Page 38 of Under His Embrace

But I feel like she’s still hiding something.I didn’t blame her for being guarded around me. Not with the way her parents tried to turn her against me for so long back then. Yet, I couldn’t put my finger on why she seemed so cautious around me. She couldn’t lie and suggest that she didn’t want me. I felt how she did. I saw the love in her eyes. But something else was bothering me.

Who is Caleb?

That was the biggest thing that I kept circling back to. I caught her speaking with someone but I had yet to push on who she could’ve been speaking to. While I could have the tech guys try to track her call, I wanted to be able to trust her to come clean.

With a sigh, I turned and went back to my room. It was early yet. She’d only been here for such a short time, and I didn’t want to pressure her.

If she loved me, she’d come clean.Right?

The next day, I was pulled away on security issues again, this time with the bikers messing with the soldiers we had positioned near their property. A couple of the MC men were trying to claim that a Constella member had raped one of their club whores. The whole thing was nonsense, another annoying example of the trouble we faced from them. Liam and I spent most of the day following up and settling the matter.

When we returned again, I was eager to spend time with Chloe and ask her who she had called. Who this Caleb guy could be.

Yet again, I was foiled from having a chance to talk with her. This time, it was a happy occasion, not another security concern that kept me from being with the woman I’d always love.

“Right now?” I asked Dante after he found me and Liam returning. “You’re going to marry herright now?”

He nodded. “We’re going to elope. Here.”

Liam raised his brows and glanced at me. “That’s, uh, sudden.”

“It’s also what Nina wants. And what Nina wants, I’ll give her.” Dante lifted his chin. “I don’t care how and when we get married, just that she’s my wife. So if she wants to suddenly elope, right now, here, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Damn.” I blinked wide. “Those pregnancy hormones are wild.”

Dante grunted a wry laugh but smiled. “That’s a fair assessment.”

Dispatched to get ready for the very sudden ceremony, I stopped by Chloe’s room and found her getting ready. She’d come here with nothing but the ragged clothes she wore from her shift at the deli, but it looked like Eva and the other women hadn’t wasted any time in getting her something to wear.

“Wow.”

She stood, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. “It looks just like?—”

“Fucking prom.” I laughed as I walked in, careful not to touch her light-blue gown. It was a sleek, form-fitting spring dress, but the colors and cut reminded me of the dress she chose for prom. “Damn, you are beautiful, Chloe. Always were and still are.” Standing behind her, I pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “Always will be, too.”

She laughed lightly, pulling away from me with a teasing smile on her plump lips. “Oh, no. None of that. That was how you started the process of messing up my makeup and getting my prom dress off that night.”

I smiled, thinking back to how this felt like déjà vu. I had kissed her shoulder on prom night and showed her how good it could be when I fucked her from behind. We were still in the early days of having sex then, so soon after she’d lost her virginity to me then.

I growled a bit, staring at her hungrily. “As soon as this wedding is over…” I beckoned her to come to me, crooking my finger.

She continued putting her earring in and walked up close.

“As soon as the celebrations are done tonight, we’ll have a reenactment of that night,” I promised her. With one last, deep kiss, I left her room to get dressed.

An hour later, I sat next to Chloe in the conservatory. With the evening light, it looked ethereal out here. While the air smelled of chlorine from the pool and hot tub in the distance, the tables and chairs set up over by the plants seemed separate. If they were to search for a venue to rent equal to what was here, it’d cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this seemed right. It seemed appropriate. Flowers had been arranged, and we were all present. I supposed simple and minimal were what Nina changed her mind to wanting.

Liam and Eva sat together with Olivia on Liam’s lap. Tessa and Romeo were seated together on the other side. And I was here with Chloe. A few others took seats, but it really was just the handful of us waiting for the priest to begin.

“How come she wanted to do this tonight?” I whispered to Chloe. She was new here, but she’d been spending time with the women for the last couple of days.

“We got to talking about childbirth and she was worried about what could go wrong,” she whispered back.

I furrowed my brow, worried. “Is there a cause for concern?” Her pregnancy had been fine so far. Dante was obsessive about making sure she was healthy and comfortable.

“No. Just the general fear and anxiety of the unknown, I think.” She shrugged. “But she started worrying that something could happen to her during the birth, and she wanted the baby to be born in wedlock, to have Dante’s name in case anything went wrong. She didn’t want the baby not to have a father.”

I shook my head, smirking. “Dante would never let his child go without. He’s loved this baby since the moment they found out Nina was expecting.”

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