ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (77 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Cold.
Darkness.
Pain. I had known these things before, but time seemed to stretch out as my
senses began to wake from their unnatural slumber. Everything felt slower,
almost as if I’d been taken out of the normal world and thrust into something
supernatural. I could feel my heart racing in my chest.

My heart… A heartbeat… I’m alive!

The
realization seemed to sweep through me, connections turning on as I could feel
myself moving, little sensations of touch filtering through the fog. Where the
hell was I? What was going on? I forced my eyes open, the blurry brightness
causing them to clamp back shut immediately.

Oh, fuck. I’ve been drugged!

I had
to get out of here. I had to do something to run, to save Nathan, to escape
this place. I began to thrash in place, even as a pain shot out from my arm,
searing into my shoulder and neck. I reached across my body blindly, feeling
the tubes, struggling to understand what the hell was happening to me in this
terrible place.

“Nurse!”

The
voice was strange, almost ethereal. I thrashed harder as I felt hands pinning
my shoulders down, but then a strange sense of calm flooded over me like the gentle
lapping of the tide coming in. I felt warm and light, like I was soaring beyond
myself, back into the blackness I’d fought so desperately to escape.

They were drugging me again! No!

But as
hard as I tried to claw back toward the light, it faded again, and there I was
in the cold, the darkness, the pain…

The
next time I woke was different. It wasn’t the hard beating of my heart that
brought me back into the world; it was the soft touch of someone’s fingertips
on my palm, and the overwhelming scent of flowers.

“You’re going to be okay…”

The
whisper was nice. The voice was soft, and each syllable seemed to caress me,
wrapping me up in a warmth I’d almost forgotten existed. I took a chance and
fluttered an eye, glad to be shrouded in darkness. I could feel my hand being
squeezed.

“That’s right. Come back to me, Sandra.”

My eyes
flashed open, unfocused, straining to understand. I was in a hospital room,
that much was certain, but it was nicer than the ones I’d seen as a child—much
nicer than the facility my grandma had lived in during the last hard years of
her life. High tech equipment and soothing colors surrounded me. Even the bed I
was lying in seemed unusually comfortable. More importantly, the room was
filled with flowers of every size and color imaginable, even more opulent than
the display Nathan had put on back at the Peachtree.

Nathan… that voice…

As I
turned my head, I saw him beside him.

“Nathan,” I whispered, staring up at him.

“I’m
here,” he replied, his face contorting with emotion. Regret, fear, happiness,
love—I watched all of those feelings shift across his face as he watched over
me. My heart began to race as I tried to piece together exactly what had
happened to me back at Captain Pierce’s house.

“The Captain… he shot me. We have to stop him.”

Nathan
just laughed softly, running his fingertips along my arm. Even in my weakened
state, he gave me goosebumps.

“Relax,
Sandra. He came out of that house looking like a hero, but it turns out there
are still a few good cops on the force. When you went storming into the
building, you left a car with a busted trunk and all the evidence you needed to
put that asshole away for life just sitting there on the passenger seat. You’re
lucky the right person found it.”

Lieutenant
Daniels
, I thought to myself. I’d been
right about him. He
was
a good cop.
I’d owe him big time for this one.

“Where is he?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“The
Captain? You don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s in a holding cell
waiting to be charged right along with a dozen paddies. He rolled on the whole
organization. You should see the news. This whole thing has been one hell of a
story. You’d hate it.”

I
laughed and instantly regretted it. Pain shot through my neck, and I hissed as
it momentarily blinded me.

Nathan
grimaced. “Sorry. Don’t laugh. You did take a bullet, remember? Few inches in
either direction and it would have taken out your spine or your jugular.
Doctors said you’re lucky to be alive,” he added, holding my hand tightly. “I
told them you were too goddamn stubborn to die.”

That
shed some light on what had happened to me. but I still had questions for him
to answer. “Where are we now? This doesn’t look like County General.”

He
grinned a little. “I hope you don’t mind, but the hospital they had you in was
a little beneath my standards. Soon as you were stable, I had them move you
here. Good Samaritan East, best care you can get this side of the Mason Dixon
line.” His expression softened. “My baby deserves the best,” he told me.

I blew
out a slow breath. Good Samaritan East wasn’t in my provider network. This
whole thing must have cost a fortune, but then I realized I was worrying over
nothing. Fortunes were something Nathan could afford to lose. Hell, it might
even humble the guy a bit… But something about his words caught me off guard.

Baby? He never called me baby…

I
glanced up at his eyes, and suddenly I understood. My hand softly moved to my
tummy, holding it tight.
No words could express the way I was feeling.

“Relax… You’re fine, and so is our little miracle,”
Nathan said, placing a hand over my own. “Everything is going to be ok.”

Nathan’s
face blurred before me, and I squinted, trying to make him out. “Nathan,” I
whispered, feeling drowsy again. I desperately fought to focus. I didn’t want
to lose him again.

“Yes?” he replied quietly, stroking my cheek.

