Lily did
not
smile and clearly found nothing Nate was saying amusing. She swallowed, not pushing away, not holding herself from him, he felt her melting into his body but she did not speak. She simply stared at him, her eyes unguarded, lips slightly parted, face soft.
That’s when Nate decided it was time to let her know all of it.
“When I was eleven, I went to work for one of Deirdre’s lovers. She had a lot of them and I learned early, because she didn’t hide it, what having a lover meant in the physical sense.” Nate watched Lily again bite her lip at this news but didn’t hesitate and carried on. “I stole from her lovers too. Sometimes they’d catch me, which wasn’t good, so I learned to avoid them, to be invisible or fast enough to escape them. If I didn’t, they’d beat me. Sometimes, they’d beat Deirdre and I’d try to stop them so they’d turn their attention to me. Deirdre never tried to stop them.”
“Didn’t try to stop –” Lily repeated but Nate talked over her.
“Scott, one of Deirdre’s lovers, put me to work making deliveries and doing pickups. I don’t know what I moved but I didn’t care. He gave me money and we never had any money. In the end Scott went away and I took a job direct with his boss. His boss wasn’t a good man, he was a dangerous man but he paid me more money than I’d ever seen before. I was good at it –”
“Stop,” Lily whispered and her voice and eyes were tortured.
“You have to know,” Nate returned quietly. He hated to see the look in her eyes but he believed with everything he was that he was correct, she
had
to know.
“I don’t have to know,” she repeated, contradicting his belief, her voice growing stronger.
“I was a criminal,” Nate told her bluntly. “Since I could remember, I stole, I –”
Suddenly and forcefully she pulled free of him but not to escape. She sat up and glared at him.
“You were
not
a criminal!” she snapped.
Nate followed her up. “I was, Lily. I worked for a gangster. Whatever was in those packages –”
“You were eleven years old, for crying out loud!” she yelled and he knew she was agitated. He knew this because she was being loud even though Laura was in the house and Maxine was also spending the night. She was also shifting in the bed with intent and before she could jump up and start pacing, he captured her in his arm. He pushed her to her back and rolled over her with his body.
Then he went on. He needed to say it all, get it out so she could make her decision.
“It doesn’t change what I did, who I was and that person is the father of your child and tomorrow, if you don’t back out, he’ll be your husband.”
Lily glared at him. “Are you a gangster now?”
Nate shook his head but responded, “Lily, there’s more you need to know.”
“Have you had a birthday party?” she asked, suddenly switching the subject what Nate thought was nonsensically and he stared at her, thrown for a moment, before replying.
“Lily, we’re talking about me being –”
“Have you ever had a birthday party?” she interrupted him, squirming underneath him to get away.
“What does it matter?” he asked, pressing into her to keep her where she was.
“It matters!” she shouted and stopped wriggling in order to scowl at him.
“Why?”
“I…” she snapped, “I don’t know why, it just does. Have you ever had one?”
“I never wanted one,” he replied.
“Well, you’re getting one this year,” she declared on a huff. “I
cannot
believe you’ve never had a birthday party. What’s your favourite kind of cake?” she fired off her question, eyes narrowed.
“Lily, I need to tell you the rest.”
“Nate, I don’t
care
about the rest. What kind of cake is your favourite?”
Nate stopped talking and stared at his bride-to-be.
He was telling her things of grave importance, things she needed to know before she legally bound herself to him. He was telling her things he’d never told anyone, not even Laura though he knew that Victor knew and guessed he’d told Laura, it was likely that Victor told Laura everything.
But Nate was telling Lily things he’d hidden from everyone, all his hideous secrets, and Lily was talking about cake.
“I don’t have a favourite cake,” Nate responded.
“Everyone has a favourite cake, Nate,” Lily informed him.
“Cake is cake,” Nate shot back, impatient to get back to the subject.
“Cake is
not
cake. There’s angel food cake and Victoria sponge. There’s coffee cake. There’s streusel cake. There’s cheesecake. Don’t
even
get me started on chocolate cake. There has to be hundreds of different kinds of chocolate cake.” She hesitated and Nate, thinking she was finished with her bizarre litany of cakes, opened his mouth to speak but then she went on. “German chocolate, devil’s food, chocolate sheet cake, chocolate mocha cake –”
Finally, he lost his patience and he interrupted her on a quiet explosion, “Lily, for Christ’s sake!”
That was when her hands came up to either side of his face and she stared him in the eyes. He realised she wasn’t looking at him with a wary, guarded expression nor were her shields up. She also wasn’t staring at him horrified and repulsed that he’d slept in dirty sheets, had a mother who was a drunken drug-addict and committed crimes before he was in his teens.
Instead, she was planning his birthday party.
And she was looking at him the way she used to look at him, with a look of awe, wonder, as if he was conqueror of nations, creator of worlds.
This hit him with the weight of a dozen anvils, he felt that weight and a clutch in his chest even as he felt warmth spread through his gut and his voice was rough when he murmured, “Lily.”
“I’m going to make you a cake,” she promised softly, “every week until your birthday so you can pick which one you like best.”
At her soft words, he felt the clutch in his chest release, completely and finally, leaving him free for the first time in his life to just
breathe
.
He pulled her tight into his arms, burying his face in the side of her neck and rolled to his back, taking her with him so she was on top.
“And we’re going to have a big party,” she continued speaking softly in his ear. “And we’re going to have a big Christmas. But, before that, we’re going to have a Fourth of July party and Thanksgiving –”
“I love you, Lily,” he whispered into her neck.
“And we’re going… what?”
He tilted his head back into the pillows and looked in her beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, Lily, more than anything on this earth.”
