Chapter 20
Movement beside her woke Adriana from the light doze she had fallen into. Since returning to Miami three weeks ago, she had slept a lot. She liked sleeping. It was the perfect route to forgetting. It was waking that was the problem.
Her sister handed her a cup of tea and sat in the deckchair next to her.
When she had left Veronia, she hadn’t known where to go to, except to Miami, to her estranged sister. There was nothing left for her in Manhattan. Sometimes a girl just needed her family, no matter how far apart they’ve fallen. Blood would always be thicker than water.
She hadn’t known how Isabela would have acted when she saw her, but her sister had been overjoyed to see her.
Adriana’s lingering doubts had been well and truly banished.
A late-night confession between them had culminated with the admission that Isabela had been terrified that Adriana would never forgive her for leaving.
“Not anymore,” Adriana had said with a firm shake of her head. “I used to before, but you’re all that I have now.”
“I was so scared that I have lost you forever.”
“You will never lose me, Bela.”
The tears had flowed easily that night.
And now, they sat in companionable silence in the Miami sun, the only sound the chirruping of fledgling birds in the garden’s thick hedges.
“Are you ready to talk now?’ Isabela asked.
A lump forming in her throat, Adriana shook her head. For all their late-night talks, she hadn’t been able to bring up the subject of either Xavier or Nicholas. To even think of them was too painful.
“Broken hearts do mend,” Isabela said softly, patting Adriana’s hands.
Adriana gave a ragged nod and swallowed, terrified of crying again. “It hurts,” she choked out.
Her sister took her hand and squeezed it. “Do you know what to do when life gives you lemons?”
“Make lemonade?”
“No. You throw them back and get yourself an orange.”
Adriana spluttered, laughing for the first time in weeks. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about Bela.”
“Neither do I! It was something grams used to tell me when I was a child.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yeah, I doubt you would.”
Still holding on tightly to each other’s hands, they settled back in their deckchairs, sunglasses on, and basked in the sun.
After a while, her sister spoke again. ‘I think what grams was trying to say is that, whatever life throws at you, there are always choices and options other than the obvious ones. When our father first brought you home the obvious solution for me would have been to hate him for cheating on my mother, and hating you too for existing. That would have been me making lemonade. But when I looked at you all I saw was an innocent, helpless newborn baby, someone who didn’t have a choice in how she would be conceived. So I chose to get myself an orange instead. I loved you—you were my orange. And I have never regretted it. Because you became the sister I never knew I wanted.”
She took her sunglasses off and smiled the warm, sisterly yet motherly smile that Adriana loved so much.
“So, this man who broke your heart, did he treat you right?”
“He did,” she whispered, remembering all the times they had shared together. It was mostly sex but it had been amazing, no-holds-barred sex, filled with passion and great attraction. “They both did.”
“They?”
“Yes,” Adriana nodded, fresh tears filling her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “They’re brothers.”
“Are they worth the pain then?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged.
“Then you have to decide whether you’re going to make lemonade or find an orange. Are you going to wallow in your pain or turn it into something constructive?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“You start by accepting the pain for what it is but refusing to let it define you.”
Adriana closed her eyes, letting Isabela’s words wash over her. If anyone knew how to cope with pain it was Isabela. She’d handled a mountain of it and had never let it define her.
Compared to her sister, she had nothing to complain about. Isabela had been innocent. She, Adriana, had brought her misery upon herself.
***
Adriana had been out on an errand today, the first time she had been out of the apartment since her arrival in Miami. She wanted to get a pregnancy test kit, because ever since she had left Veronia, her body’s system had been off kilter. And though she had pegged it as being part of the heartbreak, now she wasn’t so sure at all. After all, birth control pills could sometimes be faulty and one could have an oopsie moment without realizing it. Nicholas had fucked her bare every single time they had been together and while Xavier had used a condom the first few times, the other times they had fucked had been bareback. So, even if she were truly pregnant, she had no idea who the father would be.
She was stepping out of the cab, when she saw them, standing by the door of Isabela’s apartment, looking so out of place, it almost made her laugh.
Her heart leapt so hard in her chest, it almost jumped out of her mouth.
She wanted to go to them, but she couldn’t. Her legs had turned to jelly. She covered her mouth, unable to believe her eyes.
What were they doing here?
Nicholas’ handsome face was immobile, as he leapt to his feat and began to walk towards her.
It was only when he was at eye level with her and she was able to gaze into the slate grey eyes she loved so much that Adriana dared to breathe.
“Nicholas,” she whispered, raising a hand to brush it against his cheek, to feel for herself that he truly was there and that this wasn’t some dream she’d fallen into.
But no, it wasn’t a dream.
His cheek was warm and smooth, his jawline rough, at the stage where stubble was just starting to poke through the skin. His warm, familiar scent played under her nose.
“Surprised?” he asked, in a voice that was meant to be humorous but that cracked on the last syllable.
“What? What are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze finding Xavier, who leaned against the door, watching her with a kind smile on his face.
His eyes bored into her, emotion seeping out of them. “We are here to take you home.”
Then Nicholas took the final step towards her and lifted her into his arms. “We are taking you home,” he repeated.
Adriana could hear the cab driver mutter something but she couldn’t make out what he was saying, all her senses were focused so intensely on her lovers that everything else had become a blur.
“Would you Miss Malloy do us the honor of accompanying us somewhere?” Nicholas asked, a wide grin overtaking his face, and transforming it into a carefree, and passionate.
