Fantasyland 04 Broken Dove (43 page)

He smiled but didn’t speak until he made it to me, curled his arms loosely around me and I’d put my hands to his chest.

Then his deep voice rumbled, “Hey.”

That wasn’t a word he’d ever used. It was a my world word. And something about him using it made my heart sigh.

To get my mind off that
,
I shared, “I like your house.”

His warm eyes got warmer and he gathered me closer but he kind of freaked me out when he did this at the same time he asked, “I would assume with the other me’s nefarious dealings, he could provide you with a grand home.”

“You would, uh…assume correctly,” I confirmed hesitantly.

“Is mine grander?” he queried.

At that, I got it.

It was Apollo wanting to give me better.

So I smiled and leaned into him. “Yeah, by, like,
a lot.
”

He smiled back, pulled me closer and murmured, “This pleases me.”

I felt all gushy because Apollo was pleased and I liked it when he was pleased.

Damn, I was fading fast. Fading into this world. Fading into him.

And I didn’t mind. Not even a little bit.

It was the fact I didn’t mind that freaked me.

That was, I didn’t mind until he announced, “As my home is agreeable to you, I’ll charge Loretta and Meeta with packing your things and we’ll move you here tomorrow morning.”

I forgot all about fading and blinked.

“What?”

“Tomorrow, we shall move you here. It’s not far to get to you, my dove, but it’ll be far better to take dinner with you here and go to bed with you, also here, which means I’ll wake here as well.”

Um…

Move in with him.

Tomorrow?

Was he nuts?

“Uh, Apollo, by tomorrow I will twice have done something crazy in front of your kids and once, hopefully, acted like a sane person though a dinner with them. That’s hardly time to move me in.”

“You will have met them. You will be getting to know them. Thus there will no longer be reasons for you to avoid them. You like my home. I see no purpose in us continuing our current arrangement.”

“It’s too soon,” I told him, by a miracle succeeding in not letting my voice rise in panic.

“Too soon?” he asked, clearly perplexed.

“Yes. Too soon for them. Too soon for you and me.”

“Maddie, how is it too soon?”

Yep. He was perplexed. And I was perplexed at how he could be.

I leaned back in his arms. “I’ve only”—I lifted my hands and did air quotation marks—“
known you
for a week. A week is way too soon to live together.”

“And how are we not living together now?” he asked. “We dine together. We go to bed together. We wake together.”

Alas, this was a good point.

Luckily, I also had a good point.

“What about the kids?”

“What about them?” he asked and I blinked again.

“Apollo, you can’t seriously be suggesting I move in with two kids who I’ve said half a dozen words to.”

“No, I’m suggesting you move in tomorrow morning when hopefully through dinner you’ve said much more.”

I could tell he was getting impatient because his tone was sliding along the edge of sarcastic.

So I lowered my voice to one I thought would calm him when I explained, “It’s way too soon for the children. Honey,” I hesitated then reminded him of something I knew I didn’t have to remind him of, “I look like their mother.”

“Élan doesn’t remember her mother,” he replied instantly. “And Christophe is an Ulfr male. This means that he may not show it, but he feels deeply. His friend shared with him what you did to avenge him and he admires this. I have shared with him the loss you suffered and he sympathizes as he has suffered his own. Therefore, he’s keen to get to know you.”

Apollo kept talking even though halfway through what he said I knew my mouth had dropped open and my eyes got big.

When he was done speaking, I asked, “He knows I stabbed a man?”

“Maddie, as you yourself have discovered, our world is quite different than yours and he’s a boy who wishes to grow up and be a soldier like his father. These things don’t upset him like they do you. He does indeed know you stabbed a man. He also admires it.”

That I could let slide. Boys in my world would probably think the same thing.

Apollo wasn’t done.

“But in knowing about the children you lost, dove, he respects it.”

That I
couldn’t
let slide.

“How could you tell him that?” I whispered.

Apollo’s brows shot together. “And why would I not?”

“Because it’s mine.”

His brow cleared and he tried to gather me closer but when I tightened my body and leaned away, he gave up and just brought his face closer.

“Do you not think,” he began, his tone gentle, “that one day not one but both of them would put together the way it is with our worlds and wonder? Wonder why there isn’t a them in your world or if you left their twins behind? You do not know him yet, poppy, but Christophe is very bright, as is Élan. They would eventually think on these things.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that,” I replied. “But did this have to happen now?”

“I wish for my children to know the woman I intend to marry and I wish the same for the woman who is to be my wife. So yes, it had to happen now. There’s no reason to delay.”

“Did you think about maybe discussing with me what
about
me you could or could not share with your kids or, say,
anyone
at this juncture or any other juncture for that matter?” I inquired.

“What I wish to know,” he replied, but did it carefully, “is why this is a secret? Maddie, you did nothing wrong.”

He wasn’t right about that.

I didn’t share the ways he wasn’t right.

