Page 44 of Below Deck Billionaire
Tiffany didn’t skip a beat though. ‘Of course. Eventually.’ She smiled at Theo who returned it, but it felt wooden and fake compared to the easy tilt of her mouth. ‘He wants six kids.’ Turning back to Dimitri, she laughed. ‘We compromised on three. Two boys and a girl according to him and his crystal ball.’
Theo’s gut clenched at the visceral slug of the images suddenly invading his head. Tiffany’s belly swollen with his child. Being at her side as their baby entered the world. Two little blue-eyed, brown-haired boys and a little girl with chocolate curls and eyes just like hermamaka, all running to him with their arms open when he got home from work.
It was the antithesis of what he’d wanted from life but now, he wasn’t so sure and the whole world seemed to suddenly tilt on an axis. What was wrong with him?
He’d had a vasectomy, for fuck’s sake.
She smiled again as she leaned in towards Dimitri a little and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘I think he also has the names picked out but he’s denying it because he doesn’t want to spook me.’
Dimitri chuckled but it soon faded. ‘We couldn’t have children,’ he said wistfully.
Helena slid her hand into her husband’s. ‘It broke my heart,’ she admitted.
‘Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that,’ Tiffany murmured, her voice tinged with empathy.
Smiling graciously, Helena shrugged. ‘It was God’s will and we’ve been lucky in other ways.’
But the ache and resignation in Helena’s voice told its own story, making Theo look at the couple anew. For the first time since Dimitri had declared his intention to make Theo rue the day he’d embarrassed Angelika, he actually felt sorry for the older man. Pots and pots of money – back in the day – and he hadn’t been able to give the person he loved the most in the world the one thing she wanted the most.
How gutting would something like that be to Theo’s ego? How impotent would it make him feel? No wonder Dimitri had been so outraged at Theo’s treatment of Angelika.
‘Still.’ Dimitri cleared his throat. ‘We were blessed with a goddaughter and she has been the light of our life.’
Even if Angelika had just been on his mind, Theo hadn’t expected Dimitri to mention her in front of Tiffany. He may be cantankerous but he was always polite. Looking across at the old man now, Theo didn’t think it had been deliberate, but he really wished he hadn’t as an awkward pall descended between them.
‘Oh, yes, Theo told me.’ Tiffany nodded matter-of-factly, either oblivious to, or completely ignoring, the pall, and Theo held his breath, trying to project with his eyes that she should abandon the topic, but she kept forging onwards. ‘Angelika, right?’
Dimitri’s brow furrowed, emphasising the wrinkles of his forehead. ‘Theo told you about Angelika?’
‘Of course.’ She shrugged a shoulder. ‘We don’t have any secrets.’
He turned an appraising gaze on Theo, who met and held it unflinchingly. It had been seventeen years, it was long resolved, and it was time the old man let it go.
‘I admire that he told me actually,’ Tiffany continued, sliding her hand on top of his, mimicking the older couple. ‘It was an incident in his life from a long time ago that he sincerely regrets and still feels it as a stain on his character, which I think speaks volumes about the kind of man he is. The kind that admits when he made a mistake and accepts responsibility for it.’
Still looking at Theo, Dimitri nodded slowly. ‘There is certainly honour in that,’ he agreed before his gaze shifted back to Tiffany. ‘Theo is lucky to have you.’
‘I know, right?’ She grinned impishly, and Dimitri and Helena laughed as the undercurrent of tension snapped in two. ‘I tell him that all the time.’
‘And does he believe you?’ Helena asked with a big smile.
‘Oh, I do,’ Theo confirmed as he picked up their joined hands and dropped a kiss on her knuckles like he’d done that night up on the sundeck. The slight rounding of her eyes told him she remembered it too. ‘I absolutely do.’
* * *
An hour later, Tiffany was crawling into Theo’s king-sized bed in her baggy sleep shirt and pulling the sheet up to her chin. It had been a whirlwind of a day, from her fantasy shopping spree to the massive ring she wore on her finger to the meal they’d all just shared to the crew who’d thought the whole situation was hilarious, cheekily bowing and curtsying to her when she’d gone to thank them for dinner.
But as she waited for Theo to emerge from the bathroom, it felt like it was only just beginning. Desperately she wished she was up on deck working on her book, but she couldn’t risk being caught should either of their guests wander up because it was the one thing she didn’t want to share.
Theo knowing had been anomaly enough.
She could do it in bed, she supposed, but she doubted she’d be able to concentrate on anything other than Theo sleeping on the couch not three metres away.
The door opened, and Tiffany startled a little as the bathroom light went out and the suite plunged into darkness momentarily before the lamp sitting on the table next to the couch snapped on to reveal Theo in a pair of clingy cotton boxer briefs and nothing else.
Helplessly, her gaze was drawn to the acres of smooth bronzed flesh of his back and shoulders and the dark hair furring his forearms, perfectly muscled legs and chest. Her nipples remembered how good it had felt having that hair rubbing against their taut peaks, and they tingled wantonly in recognition.
‘That was a risky move talking about Angelika,’ he said as he sorted through the pile of pillows and bedding he’d dumped on the couch before he’d used the bathroom.