For a moment she just stared at him, her eyes wide and filling with wonder. Then he watched, fascinated, as they brightened with tears.
“Really?” she breathed.
Keeping their eyes locked, Nate lifted his head and brushed his lips against hers. “Really,” he said there.
“You love…
me?
” she asked, as if that was impossible to believe.
Because of Fazire’s story, he now understood her disbelief that he could love her even if it still stunned him and Nate knew he had to
make
her believe. His hand came up and tucked a sheaf of her heavy hair behind her ear.
“Yes, I love you,” he said, his voice hoarse with feeling.
“But –” she began and he kept going, resting his palm against her jaw and running his thumb along her tear-stained cheek.
“I loved you the minute I saw you, elegant, untouchable, beautiful and not for the likes of me,” he told her with complete honesty.
“Beautiful?” she whispered.
“When I first saw you, you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and I remember everything Lily, every woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. You were extraordinary, magnificent, so much so I couldn’t even move.” Nate watched as her tears came faster and his other hand came up to frame her face and wipe away the wetness with his thumb. Then he whispered, “You still are, darling.”
Her face clouded and she pulled slightly away. “I have to tell you…” she whispered hesitantly and went on cautiously, “it’s all a wish. You don’t really see
me
. You see what Fazire –”
“I know about Fazire,” Nate cut her off. “I know what he is. I know about your wish and it wouldn’t matter.” He watched her eyes grow round and he continued. “If there was no wish, no magic and no genies, I’d think the same thing. I see
you
Lily, your natural elegance, your beautiful eyes, your fantastic smile, your lush body –”
“Stop,” she cut in and rubbed her fingers across her cheeks, trying to brush away the tears as she pushed his hands away but he held fast.
“You
are
beautiful, but I don’t love you because you’re beautiful.”
She became still again in order to stare at him.
“Why do you love me?” she whispered and he answered immediately.
“Because you have the courage to jump on a purse snatcher’s back. Because you have an unnatural abhorrence to litter. Because you act like a ride on a motorcycle is like being given the keys to a kingdom of dreams. Because you have the ability to make all the people around you love you even when they barely know you. Because you inspire loyalty. Because you made our daughter happy even when you were not. Because you created a comfortable, loving home for her even though you had no money.”
“Nate, don’t –” she interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would blot out his words but he didn’t listen.
“Because you taste good and feel even better. Because you look at me like no one else has ever done.”
“Stop,” she broke in forcefully, her eyes flying open, “I want to tell you why I love you.”
He felt his body get tense.
“Do you?” he asked quietly.
“Do I what?” she asked in return.
“Do you still love me?”
He watched her brows snap together. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He smiled at her and he knew it was a smile filled with regret. “I don’t know, darling,” he answered softly, “maybe because I let you go, broke my promises, didn’t take care of you, made you beg for –”
She lifted her hand between them and waved at the air while saying, “Oh that. I’m over
that
.”
At this breezy announcement and her acting as if his constant betrayals of trust were akin to forgetting to take out the rubbish, Nate couldn’t have stopped it if he’d tried, which he didn’t and his body started shaking with laughter.
He decided instantly that he loved that about her too, her ability to forgive though, in the same instant, he vowed he’d never do anything that she’d have to forgive, not ever again.
His laughter was short-lived when he heard Lily gasp.
“What’s happened to your hand?” she cried, rearing back, she grabbed his wrist and stared at the bloody handkerchief tied around his hand.
“It’s nothing.”
She lifted her eyes from his hand to his face and glared at him and even with her angry glower, he could have kissed her.
“Right, nothing. Like my migraines are just headaches,” she snapped.
“Lily.”
She crawled over him, her hand latched to his wrist and pulled him out of bed.
“I want to see,” she said, tugging him toward the bathroom.
“I said, it’s nothing.”
She halted and turned back to him. “I
want
to
see
.” She underlined her words verbally and there she was.
He knew in that instant that he finally, irrevocably, had her back.
His Lily.
His.
She’d wished for him.
Him
.
Nathaniel McAllister.
He was meant for her and she was meant for him, they belonged to each other, they belonged together.
Relief sweeping through him, he gave his wrist a swift yank. Pulling her off balance and into his arms, his head descended and his mouth took hers for a quick, hard kiss.
When he was done and he saw the smoky dark blue at the edge of her irises was creeping toward the pupil, he muttered in a voice that said, clearly, she really had no choice in the matter, “You can see when I’m done making love to you.”
Without hesitation she agreed, “Okay.”
It was then that he started laughing again but this, too, was short-lived because Lily leaned up on tiptoe, threw her arms around his neck and she gave him a hard kiss.
But Lily’s wasn’t quick.
* * * * *
Much later, Lily’s naked back pressed to his front, Nate buried his face into her fragrant hair.
He hadn’t made love to her, she had pushed him to his back and she’d made love to him, her mouth and hands on him as she spoke softly, lips against his skin, telling him all the reasons she loved him.
Not because he was rugged, lean-hipped and wealthy with a broken heart she needed to (and did) mend.
But because he was, she said, brilliant. He was strong and people respected him. He kissed well and she mentioned something about gymnasts doing cartwheels and back handsprings in her belly but he wasn’t paying much attention because, at the time she was saying it, her tongue was tracing the ridges of his own stomach and he found he couldn’t concentrate on her words. She told him he had a beautiful smile. She informed him, to his surprise, her parents would have liked him. She explained he was a good son to Laura and Victor. She said he was good at taking care of her when she was ill. And finally, she finished with the fact that he made her feel safe and he was an excellent father.