
“Now, now, my fair lady. I haven’t heard what I want to hear.”
She gave him a bashful look and mustered up a fine British accent. “It is to say, our paths should have never crossed, but now my heart is in your palm. Do not crush it if I say yes.”
Cain raised her hand, the lesions red and angry looking. Her brows flicked with worry, expecting to see disgust in his eyes as he slipped the ring onto her finger.
Cain spoke in his mother tongue. When she queried him with her gaze, he said it again. “Never in my life could I destroy something so brave and beautiful to me.”
After the world’s longest kiss, he pulled his cell and video messaged someone.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Dinky answered. What the heck?
He held the phone in the air. “She said, yes!”
The cheering and screeches from all their friends came through the tiny speaker.
“Then get your asses home, we’re ready to celebrate,” Dinky yelled back.
“Be there soon.” He disconnected and grinned as if he’d swallowed a large furry beast. “There was plan A and plan B.” His grin widened, showing his perfect white teeth.
“And plan B?”
“Intervention. All our friends are waiting back at the house. Kate was up first.” He kissed her gently with a sensual promise, then nuzzled her nose. “You didn’t stand a chance.”
She laughed. “That’s not fair.”
“It was a ten to one decision. Your friends love you and I love you. None of us was going to let you walk away without a fight.”
****
“Bye!” Mika yelled as all their friends poured out the door, waving.
The guys hooted something about consummating the engagement. She swallowed nervously at that one.
Dinky walked backward. “I’m coming over tomorrow morning for coffee, and I’m bringing all my wedding magazines.” She blew her a kiss, then jumped on Jeff for a piggyback ride to the car. Jen winked at them and wrapped her arm around her newest boyfriend. A good-looking man, but a little standoffish. Hopefully, he’d warm up. If he stayed with Jen, he’d just earned himself ten new friends.
She closed the door and scanned the mess. “I’m going to clean this up.” Cain’s arm shot out and caught her by the waist.
“Oh, no you don’t. If you don’t think I know what you’re doing, guess again.” He curled her into a bear hug. She wiggled, but there wasn’t much wiggle room.
“I don’t want to look at this mess tomorrow morning.”
He placed a slow kiss on her lips. “Get.” Another kiss. “Up.” Another kiss. “Stairs.”
Usually his kisses worked to soothe her, but instead her heart raged with fear. “We should talk about this.”
Nudging her, he backed her up toward the stairs. She took the first four, then plunked her butt down.
His chin dropped, and he shook his head.
“Talk,” she ordered.
“Fine,” he said sharply and muscled her into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way, dropping her unceremoniously on his large bed. He backed up, opening the buttons on his shirt. “Start talking. You’ve got about ten seconds to say what you want to say.”
She laughed nervously, but this was no laughing matter. “Stop.”
He wasn’t listening and kicked off his boots, then hooked his fingers in the waistband of his jeans. Why the hell did this man have to have such an extraordinarily hot body? A speckled trail of dark hair on a firm stomach led to his belt. His jeans sat low on his hips, revealing the sexy indents that she knew was called the Adonis belt. How appropriate for the Greek god that he was. She wanted to touch him, but she didn’t want him to touch her.
“Nothing? Good,” he said when she didn’t immediately make her argument.
She jumped up. “Stop. I—I can’t, Cain. I should have taken more time to think this through.” She didn’t expect to look up and see a very angry man staring back at her. Her stomach flopped over at the intensity of his glare. “Please, I understand why you’re mad.” She raised her hand and couldn’t believe how much her fingers shook—not a little, but a lot.
He gripped her arms tightly. “Mika, this is the last time I will ever say this, because this is the last time you will ever feel ashamed in front of me.” He leaned over, inches from her face.
The Greek was coming out again, and Greeks weren’t known to be passive fighters. When they were riled, and Cain was definitely riled, their tempers flared. His chest flexed with deep breaths. With molded pecs and bronze skin, he was perfection and although intimidated, she was also feeling the burn of desire.
Her gaze flashed to his. “How? How do you do it? I couldn’t.” She shook her head. “I can barely stand to look at myself. How...how?”
Cain stripped his pants off and stood before her, his hard, carved body making her wet. “You’re being stupid.”
She blinked. “Pardon me!”
“Take off your clothes.” When she resisted, the intense blue of his eyes snapped. “Now,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous timbre. “Slowly.”
She kept her attention on him. One tiny glint of disgust, and she knew she would run, but as she peeled each piece off, Cain’s shaft became harder. He stood with his muscled legs a little apart, his hands draped at his sides. Her heart beat like a thunderstorm as she stepped out of her pants. Slowly, he gripped his erection.
“Does this look like a man who isn’t turned on by the woman he desires?” One step brought them toe to toe, and he gently pinched her chin and raised her head. “You are more than your skin. Months ago, you asked me if I would be honest with you.”
She nodded.
“Then I will. I fell in love with a real woman. Your body is a vessel, but your soul is the essence of who you are. What shines through your eyes is what I see.” His palm flattened against the mottled skin on her stomach, and she took a nervous breath. “During our life together, this will come and go, but you will always remain the woman I put before all others.” He brushed a curl from her cheek. “In sickness and in health, I will never break my commitment to you. It hurts me to think you’re in pain, but I will not allow you to be embarrassed about something you can’t change. I told you that night when you made your promise to me, that it would be my choice if the P ever returned. You agreed.”
He palmed her cheeks, and his mouth powered onto hers, weakening her knees. With an arm around her waist, he laid her down, the cool sheets making her shiver. The desire in his eyes and the coiled tension in his body, spoke to her.
“My choice will forever be you.” His mouth brushed the words on her lips. “That’s my truth. What is yours?”
His shadowed jaw begged to be touched, and she ran her thumb along the edge, her breath shallow and uneven. “I choose to be brave.”
The world and all its many faults, all its challenges, tumbled away when he made them one, and all she saw was love.
