Page 33 of A Merry Penthouse Christmas
I must not have noticed its absence, but this used to be on the fridge door, a photo of me holding Bastian, smiling at the camera, while Arik is looking adoringly at me. How had I never noticed he was looking at me like that?
“I love it,” I say with unbidden moisture filling my eyes. “Thank you, Arik. This is perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it, but there is a catch to you keeping that photo.”
“Catch?”
Arik is slowly, rhythmically rocking Bastian, who looks like he’s ready to fall asleep. “Yep. You can’t take that out of the apartment.”
“What?” I laugh.
“Come on. We’re not done yet.”
Arik leaves, and I am so stunned, so uncertain of where all this is heading, I forget I’m still holding the framed photo.
By the time I catch up to Arik, he’s already placing Bastian in his crib. He turns on the baby monitor and takes the other half to bring with us.
“Where are we—”
“Keep coming,” he answers in a singsong.
Cutting back through the kitchen, Arik reclaims his eggnog, so I do too—while still holding the photograph. He leads me all the way upstairs and toward his master bedroom. When we reach it, my jaw might as well be on the floor for how much it drops.
My missing things are all here.
“Since the photo can’t leave the penthouse,” Arik says, taking it from me and placing it on his—our?—nightstand, “I guess you have to stay too.”
“But I…” I pause a moment to find my tongue. “I have a new job.”
“Yes, so once we start having sex, I really can’t keep paying you. We’ll have to get another nanny to help out when we’re both working, but that is the burden we will have to bear. I expect you to do the screening and hiring as your last acts under my employ.”
“Arik…” I can feel my cheeks flushing and my eyes growing damp. “Are you sure? This is so sudden.” And wait, did he sayoncewe start having sex?
“I hired you in under five minutes.” He drinks his eggnog, encourages me to drink mine, then takes both mugs and sets them on the nightstand beside the photo. “It didn’t take the past two months for me to know I want to keep you, Beau. I think it barely took one.”
He returns to me, and with his hands now free, he tugs me toward him by my hips. “Now, about me not paying you for certain things.” He grins.
He is… so good. “Think you’re getting lucky, do you?”
“Why do you think I gave you your bonus early?”
I laugh. Does this count as having talked through things? I suppose it does, because Arik has thought of everything. “This is quite the new lease on life for a confirmed bachelor.”
“All life is a gamble.” He shrugs. “If things don’t work out between us down the road, then they don’t. We can’t predict that, but I can promise you that there won’t be any grudges. I’m not going to toss you out onto the street the second we have a fight or run into our own roadblocks. We’ve weathered plenty already. We’ll figure this out. I don’t want to live assuming the good times will always turn into bad. After all, bad turned good on a dime in the most unexpected of ways.” He looks toward the baby monitor, also on the nightstand.
“And by dime you meanmillions,” I tease him.
“With a ‘B’ actually.” Arik pulls me closer and kisses me.
He keeps kissing me until I’m breathless.
Either Bastian’s nap was divine intervention, a Christmas miracle, or Arik somehow managed to perfectly time getting the little guy sleepy, but it’s clear how he wants to start our Christmas Eve, and I can’t think of a reason to steer us down any other path.
When our lips disconnect, I say the one thing I still haven’t admitted to him.
“I found your toys the other day.”
ARIK
