CHAPTER 76
ALEXIA PALLIS.
I did some shopping. Then I checked my texts. No other texts from him since I last texted.
Brenda bribed me with some sugar in the form of cupcakes to cheer me up. Then I checked my phone again. Nothing.
We watched some trashy reality show. I still peeked at my phone. And nothing from him.
Part of me was upset.
The other part of me that loved Christian Volkov was worried.
Had something happened to him?
Or was he with…no. I wasn’t going there.
By the time me and Millie hit the hay, it was hard catching sleep.
I contemplated calling him but he hadn’t called me back since he tried to speak to me yesterday through Jett’s phone.
Jealousy and anxiety ate their way up my spine.
I must have fallen asleep for some time because the next minute I come to; I don’t have to be told Christian is in the room with me.
His naked chest hugs my back. His smell overpowers everything including the hard pounding in my chest.
Then his kisses land on my shoulder and even in the dark, I try to pull away only for the hand on top of my tummy to hold me in place.
“Jetlagged, having taken the first flight home, almost fired my driver twice and this is the welcome I get, Tesoro?”
I don’t speak.
I could pretend to be sleeping but he knows I’m awake so I give him my back because he owes me a goddamn explanation.
“I was promised lingerie when I came back? Baby, you are not only not wearing lingerie but also fully clothed in our bed. Since when do you sleep with clothes?”
Since you stopped answering my texts.
I don’t speak. The second time for the night.
“You are allowed to be fucking mad, you are allowed to give me the cold shoulder because you are the only woman who would do that and it would affect me but you’ve gotta understand I got myself into a situation back in Chicago.”
Now I turn and my eyes are burning with jealousy and a few tears as I face him. I won’t cry though. No pregnancy hormones are going to make me cry for a man.
“Question. If I went on a date with a man because of a ‘situation’, would you be mad?”
We are in the dark sure but I can trace every feature of his because I have it memorized in my heart, in my system, in my mind.
I can see those dark eyes linger on me and the fact that he has not removed his hand on my tummy makes talking to him harder.
“Is the man me?”
You wish.
“No.”
“Then I’d kill the man on the spot while you watched.”
“Good, then you got my answer. You went on a date with another woman while I was stuck here pining for you to come back home to me. I’m not a killer per se but I sure as hell wanted that woman to disappear from beside you in that damn magazine. Just why…why would you do that?”
“Ask me.”
“That’s all you have to say to me?”
“Ask me about everything I did in Chicago and I’ll tell you everything. No secrets remember?”
“Did you kiss her?”
“The only lips I hunger for are yours.”
Stop.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“She’s not my type.”
I gasp, he rubs his smooth hand on my tummy like he isn’t breaking me to pieces.
“What’s your type? What if she was your type?”
“Impossible.”
“My type’s a stubborn blondie I know who’s pregnant with my kid, the only woman I’ll let touch me when I’m hurt, the only woman who has me riding economy class so that I can get here on time and grovel if that means she forgives me for any type of shit I’ve done to her. Her name’s Alessandra by the way but that fucking name is a mouthful, I’d rather call her mine. She has an ant-shaped birthmark at the base of her spine too.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ve held you in ways no man has, believe me, I know all the birthmarks peppering my little nurse’s skin.”
His hand lands on my cheek and I’m too afraid to lean into it.
His reassuring words should be enough but the same way he’s pissed when a man is close to me is the same way I’m pissed when some woman gets close to him.
Looking into his eyes, at least I think it’s his eyes, I ask, “What happened in Chicago?”
“A good cop I died. His life cut short by one of my men. In return I had to end the life of said man for what he did. I’m no god but the bastard had it coming for all his sins. The chief of Chicago PD threatened to put me behind bars if I didn’t go on a date with his heartbroken and sullen daughter. I should have said no to the date, sunshine. I get that but that would have meant Jefferson getting on my ass and my stay in Chicago being longer than I promised. I didn’t kiss her, didn’t fuck her, wouldn’t even dream of touching the girl. I talked about you though.”
