Until Her - Ami Van Page 0,55
amazing child,” she tells Stella wholeheartedly. “Even in this life…” she immediately looks at Stella to make sure she hasn’t accidentally offended her new friend.
“It’s okay. I know what you mean,” Stella responds. “Even in this life, Jazzy is still filled with such innocence. The way a child should be.”
She nods her agreement at Stella.
“It takes work. It hasn’t been easy on any of the guys, especially Adam. They come from a hard life, a working-class family, and they know the value of hard work even though the work they did mar their hands to get to where they are now. But Adam and all of his brothers also make it a priority to give Jazzy and now Rian and any future Kings the value of a normal family. Things still have to be earned within this family.”
Future Kings. Stella’s words almost make her shed a tear. She blinks the tear away quickly before it falls.
“Adam has never brought a woman home, you know.” Stella’s sing-song voice has her staring jaw-dropped because surely that can’t be true.
“It’s true,” Stella adds as if reading her mind. “He’s extremely picky with who he lets near Jazzy.”
“But…Isabella,” she whispers. Her heart plummets along with her voice at the realization. The look on Stella’s face shows that she, too, understands.
Stella leans on the counter and exhales loudly before her eyebrows furrow as if Isabella’s name triggered a problem. Maybe it has. Maybe saying her name is equivalent to summoning evil. She doesn’t know. Something tells her it’s a combination of everything.
She can’t be sure why because isn’t it the men’s job to take care of business issues? Women just run the household right? But maybe this is why this family is so different from the others. They stick together. Why wouldn’t the matriarch of the King Family be stressed if one of the other Kings is under pressure?
“I don’t know what’s going to happen between Adam and Isabella,” Stella tells her. “But I do know he cares about you deeply. He’ll make sure you’re free of them. We’ll make sure you’re taken care of and have the life you want.”
He cares deeply. Stella’s words resound.
She can feel Adam’s gentleness and believes he does care. But it won’t be enough. It won’t be enough for him to stand against the Romanos or the organization above them. She can’t, in good conscience, even ask him to take a stand since it would put this family in harm's way.
She’d never ask that of him.
But what will happen between her and him?
Other than informing her that she’ll be staying here, at the Kings’ estate the day the safe house was attacked, they’d never spoken long term.
What will happen when Isabella takes her place here?
No matter how deeply she’s falling in love with Adam, she just can’t stay in the shadows. In Isabella’s shadows, in fact. That’s if Isabella even lets her take another breath once she finds out she’s been with Adam this whole time.
Falling in love?
Has she…is she in love with Adam? How can she be sure? She’s never felt like this with anyone before. It’s beyond her high school crushes.
In his arms, it’s heaven. It’s safe. It’s fire and heat. It’s passion. It’s…control.
She looks at Stella to make sure she hadn’t spoken out loud. Stella is or was staring at her intensely but washes the look away quickly with her normal warm smile. She hopes that Stella hasn’t read her mind somehow.
“Ariana,” Stella starts.
She holds her breath, afraid of the words that might come next.
“I know you’ve been making good use of the home gym but while you’re here, I’d like you to start learning how to use a gun and some self-defense. Would you be okay with that?”
She nods but doesn’t say a word.
“It’s for your own good. I’m sorry it sounds cliché but—”
“It’s okay, Stella. If it helps to make you feel better, I’ll do it.”
“Do it for you, Ariana. Not because of any else.” Stella gives her a reassuring pat on the back. “My nannies will help you with your training,” she says with a smile.
Her nannies. It makes her laugh until her sides hurt because she’s seen Stella’s nannies and it still baffles her how that came about.
When Stella suggested she take lessons in self-defense, she didn’t think Stella meant immediately. But immediately is how it happened.
Brooks and Tommy approached her right after breakfast the next morning.
She’d been living at the Kings’ estate for a while now but she can attest that