In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)
Read In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2) Online
Authors: Maya Banks
CONTENTS
GAVIN
Rochester stood in the doorway of his enormous living room watching as his wife carefully examined a Christmas ornament before quietly replacing it in the box and tucking it back into the plastic basin they used to store Christmas decorations.
Her sadness instilled an ache inside his heart that made him physically rub his chest in an effort to alleviate the pain. But some wounds were simply too deep. Permanent and unable to heal. And her pain was unbearable to him because he couldn’t fix this for her. His connections, money, power. None of it meant anything if he couldn’t give his beloved wife what she wanted most. He felt her pain as keenly as if it were his own—and it
was
. Because he couldn’t stand for her to be unhappy. He’d move mountains just to make her smile.
She’d changed him. Made him a better man. A man he never thought he could be—never wanted to be. But she changed everything—his world—his place in his world. Suddenly he’d
wanted
to be a better man. For
her
. Because it was what she deserved. And he would never place her in harm’s way with his business practices. It was a new experience for him. Living clean. In the light. Having someone who
made
him want to feel . . . worthy.
Then she turned from her sad perusal of the lone ornament, and when she saw him, her face lit up, rosy from the shining Christmas lights strung around the tree. He marveled at how, whenever she smiled at him, it took his breath away. It was something that would never go away. His love for his wife was like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life.
Staggering
. Yet warm, like the flames in the fireplace. Unwavering. Without reservations, strings or conditions.
She loved
him
, and that knowledge still had the power to bring him to his knees.
“That’s the last one,” she said, her gaze drifting one last time to the sole ornament that hadn’t been hung on the tree. Sorrow briefly chased the warmth from her eyes before she appeared to make a concerted effort to collect herself, and the grief filling her features slipped away, but he’d seen it. Knew it to be there no matter the effort she made not to let it show.
He crossed the room, no longer able to bear the distance between them. He pulled her into his arms and thrust his fingers into her long hair and then nuzzled the top of her head, inhaling her scent as his lips pressed to her glossy brunette strands.
“We’ll try again,” he murmured, trying to inject confidence and reassurance in his tone. And yet he knew he’d failed miserably. He sounded as dejected as he knew her to be. Not because she’d failed him. He could live his life with only her and never suffer a single regret. But he’d failed
her
. He was unable to give her a child he knew she wanted with every breath.
She wanted them to have a family. Love, laughter, to fill their house with warmth he’d never experienced before her. She knew all of that, knew what his life had been like and she was determined to change it. To give him a home. Not just a house. A home with a family and her unconditional love. He had no defense against her. His love defied boundaries or parameters. He knew he would never love another living soul the way he loved this woman.
She shook her head against his chest, and he carefully pulled her away, gutted by the sheen of tears in her brilliant brown eyes. Even in sorrow she was the most beautiful woman in the world to him. He couldn’t
remember
his life before she entered it.
He held the single most precious thing to him in the world in his arms, and he was powerless to give her what she wanted most. A child.
“No more, Gavin,” she said, her throat working up and down as if the words were painful to speak. “I can’t take another loss. I
can’t
do it anymore.”
The utter despair in his beloved wife’s voice was more than he could bear. He was precariously close to losing control over his own emotions. Only his vow to be an unyielding rock for his wife kept him in check.
She needed his strength. Not his weakness. And the hell of it was, he only had one weakness in his life.
Ginger. His wife, lover and absolute soul mate.
He would have laughed at the idea of fate and soul mates. The professor of his Human Resources and Development class had once said that the concept of there only being one person out there for you was utterly false. That you could fall in love—and love—many different people in your life.
He’d believed the exact same thing until one day a beautiful chestnut-headed, brown-eyed, adorably shy woman had walked into his life and his existence had been irrevocably changed. He’d known since the very first time she’d shyly accepted a dinner invitation with him that he was already in so deep that he had no hope of ever finding his way out. He hadn’t
wanted
to.
Gavin was a man who was decisive, could handle any issue flung his way. He had the total package, or so women liked to tell him.
Good-looking, charismatic, dark and brooding and wealthy.
He was no naïve fool. The last attribute was his most compelling one. The women he’d been with hadn’t likely given thought to anything beyond the tag that was solidly fixed on his forehead.