“About me?”
“Do you want to marry me?”
He says those words so casually they almost sound like a mere ‘do you like cookies’ but when the words finally hit me, really hit me, I almost choke on saliva.
His steady breathing licks my skin like wildfire.
Then like a Machiavellian with no limit when it comes to wrecking me over and over, he speaks, “I wanted to buy you a ring so I asked for the biggest stone they have and apparently they needed to fit you for the ring itself?”
“Christian…”
“I’m not one for such formalities but you’d look too fucking good with my ring on.”
“Christian. It’s too…soon.”
That has him stopping altogether.
The warmth from his hands disappears.
“What do you mean too soon?”
I love you.
I haven’t told you that yet.
You haven’t told me that yet.
“Nothing. Let’s put everything behind us…”
“It’s cute you think I’m putting you leaving my ass high and dry behind us. Why do you not want to get married?”
“It’s not your thing?”
“Try again, sweetheart and it better be the truth this time or we take all those clothes off and I spank the answer out of you.”
“No spanking. Please.”
“Sunshine.”
“You have not confessed.”
“Confessed to what?”
I gulp the nervousness choking my throat.
At the risk of sounding like a cliched Hallmark TV damsel, I whisper into the night, “We’ve not confessed to loving each other.”
He laughs.
A full-blown chuckle that timbres all the way from his tummy up his chest and with an extra flair to mock me.
“I don’t need words to show you I love you, sunshine. I fuck you like it’s my last time to do so, I kiss you like a teenage boy discovering how good a female’s lips taste like, I crave for your pussy like a-.”
My hand covers his mouth and he licks the back of it like a freak.
“I could go on and on about you if that’s enough to say I love you and if it’s not I love you, Alessandra Pallis Volkov.”
“I love you too, don.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Not now, no. In the future maybe.”
He only kisses my palm like my words are a fleeting whisper because he has the upper hand.
His hand travels to my back, pulling me to him till my boobs are smudged to his chest.
“How about I show my future wife how badly I missed not hearing her voice?”
*THREE MONTHS PREGNANT*
“Turn around.”
He orders and I don’t hide the giggle that bursts from me or the blush that creeps to my cheeks.
I turn around.
I’m sure I’m red and I’m sure I don’t even mind as my man gazes down at me admiring my ass with no shame.
I try to turn back to face him but his voice pins me down.
“Did I say you could turn around?” he asks.
My knees shake.
My feet feel like they’ll give out and he knows that.
He knows how horny I grow when he orders me around.
“I have to try the other dresses.”
“I like this one better. It brings out your ass more. And the cut out of the front part shows your bump in a sexy way.”
I turn around. The saleslady standing next to the L couch gives me a fake smile because she’s kind of embarrassed to have to stand there and listen to Christian gawk over all the dresses I try on.
“You said that about the other dresses too.”
“Baby, you make everything in this store look good.”
No I don’t.
“I look like a pregnant whale and I’m not even due yet.”
Christian’s eyes hold me on the spot, hypnotizing me and sending goosebumps all over my skin.
It doesn’t help that he’s in his usual dark suits that show a bit of that chest I like licking now and then.
He’s fit. He’s muscular. The dark hair falling on his forehead makes him look every bit of menacing and scary. But in a hot way.
I look like I jumped in a vat of donuts and decided to eat my way out.
Standing from the couch, he eyes the saleslady, uttering something in Italian.
“Dacci un’ora.”
At least that’s what I hear before the saleslady bows at me and walks out of the shop that has me and Christian in it.
The distance between us vanishes in an instant as his height towers over me completely.
I haven’t been wearing heels lately. Which means he’s been towering over me, eating my height into two at home and at work when I go to visit him and I end up begging him to fuck me in his office.
“What did we say about making fun of your body?”
“That I shouldn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the prettiest pregnant woman to walk the earth. Whether I have stretch marks or not.”
