you desire later tonight, after dinner with our respective families.”
“You want to come back to my apartment tonight?” she squeaked, charming him.
The elevator doors closed, giving a false sense of privacy he had to once again fight taking advantage of.
“You have no reason to be nervous,” he assured her. “I am not an animal in the bedroom.”
Even if he wanted her with heretofore untapped primal mating instincts.
“Vik...” She blinked up at him, her lips parted slightly. “I told you, I’m a virgin.”
“What?” The elevator doors opened but he didn’t step out, his brain short-circuiting.
“I told you—”
“That you hadn’t been in a serious relationship.” But that didn’t mean she hadn’t had sex. Things happened. She was twenty-four. This was not possible.
“No random hookups.”
“Ever?” he asked in disbelief.
“I told you I had no experience.”
“In BDSM.”
“In anything.”
“That will change.” Viktor was not above using whatever means necessary to ensure the future he planned. Including being Madison’s first lover.
The fact he wanted her more than any woman he had ever known was beside the point.
She stepped off the elevator into the parking garage. “I don’t think being engaged to you is going to be anything like I was imagining.”
“If you thought it was going to be without sexual intimacy, I’d have to say you are right,” he said as he helped her buckle into the passenger seat of his car.
He gave in to the urge that had been riding him since the moment she’d opened her door and kissed her. He reined in his desire. Barely. And stepped back.
He closed her door and took several deep breaths before moving around the car to slide into the driver’s seat.
Her eyes glowing with blue fire, she asked, “No pretense of waiting for our wedding night?”
“We made our vows at the overlook this afternoon. Nothing said later between us will be any more profound.” He started the engine, but didn’t back out of the parking spot, waiting with an odd feeling in his chest for her reply.
“I thought it felt that way...like it was profound.”
“It was.” He put the car in gear.
“So what? You consider us married now?” She sounded like she didn’t believe her own words and yet he knew she had felt the weight of the promises they’d made earlier.
“As good as, yes.”
“You make your own rules, don’t you?”
“You are just now figuring this out?”
THE ENGAGEMENT DINNER was a lot more enjoyable than Maddie had expected it to be.
Especially considering the fact the guest list had grown to include some Archer second cousins, a Madison great-aunt, one of Misha’s nephews and his wife, who just happened to be visiting friends who owned a vineyard outside of Napa, and Romi.
Maddie’s father was all smiles, though underlying his bonhomie was an unfamiliar reticence with her that gave Maddie a certain level of comfort. He had not escaped this morning’s debacle in the conference room unscathed.
Small winces indicated he did not like her new habit of calling him by his first name, either, but if he wanted her to stop, he’d have to ask. Nicely. And behave like a father. Somehow.
She hadn’t started calling him Jeremy to hurt him, but because it simply hurt her too much to refer to a man who treated her like a stranger more often than not as Father.
Vik acted as a buffer between them, not exactly a new role for him, but one he hadn’t played with any consistency in six years.
Taking it a step further than he used to, Vik actually physically stood between her and others in unconscious protection whenever she felt herself growing uneasy. While no one had the bad taste to actually mention the articles spawned by Perry’s lies, family could manage intrusiveness in subtle ways strangers never could.
Thankfully, Vik seemed to recognize her moods—sometimes even before she did—and took steps to make sure the questions didn’t get a chance to edge into being blatantly intrusive.
Tellingly, no one seemed to find it hard to believe they’d been carrying on a relationship outside the media’s radar for months now. Not even Misha’s nephew evinced surprise at the engagement.
Everyone was happy to congratulate Maddie and Vik, making her feel like maybe this thing could really work.
Regardless of what had precipitated the engagement, their friends and family considered them a good match. A big part of her agreed.
She only hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake...that Vik was the man she was discovering. More the white knight in Armani than the heartless tycoon following in her father’s footsteps that she’d seen him as for the past six years.
Vik’s grandparents were wonderful, as always.
Misha was a gray-haired, slightly stooped version of Vik with an exuberant warmth very unlike his more reserved grandson. A retired scientist, Ana was both highly intelligent and gently affectionate by nature. She wasn’t as overt as her husband, but she would make a wonderful great-grandmother for Maddie and Vik’s children.
The magazine photographer turned out to be extremely good at fading into the background and Maddie found herself relaxing and enjoying the first real family dinner she remembered since her mother’s death.
* * *
“Your grandparents are such nice people.” Maddie allowed Vik to remove her coat and his own before taking both of them and hanging them in the hall closet.
Such a simple thing to do. She’d done it hundreds of times for other guests, but never with the same homey feeling—or sense of irrevocability that washed over her as she closed the closet door.
Vik was staying the night.
And Maddie’s heart was pounding in her chest like a bass drum.
Not from fear, though. No, nothing like it, though that surprised her. Shouldn’t there be at least a little anxiety?
She’d never done this before, after all.
But all she felt was excitement.
Maybe it was because she knew Vik would leave if she asked him to. Only she didn’t want him to leave.
She wanted him to follow through on the promise of passion in their kisses earlier. Besides, if they weren’t compatible in bed, that could be a real problem.
Right?
Only what were the chances when his kisses turned her inside out. Self-justification much?
She made a sound of self-deprecating humor.
“Liking my family is a source of amusement for you?” Vik’s hands landed on her shoulders before he turned her to face him.
His expression wasn’t mocking or judging, just inquisitive.
She smiled up at the beloved handsome face as she shook her head. “No, I was thinking about the things we tell ourselves to justify doing what we want to do.”
His look promised things she’d never experienced but was pretty darn sure she wanted to. “What things do