I
leaned into his touch, craving just a few more seconds of lucidity. “Stay with
me… Stay with us…”

He
nodded, leaning forward to press his lips against my forehead just above the
bridge of my nose. “Always, Sandra,” he promised me. “I’ll always stay.”

I let
his words wrap me in a tender embrace as I closed my eyes and drifted
blissfully away.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Paris
is cold
in the winter. You never really think about that when you’re looking at pretty
pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the quaint, narrow streets paved with
cobblestones. It all looks so warm and inviting, and yet here I was, being
forced toward shelter by the crisp and biting wind stinging my dark skin.

The dress wasn’t helping.

I
shuffled up the steps of the huge church in the sheer, but billowing white
folds of cloth. It draped beautifully over my frame, but did nothing to hide my
obvious pregnancy. The strapless bodice was especially troublesome, as it
exposed my expanding cleavage to the frigid air. At this point, I would have
traded the whole outfit for a pair of yoga pants and one of Nathan’s big
stretchy white t-shirts.

It was
my fault, of course. I was the idiot who had to go outside for a breath of
fresh air just a few minutes before the wedding. I’d taken on the Irish mafia,
almost single-handedly dismantled a sex-trafficking ring, and exposed the
corruption running rampant through my city’s police department, and yet nothing
seemed so terrifying as walking up the steps and through the doors toward my
destiny.

Everyone
was waiting inside to start, cradled in the warmth of the cathedral. I was
happy to see them, and obviously elated to be there, but this had all happened
so fast… Was I ready? Could we truly be a family?

I
thought back to everything that had led up to this moment. Unsurprisingly,
Nathan didn’t want me returning to the force after I’d recovered, especially
once I’d testified against the Captain. Right or wrong, cops looked after their
own, and there was enough corruption to ensure I’d never see another
promotion—or worse, that backup might not arrive next time I needed it. He told
me I could oversee his security team, but that was just an excuse to keep me
close while he found a suitable ring.

And
what a ring it was.

I
glanced down, the oversized diamond sparkling wildly in the colored light that
streamed down from the stained glass windows. It was a platinum band with a
sixteen-carat monstrosity situated right in the center of it. I wasn’t the kind
of girl who spent her life dreaming of her wedding day, but on the occasions in
which I had contemplated it, I never once imagined I’d have a ring or a dress
as beautiful as this. Sure, it had to be custom-tailored to fit over my eight
month pregnant belly, but that was a problem money
could
solve.

I
looked away from the ring and toward the people staring expectantly at me from
the pews. This was it. My moment. I almost laughed at the beauty of it all.

Everyone
turned to watch as I stepped onto the red carpet leading to the altar. The
organ began to play its marching tune, filling the space with warm,
reverberating tones that disturbed the butterflies once lying dormant in my
stomach.

Here comes the bride…

I tried
not to look at the crowd, instead focusing on the man waiting for me just a few
feet away. Nathan looked incredible. He was standing at the end of the aisle,
that goddamn smirk spread wide across his handsome face, shifting in
anticipation as he watched me steadily approach. I’d gotten used to looking at
his thousand-dollar suits and his shoes that cost more than my car, but this
was on a whole other level. There wasn’t a stitch on his clothing that had been
made by a machine. It wasn’t just hand-tailored; it was molded, every fiber of
the cloth handcrafted for this very moment. Ours were a pair of outfits
suitable for a prince and a princess, worn by a billionaire and an ex-detective
who wasn’t quite ready to wear several million dollars’ worth of diamond
jewelry and a dress too pretty to sit down in.

I took
my first step toward him, clutching my bouquet to my chest. I didn’t have a
father to give me away. He’d left while I was still in elementary school, which
either was because of, or had led to my mother’s addiction—I’d been too young
to tell. Only a few distant relatives had come in his stead, and as much as I
appreciated their support, I wasn’t about to let my uncle’s third cousin walk
me down the aisle. Like everything else in life, if I was going to do this,
then I was going to do it alone.

A
certain solemnity hit me, just for a moment. I wished my mother could’ve been
here, and Jenny—or at least, the versions of them I held so near and dear to my
heart. In my mind’s eye, they were always sober, happy, and at peace, always
living the best days of their lives. Nothing could have made this day any more
perfect except for their smiling faces beaming at me from the pews. I felt a
pang of regret sting my heart as I envisioned them doing just that.

I
couldn’t let them bring my moment down. Nathan and I had decided back in that
shitty Peachtree Overlook apartment that there was no use in hanging on to
ancient history. We couldn’t change what had happened back then to either of
us, but we could certainly change our futures.

That
was what I was moving toward now, I realized: my future. My heart swelled as I
began to step toward him in time with the music, tears brimming in my eyes as I
let go of my guilt. I walked away from the ghosts of my mother and Jenny, and I
reached out for Nathaniel Hale.

With
every step, the one that followed seem to come even easier. I walked past the
rich and the famous and the row of cameras capturing the event for the evening
news. A real Cinderella tale, they’d say: a pretty detective from the Bronx
finding her billionaire prince. They’d talk about how lucky I was.

And they’d be wrong.

