Page 47 of Adrian

She shrugs nonchalantly.

“Hey… What kind of reaction is that?”

“I didn’t have a good role model. I mean, my parents were fine. They were good to me. They provided me with everything money could buy, but there’s more to life than material things. What if I’m not good at nurturing a child?”

I slide my finger to her chin and tip her head back so I can look in her eyes. “Baby, you’re going to be amazing.”

“But what if I’m not? What if I suck and our kids hate me and run away from home like I did after twenty-six years of feeling stifled?”

“I don’t know your parents, of course, but it doesn’t seem like raising a child was a priority to them.”

“It wasn’t at all. Sometimes, I think they had me so they would have an heir, and that’s even scarier because I worry about what they might do now that I’m about to inform them they, in fact, do not have an heir.”

All I can do is kiss her temple and try to reassure her. “The fact that you’re aware of what you didn’t like about your childhood speaks volumes, princess.”

“I want to be totally different as a parent. I want to be present. Instead of sending a nanny to play Go Fish with my kids, I want to get on the floor and play with them myself. I want to put clothes on Barbies and have tea parties. I want to play dress-up and color outside the lines and make messes. I want them to sit on the counter and help me bake cookies.” She sits upright and twists around, eyes wide. “I don’t know how to bake cookies.”

Laughter bubbles inside me, but I hold it back. She’s serious about this. It’s bothering her. I need to be sensitive and understanding here. Cupping her neck, I bring my lips to hers. “Baby, you’re already so self-aware that you’re light-years ahead of your parents. If you want those things for your children, we’ll make them happen.”

“I never pictured myself having kids. I never imagined I’d have time. I figured I would be in a lab twelve hours a day and come home to a frozen dinner and an absent husband.”

“Where would he be, princess?”

She shrugs. “Off with his friends playing tennis, or fuck, I don’t know, with his mistress? Someone who sucked his cock better than me or spread her legs with more eagerness than I did.”

I grit my teeth. This is what my wife expected out of a marriage. That makes me sad and livid. “I will never leave you sitting at home alone in the evening while I’m out entertaining myself somewhere else. I promise. You will always be number one to me. I can’t imagine a day when I won’t be counting down the minutes until I can be with you again. Maybe, instead of having a career, you’d rather be home with our kids?”

Blair shrugs.

“Don’t take me wrong, baby. The last thing I want to infer is that a woman’s place is in the home. I don’t believe that for a second. I want you to do whatever makes you happy. If that means working in some capacity, you should do so. If you’d rather be with our kids, you should do that. I can tell you that I intend to follow in my brothers’ footsteps and be a hands-on dad; the kind who comes home for lunch and throws a ball in the yard. I have a lot of fucking money, princess, and I’d rather use it to make sure I have time for my family than waste decades of my life, working eighteen hours a day, so my wife and kids don’t even know me.”

She looks at me again. “I’m not sure you’re a real person.”

I chuckle. “I’m real. You’ve just been surrounded by robots.”

Blair sighs. “Yeah. I guess so. Thank goodness I decided to move to the mountains.”

“Thank goodness I found you and warned you to get out of that house.”

“You’re a knight in shining armor.”

“Just jeans, baby.”

“Fancy jeans.” She giggles. “Mr. Fancy Jeans.”

I lift her hips and turn her around. “Straddle me, princess. Let me show you what I can do with the shaft I keep in my jeans.”

Seventeen

Blair

* * *

I’m out in the garden when it happens. It’s my third day living on Gallant Mountain, married to a man who proves time and again that I’ve made the right choice. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see an incoming text from Adrian.

This is a new phone with a new number. Adrian doesn’t want me stressing all the time about who might reach out from my family, so he set me up with a new phone that only has his family members’ contact details in it. When it vibrates or rings, I don’t instantly panic. It can’t be my mom or dad.

Hey, baby. There’s an SUV headed this way. It will be here in a few minutes.