Billionaire.
He’d actually laid eyes on Ginger the very first time, ironically, when he’d been out with another woman. He’d had his entire evening planned, in fact. Nice dinner, intimate atmosphere, flirt with his date, whose name completely escaped him now, and then go back to her place to have sex before returning to his own apartment.
No one came to his home or invaded his private sanctuary. Sex was always at his date’s place or in a hotel, and he always left afterward. To some women that made him a cold bastard, but he was hardly hypocrite enough to indulge in postcoital cuddle when he’d made it clear that there would be no emotional entanglements.
He hadn’t stayed when he’d dropped his date off, much to her disappointment. His mind had been too occupied with the sweet, smiling waitress with big brown shy eyes who blushed when he stared at her for too long.
He wasn’t normally so ill-mannered or lacking in social graces, but he’d been captivated by her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and so the next night, he’d gone back to the restaurant. Alone. He’d made certain he was seated in her section of tables and he’d proceeded to be the most demanding of customers, commanding her attention every few minutes for some trumped-up need.
It had taken three agonizingly long weeks before he’d been able to talk her into going out with him to dinner. Three weeks of self-induced celibacy because he’d known that she would be the last woman in his bed forever, so he hadn’t minded the wait.
It had then taken him six more months of dating before he took things further than heated good-night kisses and feeling the warmth of her soft body against his while he held her.
It had been the best six months of his life.
The night he’d finally taken her to bed and very gently made her his, he’d proposed and she’d cried all over him.
It had taken him three more months of her practically living with him to talk her into accepting his marriage proposal, but once he’d gained her acceptance, his patience had fled. He’d hustled her in front of a judge at the very first opportunity and had claimed her for all time.
After a blissful year of having her entirely to himself—and he was extremely possessive and selfish of his time with her—she’d begun talking about having his child. He hadn’t thought he could be happier than he was, but then he’d begun imagining sweet little girls who looked just like their mama and he’d been determined to fill their home with a dozen if that was what she wanted.
And that was where they’d hit a brick wall.
She’d gotten pregnant right away, to both their delight. Only for her to miscarry a few short weeks later. And so had begun their nightmare of endless hope and then dismay. The final straw had come when she’d become pregnant again earlier this year, after four miscarriages. She’d made it beyond the stage where her previous pregnancies had ended. They’d begun to become excited and hope bloomed that they’d finally,
finally
managed to make it happen.
At five months pregnant, after having learned that she was having what he wanted most—a little girl—and they’d bonded with the child, felt her first movements and had even begun to decorate the nursery, something they’d never allowed themselves to do before, tragedy had struck and she’d miscarried. The worst part was that she’d had to deliver the baby, a tiny, perfectly formed baby girl.
Ginger had been devastated. For months she’d been listless and adrift, and he’d never felt more helpless in his life. He loved her so much and he would have taken any amount of pain he could from her, but it had been hell for her, and after she’d healed physically, she’d never mentioned trying to have another child again.
Even now when he offered his gentle encouragement that they’d try again, she refused. He couldn’t blame her, but he hated the idea of him not being able to fix this for her. In his world, nothing was impossible. Money, while not a cure-all, certainly made lots of things happen, but all the money in the world, all the power in the world didn’t help his beautiful wife achieve her heart’s desire.
As if sensing the dark direction of his thoughts, she reached up to cup the hard line of his jaw, her smile achingly sweet and eyes full of understanding.
“You’re all I need. All I want,” she said simply. “Swear you’ll never leave me for someone who can give you children. Swear that to me and I’ll never ask you for more.”
He was genuinely shocked to his bones. He stared at her in absolute befuddlement, growing angrier by the second. Not at her. But at himself. Because if he’d made her feel as secure as she needed then she’d never question such a thing. That thought—fear—would
never
have entered her mind.
He framed her beautiful face in his hands and simply held her there, staring into the hypnotic brown of her soulful eyes.
“I only care that we can’t have children because I know how much it hurts you,” he said hoarsely. “I’d do anything at all to spare you this, Ginger. I’m so damn sorry I’ve failed you.”
She put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. Gavin, you haven’t failed me. You’ve given me child after child. It’s me who’s failed
you,
because I can’t carry them. My body rejects them.”