He shook his head. “No, these are ‘beginning of your birthday weekend’ flowers.”
“Birthday weekend?”
He smirked and leaned back over. “Yes, my dear.”
I let him kiss me, even if Mr. Cocky had appeared again. He did get me flowers after all.
“What does this birthday weekend entail? Because you know I’m supposed to go out with Courtney and Lory on Saturday.”
He hummed, his lips pressing more insistently on mine. My body was telling me to pull him down and have my way with him, but my mind was still wondering what plans he had for us.
I sat back with a smile, watching his lip form a slight pout. “Tell me what’s going on, “I said, shaking my head at his antics.
“You’ll get to see Courtney and Lory this weekend. It just won’t be here. They were willing accomplices in keeping this a surprise from you.” He tilted his head and gave me another goofy grin. I decided to let him play his games and surprise me.
I turned my head back to take in all the flowers. “They’re beautiful. Thank you, Nicholas.” I snuck a look at him, catching him watching me. “I love the colors.”
“They made me think of you.”
I wasn’t sure why white, yellow, and orange would remind him of me. I raised my eyebrow in question.
He pulled me back into his arms. “White reminded me that the most amazing woman in the world married me,” he murmured in my ear. His hand started rubbing my stomach. “And the warm colors are for the sunshine you are bringing into my life and my babies. You are the most important thing in the world, Willow. You are everything.”
He had a way of making me melt.
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t hold my head at Nicholas, trying to keep my lunch down. We were in a helicopter flying out of Quentin. The view was spectacular, but it wasn’t the smoothest ride in the world. I concentrated more on not puking than watching the city beneath us.
He rubbed my arms and hands, keeping up a constant stream of conversation, although I only really paid attention to about half of it. His touch and the sound of his voice helped my nausea ease up about an hour into the flight.
“How much longer is it?”
He looked down at his watch. “Not too much longer. Maybe another twenty or thirty minutes.”
“Where is it that we’re going?”
He smiled and finally told me.
I had never been there, so I didn’t know much about it. But the name sounded beyond fancy and seeing the interiors, it was beyond wealthy. We were picked up in a car at the airport and driven towards the coast. My mouth fell open after we drove through a high gate and into an estate. The green slopes were filled with colorful flowers and made the huge mansion stand out at the center. Off to the side, several smaller houses were visible. The main house had a high archway and numerous humongous windows.
“Is this a resort?” I asked Nicholas.
He squeezed my hand. “No. This is mine. Ours,” he said after a while.
“What? It’s massive! Why did you buy such a big place?” I looked at him, flabbergasted. “When did you buy it?”
He shrugged. “I bought it a few years ago because it was a good investment. Now, it will be an excellent vacation destination for us and the kids.”
I couldn’t fathom that he would buy something so grand as a vacation home for his family. And I didn’t even want to think about how much it had cost. But my attention was on the ‘kids’ comment.
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion as I spoke, “And exactly how many kids do you think we will have?” It would take hundreds to fill this monstrosity of a house.
He threw his head back in laughter before shaking his head. “I didn’t mean anything by that statement. You know how much I love to have space to myself.”
Yes, it didn’t escape my notice that he evaded my question. I would have to circle back to that topic and get a solid answer for it later.
We stopped in front of the mansion and the driver unloaded our bags. Nicholas helped me out of the car and took my hand in his before giving me a tour. The interior was impressive and decorated tastefully , chatting away about every corner of the property.
Occasionally, I would see the shadows of other people moving around the house.
“Are there other people living at this place right now?”
He looked confused for a minute before he understood what I was asking. “I hired staff to open the house for us for the weekend.” It was as if he hadn’t even noticed their presence. “Courtney, Lorelei, Francis, and Geoffrey will be here tomorrow, though.”
“You can just hire people at the snap of your fingers to open your house?” Such a weird concept.
He shrugged and nod like it was nothing. “Sure.”
The idea of servants still made me uncomfortable. I never thought of Laura that way. She was more like a family member who liked to cook. But Nicholas had no problem lining up minions to do his bidding. that I still had difficulty with.
He certainly had a taste for the finer things in life, and I wondered if I would ever feel the same way as he did. Sure, it was nice to be surrounded by luxury. To not have to worry about how much something costs before buying it.
But I couldn’t help thinking I would have been just as happy in a tent in the woods, as long as I had Nicholas by my side. Did he feel the same? I wasn’t really sure.
He told me I was the most important thing in his life, so I wanted to believe that would be true even if we were two paupers struggling to make ends meet. He had been raised in this lifestyle, while I had experienced how normal people lived most of my life.