Nathan
Hale was the lucky one. He’d found the woman who could love him for all of his
strengths and all of his flaws—of which there were many, I reminded myself with
a grin. He’d found someone who could satisfy his most secret desires and make his
dreams come true.

That
was why I was marrying him. I was doing this because every single day, he made
me feel like I was worth all of this. Every challenge we faced, big or small,
every danger we’d overcome and every dollar spent—I was worth it.

And I couldn’t have loved him more.

His
eyes sparkled with the same tears I was holding back as I stepped up onto the
platform. The priest said the words that would bind us for all eternity, but I
wasn’t paying attention. My whole world consisted only of the one man who had
become a bigger part of it than I had ever anticipated. When Nathan whispered
his “I do,” it barely even registered. My reply was just as simple, the two
words slipping out breathlessly and effortlessly from my lips.

The
priest closed his book. I could hear the smile in his words as he said, “You
may now kiss the bride.”

We
collided, the world melting away in that moment as our lips made their first
contact as husband and wife. Everything around us was simply a farce. The fairy
tale wedding, the dress and the church and the pretty faces—none of it
mattered. The only real thing was
this,
our love and passion. Nathaniel Hale belonged to me, and I to him, and as our
kiss stretched on and on, I was in no hurry to return to reality.

Everything
else could have gone to shit. The church could have burned down around us, for
all I cared. This was perfection, and nothing could ever compare.

“I love
you, Sandra,” Nathan said, his lips finally parting from mine.

“I love
you too,” I whispered in reply, smiling as I stared into his glittering eyes.
“Now, can we get out of here before these cameras see things unfit for
broadcast?”

“What
about everybody else?” Nathan said, glancing past me at the crowd as if he
hadn’t noticed them before.

“We’re in Paris,” I replied, laughing. “Let them eat wedding
cake.”

Everyone
in the room erupted into cheers as Nathan lifted me from the floor, my
billowing white dress pouring over his strong arms as he carried me to the
doors at the side of the cathedral.

“Well,
don’t just stand there,” Nathan shouted over the noise. “Grab some champagne
and enjoy the party!”

The
room cheered again as we burst through the doors and into a short hallway
leading to a sunlit path. Cold wind bit into me again, now infiltrating from
beneath my dress as Nathan carried me outside the church. I shivered in his
arms, but quickly found myself thrust into the backseat of a long, black
limousine that was waiting for us. The heated seats immediately brought relief
to the chills sweeping through me.

Nathan
just stood there at the door, letting the cold in as he stared at me, my legs
awkwardly kicked up over the seat. I leaned forward, grabbing at his tie and
pulling him in through the door, laughing as the chauffeur closed it behind us.
Nathan tried valiantly to get the blacked-out divider up as the amused driver
looked on. The window was closing too slowly as I ripped at Nathan’s belt,
straddling him in my dress and lowering myself around his raging erection.

“Slow
down,” he chuckled. “We have all night and if you’re not careful, we’ll have a
baby with French citizenship...” He gripped me and moaned, shuddering as our
bodies once again came together, though this time felt like it meant so much
more than the last.

“You
didn’t marry a slow girl,” I playfully replied, rocking my hips and driving him
deep within my yearning body. He grunted softly, his hands gliding up my back
to pull at the laces holding my bodice in place. “Besides, a marriage isn’t
official until you consummate it.”

“What
is this, the sixteenth century?” Nathan said, laughing even as I drew myself
against him and worked his throbbing shaft with every ounce of my being. The
sensation of his cock slipping inside drove me wild. The fire between us only
flared brighter as we explored our newly formed marital bonds.

“Just make
love to me, Nathan,” I told him, placing my hand gingerly on his cheek. “No
witty comments. No stupid grins that you can hide behind. Take me like it’s the
very first time. Make me yours all over again.”

We
reveled in each other’s passion, basking in the knowledge that we would be
together forever. A love like this didn’t come to an end. Though I didn’t say
it out loud, I knew in my heart that not even death could separate us.

I moved
on top of him, steady and slow, gasping as he finally freed my breasts from
their fabric prison. He buried his face between the swollen mounds, carefully kissing
and touching, gingerly lapping at my sensitive nipples until they hardened
under his tongue. For once he was letting me have control. It was how I knew
that I
really
had him. He had finally
surrendered to me as much as I had to him.

He tugged
dress up and off my body, revealing my pregnant nakedness. He moaned, watching me
ride him ever so slowly. I dug my nails into his shoulders and pressed my
forehead against his, on the verge of collapsing as my new husband drove me to
the brink of orgasm.

“I love
you,” I breathed, shivering as a telltale current jolted through me, heralding
my impending orgasm. I bit my lip, looking lustfully into his eyes. “I don’t
think I can hold back, Nathan…”

“Don’t,”
he commanded me, “You don’t ever have to hold back with me, Sandra. I love you.
And that’s never, ever going to change.”

I let
myself go, staring out the window at the streets of Paris as our bodies blended
into one. I knew this wasn’t the end.

This
was only the beginning.