I said instead, “That’s not the point.”

“Could you please explain the point?” he asked gently.

He was being gentle and he’d said please.

But he wanted me to move in with him
and
his kids.

Tomorrow!

“The point is, this is moving too fast.”

His tone was less gentle when he noted, “You say this often.”

“Because you move too fast often.”

“We clearly disagree on this,” he returned.

“Apollo, it’s been
a week.
”

“And again, I will state we share the same table every evening and the same bed every night. I don’t understand why it has to be in separate homes.”

“Because there are children involved,” I hissed.

“And this factors how?” he shot back, definitely less gentle and getting impatient again.

But I felt my own brows rise.

“How?”

“That’s what I asked,” he returned. “You see, my dove, it isn’t you saying good-bye to your children and riding through the snow every night.”

All right. Fine.

I could see that.

“Okay then, if that’s a pain in your ass, and I could see that it would be night after night, then I’ll sneak in the house after they go to bed.”

He’s brows knit. “Sneak?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you sneak?”

He
was
crazy.

“Because, honey, I’d be arriving to crawl in your bed with you and do the nasty.”

His jaw got hard and his arms got tight. “What we do in bed is
not
nasty.”

Uh-oh.

Obviously, he got the wrong idea about that.

I shook my head quickly and set about righting that wrong. “No. That’s not what I meant. It’s a turn of phrase in my world.”

He dropped his arms and took a step back. “It doesn’t surprise me that those of your world would use that word for lovemaking. However they are wrong and
you
are wrong for using it to refer to what
we
do.”

Now I could see he was getting angry so I erased the space he put between us and placed my hand on his chest. “You’re right. I’d never thought of it like that, but you’re right and it absolutely does not define in any way what we do in bed or how I think of it.”

“Yet you discuss sneaking into my home to avoid my children knowing you’re here and in my bed, so you must hold some scorn or guilt for what we do,” he returned.

“No,” I shook my head again, leaning deeper into him. “Not at all. But they’re
kids
Apollo. Young kids. And they don’t need to know their father has a bed partner.”

“I won’t exactly be sharing our play second for second at the breakfast table, Madeleine,” he stated, his voice turning cold. “But to share your bed with a woman you care about is not something to be ashamed of.”

“No, of course not, but—”

“And I’ll not communicate that by hiding who you are to me.”

That was nice, so nice.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t moving too fast.

“That’s sweet, honey, but—”

“And I’ll not have it communicated to my children…in
any
way…that the act of love between two agreeable adults is something to hide because it’s shameful.”

“Right, I get that, sweetheart. I totally do. But—”

“If you get it, then you move in tomorrow,” he declared.

“Listen—”

“Tomorrow, Madeleine,” he decreed.

Unfortunately, he was cutting me off and being arrogant and bossy all at the same time and this was serving to piss me off.

“Okay,” I began, “you know your children better than me, obviously, so let’s just say this is moving too fast
for me.
”

“I do not understand how,” he returned.

“Apollo,” with effort, I controlled the snap in my voice, “I haven’t had the chance to figure out what I’m going to do with my life, what with war breaking out and everything.”

“And this requires you being in the dower house?”

“It requires time to think.” When he opened his mouth, I hastened to add, “
Alone
time.”

“Maddie, the children are with their tutors all day and I’m equally busy. You’ll have plenty of
alone time
.”

“You don’t understand,” I pointed out the obvious.

“No, I do not,” he agreed to the obvious. “What I
do
understand is that whatever you’re going to do with your life, you’ll be doing it as my wife, living with
me
and my
children
in this bloody
house.
So you’re very correct. I don’t understand why you need to be in a home ten minutes away to
figure that out
delaying the inevitable, that being
moving in here.
”

I tried to go gentle when I stated, “It isn’t the inevitable. None of that has been decided, Apollo.”

I didn’t go gently enough.

I knew this when his eyes blanked, his face turned to stone and he asked, “And your choices are vast?”

Oh boy.

Now
I
was getting mad.

“Apollo—”

“So vast, it requires great blocks of
alone
time to consider all your options?”

“What I’m saying is—”

“And those options include options that are better than what I give to you and could give to you”—he swept out an arm then leaned into me— “if you’d
bloody move in.
”

“You don’t understand me—” I started but didn’t finish.

“No, I don’t,” he clipped. “We’ve established that.”

“What I mean is,” I snapped. “You don’t understand me and mostly, right now, you don’t because you won’t let me
bloody
finish.”

He clamped his mouth shut, crossed his arms on his chest and scowled at me.

But when he did, I was so angry and all he’d said started crashing into my brain (because he was right, my choices
weren’t
vast, in fact, they were practically non-existent), I couldn’t get my head together enough to say a word.

“So.” He threw out a hand and invited, “Speak.”

“I need a second,” I bit out.

“I don’t have a second, Madeleine. I have a meeting with my secretary that should have started ten minutes ago.”