Chapter 185

“What?”

Nolan shrugged. “Just thinking.”

Their limo was inching its way very slowly out of the small parking lot of the elder care facility. Nolan patted Yena’s thigh absentmindedly and discovered that the blue jeans she was wearing were softer than he’d expected. His hand began stroking the length of her thigh, feeling it.

“About?”

“About you.”

She pinched his cheek, making him look her in the face. “What’s going on with you?”

Nolan smiled. “Nothing. It’s just that the last time I was here, I’d been thinking I’d never see you again. Today just kind of feels like a dream.”

“It was a nice day, wasn’t it?” She planted a kiss on his lips.

Then his phone buzzed. The little vibration in the inner breast pocket of Nolan’s suit jacket, which was pressed up against Yena’s chest while they kissed, startled her.

“Sorry.” He pulled out the phone, looked down at the screen, read something, and silenced it. “Come here. Come back.”

She leaned back to let him touch her again but asked, “Who was it?”

“My secretary.”

“Something important?” She was resisting his attempts to kiss her, dodging his lips so they wound up on her neck instead of her mouth.

He hesitated, then reeled back before answering, “My mother wants to see me when we get back.”

“Oh.” Yena frowned, glancing at her smartwatch. “Just you? Did she ask you to have dinner with her?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Yena sighed. “It’s fine. Thinking we’d have a whole day together – I knew that was too good to be true. Something was bound to interrupt.”

“I’m sorry to miss another evening with you. Will you wait up for me if she keeps me late?”

Yena gave Nolan a tart “you already know the answer to that” look in response.

“I had a conversation with Yena recently,” Nolan’s mother said to him. “I asked her to do something. I wonder if she’s done it yet.”

“Is that so?”

Luna chuckled, her mouth in a half smile, half grimace. “I’ll take that as a no, then. Why am I not surprised?”

“And… what is it she’s supposed to have done for you?”

“Nothing for me. I simply asked her to have a conversation with you. On an important topic that I know the pair of you have been avoiding.”

“I see. The topic of children, I’m guessing. And now I am here so that you can press me on the same.”

Luna held up her glass, a faux congratulations for figuring that out.

“I’ll talk to her tonight,” Nolan said quickly. “I was already going to.”

His mother nodded and took a tiny sip from her champagne glass. In a way that somehow communicated that she did not believe what Nolan was saying, not one bit.

“You are clever, son,” she said. “And so am I. I have given this a lot of thought and I am prepared to enlighten you to something you’ve been struggling to see for yourself.”

Nolan held some silence instead of reacting to this.

“Your lovely young bride may indeed have a quality of… starry-eyed naivety, sometimes, but she is a grown woman. And she signed on for certain responsibilities when she married you. She knew full well what she was getting into when she signed that marriage contract.”

“You’re right about that,” Nolan conceded. His mother was ready to run away with the conversation, and he was trying to at least maintain a presence in it.

“You have been imagining,” she went on, “that holding Yena to fulfilling her responsibilities as your Luna is equivalent to treating her like a breeder. You must stop that at once. Yena is not a fragile child who needs to be handled with caution. She is a strong woman. You, in fact, ought to understand that better than anyone…”

Nolan closed his eyes. He felt his face growing slightly warm. She hadn’t said it outright, but Nolan got the distinct feeling that his mother was referring to his sexual relationship with Yena.

That subject was, after all, a rather notorious one throughout the kingdom by now. And that was his own fault. He’d allowed himself to be rather indiscreet with his princess in public on more than one occasion.

“I won’t let you leave without promising me that you are going to speak to her about this immediately,” the Queen demanded.

Nolan swallowed down some rising irritation. The truth was that his mother was right in being frustrated with Nolan and Yena’s apparent inability to communicate.

He was frustrated, too.

YENA

Nolan had been keeping me pretty busy lately. So I took advantage of the time alone while he was having dinner with his mother to do some work on my business planning.

It had been fun, learning how to do all the parts of my simple social media-based business myself. But suddenly, with more production planned and bigger sales on the horizon, I realized that I needed help with the finances.

I was over my head with the tax paperwork alone. I was going to need to hire or contract with some kind of consultant, someone who understood all the legal stuff and could translate it to me and make sure I was doing things right as Lucy and I started to scale and grow the auction site.

There was a soft rap on the open door, and then in came Rafaela, the old deaconess. She smiled at me with the same smug look she’d been giving me every day since I returned recently – kind of a self-satisfied “I told you you’d be back” expression.

“Thank you.” I took a flat gold box from her hands. It was tied with a glossy black ribbon.

“My pleasure, Miss Yena. Can I bring you some fresh tea?”

“No thanks. I think I’m finished working for the evening.” I had a feeling I was about to be distracted by what was in this box, and wouldn’t be able to focus after opening it. But I was too impatient to not open it.

I pulled on one end of the silky ribbon and watched it unravel and fall down to the bed, then slid the top off the gold box and set it to the side.

I’d learned it was better to open packages like this in the privacy of our bedroom.

The lingerie was cute and kind of edgy, a set of matching items in burgundy colored lace and silk, with a few electric purple accent seams and strategically placed zippers. I admired the fabrics, getting excited to try it all on. I wanted to shower and everything first, though.

I noted with some amusement that Nolan had pretty diverse taste in the kinds of lingerie he bought me. He had a bit of a lingerie fetish, really, when I thought about it. It did a number on him to see me in all these getups. Which was fun for me. The way he looked me over darkly when I wore a sexy little something for him, and the trembling way he fingered the fabrics and unlaced the ribbons… it felt powerful, a little like being worshipped.

My phone went off, a text notification.

I frowned when I saw it was from Evan, not Nolan.

The frown deepened even more when I read the message.

“Sorry to bother you sis, but I got something I need to talk to you about. In person would be the best. When can we meet up?”

My heart started beating faster with some vague, nameless worry as I reread the text. Wondering what was going on.

I thought about responding with something like, “Is everything okay?” – but he’d already said he wanted to talk about whatever it was in person.

So I just replied that I could meet him early tomorrow at the bakery if he wanted, and he agreed. And that was that.

But now I had it swirling on my mind.

If something was wrong with our parents, Evan would have called me. So that wasn’t it. But still, this urgent request to meet face to face seemed serious, and it was hard to put it out of my thoughts.

Nolan was probably coming back soon, though. I wanted to give him a good showing in this gift he’d picked out for me tonight. So I got right into the bath and took some time exfoliating and shaving everything. Then I moisturized my body, washed off the early day’s makeup and threw on a little fresh mascara. I also found a hot purple lipstick that matched the lingerie exactly, a fun shade I’d never yet had occasion to wear.

Then I set about fussing with my hair. It looked really wild today. Probably because I’d let it grow out super long. It was past due for a trim and taming. I left it down and ran my fingers through the curls to amp up the volume even more.

Finally, I heard the familiar sounds of Nolan’s footsteps approaching in the hall and then his key turning in the bedroom door.

I turned the bathroom light out and strolled out to meet him in the bedroom.

“Oh,” Nolan said quietly, looking down at me with his mouth hanging open. The door swung closed behind him.