A Winter Symphony_ A Christmas Novella - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,1
leverage to keep her in his home and his bed. Men all over the city—especially Brad Wolfe, that asshole—showered her with gifts and attention and declarations of devotion. She played with them and took their presents, of course, and enjoyed every minute of it.
But now she and Kingsley were having a child together, and this easy open love affair of theirs was changing. A welcome change, she admitted, but Kingsley knew she worried that it wasn’t so welcome for him.
After a long pause, he answered, “You know I’ve wanted children for as long as I can remember.”
“I have wanted to dance on the moon since I was a little girl, but if NASA came to our front door and told me it was time to go, I would be terrified.”
“I’m happy,” he said. “This is what I want.”
“I know it’s what you want. But is it all you want?”
A good and fair question from the woman who was having their child. A question that had to be answered, if not that night then soon. Very soon. Little Coco wasn’t going to wait forever for him to decide.
“Are you asking about Søren?” Kingsley said. He ran his hands up and down her smooth bare calves. She took long baths these days, enjoying the buoyancy of the warm water, and Kingsley would shave her legs for her now that she had trouble reaching her ankles. “Do you want me to give him up?”
“No,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want. Someone has to beat you, and it’s not going to be me. All I want to know is…is it enough for you? Finally, do you have enough?”
Kingsley started to answer, to say yes, of course it was finally enough, that she had nothing to fear, that nothing and no one was going to come between them.
There was a knocking at the front door—loud, insistent. Juliette sat up and put her hands protectively over her stomach.
Kingsley jumped to his feet. More pounding on the door. Shouting now. It sounded like someone was trying to beat their way into the house. Kingsley looked at Juliette. “Stay here,” he said.
He left the sitting room and strode down the hall to the grand front doors, wishing he still had his dogs. As he neared the doors, he heard his name and drunken laughter. The tension eased. He unlocked the door.
A half dozen men and women stood on his front porch wearing outré party clothes under their coats.
“Long live the King!” one woman shouted, hefting a bottle of champagne in the air. “About time! I’m freezing my tits off.”
She and the other intruders started to press toward the door. Kingsley held up his hand. “What the hell are you all doing here?”
“It’s your birthday, right?” the woman with the champagne bottle said. “We’re here for the party.”
He recognized her. Her name was…something that started with an R? Manhattan socialite—she’d tried on kink like a new outfit and decided she liked the way it looked on her. He recognized a few other faces, men and women who’d frequented his clubs in the past. Kat, the daughter of the ex-governor. Tate, her high-functioning alcoholic boyfriend. Another girl wearing only a red, white, and blue bikini under her coat. In the old days, he might have saluted her flag. Tonight he just wanted to tell her to wrap up before she contracted hypothermia.
“Mon roi?” Against orders, Juliette had come out of the sitting room and now stood by him. “Who is it?”
“Oh,” Roxy said, eying Juliette’s round belly. Kingsley instinctively moved in front of Juliette. “No party this year, I guess?”
“No,” Kingsley said to Roxy, to Kitty, to Tate, to the city itself. “The party’s over.”
Chapter Two
After the revelers had left, Juliette laughed at how scared they’d been of a few drunks at their door. She kissed him on the lips and went up to bed. Kingsley promised to be up soon. First, he had to check all the locks.
He wandered from room to room, not only checking that the front, back, and side doors were locked, but the windows, too. Never before had he locked the doors of the townhouse, believing it a sign of fear and weakness. His old arrogance shamed him. The woman he loved was pregnant with his first child.
He was almost tempted to hire bouncers to guard the door. After checking the locks, he returned to the sitting room to make certain the fire was out completely. How could he live with himself if