“And?”
“Whether I weigh look like a baby hippo, it won’t matter because I’ll be your baby hippo.”
“Damn right you are. Fucking sexy is what you are.”
The seductive way his deep voice feathers across my forehead has me squirming.
“Christian?”
“Mmmh?”
“We have to go home.”
“We are not yet done shopping for your clothes.”
“I don’t think I can stay another minute like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I want to jump your bones.”
He smiles, then he leans in to kiss me leaving me breathless.
“Lucky for us, I own the store.”
“You bought it?” I ask puzzled.
“I buy everything you like, Tesoro.”
*FOUR MONTHS PREGNANT*
“Baby? Baby?”
I poke his chin and he doesn’t wake up because he sleeps like a log.
My hand skims over his chest, skimming over those carefully sculpted abs that feel like he’s been going to the gyms since his baby gums popped out his first milk teeth.
I feel like peeing most of the time.
But more than that?
I crave this man like a drug I can’t get enough of.
My hand lingers on the waistband of his shorts contemplating whether to dive in or not.
I have come to terms that he is no saint so when he comes home looking like he’s fighting demons inside of him, I let him be with me.
Because being with me is the only way he remembers that he is alive and that the reality is he has me and our baby and Millie.
And when those demons mess with his head, he mostly doesn’t speak. No, he makes love to me like I’m the only one who can exorcise those demons he’s fighting.
Afterward, he carries me to the tub and washes me, making sure I’m clean and that he doesn’t hurt me in any way.
Tonight, he was rough.
I’d never tell him that because secretly I like rough and I like that I’m the only one he can come to when he’s feeling like that.
I decide to sneak my hand into his shorts only to be stopped by his rough and sleepy voice.
“You are supposed to be asleep, tesoro.”
“I should but I-.”
“Is it your feet?”
They are not swollen per se but God knows last night while I was reading seated on his lap, my feet throbbed.
“No. I’m hungry.”
“God, of course you are”, he makes it sound like he’s used to it by now.
“Pasta? Chicken? Rice?”
“Ice cream.”
“Ice cream in the middle of the night? That doesn’t sound healthy, baby.”
“You’ve been denying me ice cream and giving me healthy yogurt every time I ask for it. Now I want it and I want it bad.”
“I don’t think there’s any ice cream in the fridge though.”
“Christian please. The baby needs it.”
Because that’s what gets him to cooperate. Every time.
“You sure?”
“Mmhmm.”
He kisses my forehead before he groggily gets out of bed taking his car keys and I know very well he won’t wake Jett up or God forbid, Yan.
He’ll go to the store himself to get me that tub of ice cream.
*FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS PREGNANT*
The Cosa Nostra heir, as much as all of Italy knows who he is, in order to appease the cops and any legal authority; he has to act like any normal businessman in the aristocratic society we live in.
For that to happen, he has to throw charity galas.
This week’s charity gala is for abused woman trying to get back on their feet.
I know Christian threw it for me even though he didn’t say it.
And I feel damn well when the men in the party who would rather marry off their daughters to brutes than make them heirs, invest their dollars in a cause like this without knowing they are helping those same abused women in their households.
I glance at Christian from across the room.
He looks like he’s busy listening in on whatever those old geezers have to say but in reality, I know he’s thinking about me and how he’ll tear off this dress on me and rub my tummy afterward while speaking to our daughter. Or son.
I raise my glass of mango juice and he gives me a smile.
A smile that sweeps the ground from my feet as happy tears brim into my eyes.
As soon as those tears flock to my eyes, Christian Volkov comes to me in a rush.
It doesn’t matter the kind of audience we have.
It doesn’t matter these men who probably view women like us as weaknesses.
My man doesn’t treat me like a weakness.
He-he loves me.
“Where does it hurt?”
That’s the first thing he asks me.
I look at him and say words I never thought I would say to anyone.
“Marry me.”