“Yes,” she breathed, agreeing without preamble. It had been so fucking long without them. And even though she still hurt, she was taking a page out of Isabela’s book. This was her getting an orange.
***
The car ride was awkward, to say the least. Sexual tension filled the metal compartment they were now stuck in.
One of her hand was held by Xavier, as he pressed a small kiss to the crown of her head, while the other was held by Nicholas, who drew small circles in her palm.
No conversation took place between them, and Adriana was a little glad about that because she had no idea what to say.
Her mind was still reeling from Xavier’s declaration, wondering what he meant by saying they were here to take her home. Where was her home? Surely, they didn’t mean Veronia, with them where Nicholas was engaged to someone else who wasn’t her.
The car came to a stop at a clearing, and they both alighted, Xavier telling the driver to come back later and pick them up.
Taking her hand, Nicholas led her to a flat grassy area and sat down, enfolding her in his arms so her back rested against his chest and her head was tucked beneath his chin, while her legs rested on Xavier’s as he sat down next to them.
The sun was already making its descent, causing a darkly colorful hue to settle over the area.
She let out a sigh, knowing that no matter how wonderful it felt to be back in their arms, she would be out of them soon enough. Because there was no way the three of them could work out.
She was here now, though. A short interlude. Three lovers snatching a few minutes together to watch the sunset. One final sweet goodbye.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked eventually, interrupting the silence.
“We’ve been keeping track of your phone. And when you switched it on yesterday, I was able to track you here.” It was Xavier who answered. She raised her head to look at him with surprise.
“I didn’t know you were a tech genius.”
“It’s nothing really,” he shrugged, averting his gaze. “Just something I’ve been dabbling in for fun, and it worked out. Because we found you.”
“Why go through such a length to find me? Why not let me go?”
“Because we can’t Ana, you mean a lot to us.”
Her heart gave a little skip at his words, a skip she tried frantically to dampen. “Please, Nicholas, don’t say things like that. It isn’t fair.”
He caught her chin and turned her face to look at him. “How can the truth not be fair? You are my whole world. I love you.”
“You do?” she gasped, clutching at his shirt.
“Yes, Blue. Very much so.”
“And I love you too,” she declared, turning her head slightly so she could get a good glance at Xavier. “Both of you. But what about Natalia?”
“What about her?” Nicholas asked with a grin, tugging her chin so she was once again looking at him.
“How can you declare your love for me when you will be marrying her?”
“I’m not marrying Natalia. The wedding is off.”
“Her eyes widened into huge round orbs. “It is? Since when?”
“Since about the time you left my room gutted, when I realized I couldn’t live another day without you.
“But…” Nothing else came. Her mouth was opening and closing as if her tongue had forgotten how to form words.
He pressed his lips to hers, inhaling the warm, sweet breath he had believed he would never taste again.
“I love you,” he repeated, looking at her shocked face. “It’s you I want to marry. Just you, Only you.”
“I love you,” Xavier declared once again, pressing a kiss on her neck. “And I would be glad to be your mistress, if you would allow me.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, Xavi,” she laughed. “But yes, I want that too. More than anything in the world.”
Nicholas tightened his hold on her and gently kissed her. “I know that we have the power to hurt you, Blue. And that I’ve hurt you before by hiding my engagement to Natalia from you but I swear on everything holy that I will never abuse it ever again. But you need to understand one thing also.”
“What’s that?” she whispered breathlessly, in awe of his declaration.
“You have equal power to hurt us too,” Xavier answered, pressing a soft kiss on her parted lips.
“I do?”
“Living without you has been like living in an emotional dungeon. Cold and dark and without hope.” Nicholas replied as brushed his thumb over her soft cheek. “If spending the rest of my life with you means I have to relinquish the throne, then that’s the price I’ll pay and I’ll pay it gladly.”
“But what about the throne? What will happen to it? Xavi doesn’t want it,” she queried, eyes wide.
“Then we will work something out. But whatever happens, I swear to you that we will be together until we take our dying breaths and that the Veronian monarchy will remain intact,” Xavier declared. “And I have just the thing to prove it.”
Disentangling himself from her arms, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a family heirloom he had gotten from the Queen, before they had set out to Miami to find her.
Dumbstruck, she simply stared at it as he displayed it to her.
“This, our love, belongs to you.” He took her trembling left hand, slid the ring onto her engagement finger, then kissed it. “One day the eldest of our children will inherit it, and in turn they will pass it to the eldest of their children—either to wear themselves upon marriage or for their wives to wear.”
“Our children?” she whispered, thinking about the pregnancy test kit she had left in the back of the limo.
“You do want them, don’t you?” Nicholas asked, suddenly anxious that they might have made one assumption too many. “If you don’t, then we can…”
“No, no, I do want your children,’ she said, cutting him off. “Both of your children, as many as we could have.”
And then, like a cloud moving away from the sun, the fear left her eyes and a smile as wide as the sunset before them spread across her cheeks, lighting up her whole face. “We’re really going to be together?”
“Until death us do part.”
Such was the weight of her joy that when she threw herself into them, making them back onto the grass, and her overjoyed kisses as she straddled Xavier filled them all with more happiness than they could have ever thought possible.
They were hers, and she was theirs.
And as they laid on the grass, watching the orange sun make its final descent through the pink sky, Nicholas knew in his heart that the rest of his life would be filled with the glorious colors of this most beautiful of sunsets.
