The Virgin and the Beast Read online

  Xavier just stares at me, totally deadpan. “Worse than all of those.”

  My mouth drops open and I stop pacing right in front of him. “What? What is it?”

  “My family are career politicians.”

  I pause and frown. “What’s your last name again?” I heard it once briefly the day Holy Hellfire died but everything was happening too fast for me to really catch it.

  His jaw goes taut. “Kent. My dad is Pritchard Kent.”

  “Shit.” I can feel my face draining of color.

  “Language.” The chastisement barely has any energy to it, though.

  “He’s the Speaker of the House,” I whisper.

  Xavier nods, apparently completely unimpressed by this fact.

  “Oh God, did he invest with my dad?” I put a hand to my forehead.

  “No, but your father was already on my radar,” Xavier watches me gravely.

  I stumble back from him. He denied it in the beginning but what if he was lying? “Oh God, please tell me—” Dad said he’d borrowed from bad, powerful men. “Were you out for my Dad all along?”

  Xavier shakes his head, vehemently. “No.” He takes a step forward, closing the gap between us. “But I know who is and, yes, it’s someone else in my father’s world. Years ago when they lent your father money and went into business with him, I knew about it because Dad and I talked about everything back then. We had a brief period of getting along.” His mouth tightens. Obviously that didn’t last too long. “He was trying to groom me to walk in his footsteps and he didn’t want me heading into the family business naïve or blind to how things actually work in Washington. When I saw in the news about your father’s indictment, I knew you were both in danger. I figured you and I could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Help each other out.”

  I lean over and put my hands on my knees. “Your dad said something about a bargain, I don’t get it. What was he talking about?”

  Xavier rubs my back and I’m not sure if I want to pull away from his touch or lean into it.

  “My grandfather was a very rich man.” Xavier’s voice is short and to the point. “There’s an inheritance. I live on a yearly stipend until then. But the inheritance is enough to let me continue and even expand the rescue comfortably for the rest of my life. I could have accessed the money earlier, when I was twenty-five, as long as I sought public office. Continued the family tradition.”

  His voice drops off and when I turn my head, though his hand still moves methodically over my back, he’s staring off into the distance.

  “That didn’t work out,” he finally says. It’s obvious there’s more to the story he’s glossing over, but he moves on. “I got back from the army and opened this place up. I thought I got the money when I turned thirty. But no, it turns out there’s a provision that I have to have a natural-born child by the time of my next birthday in order to inherit the money.”

  “So me and the baby.” I take a sharp breath in. I guess when I thought about it I assumed family was just something that was very important to Xavier. I never guessed it was about… that it was all part of some… “You just need us to get the money?” I can’t help the accusation in my voice.

  “Don’t twist my words.” He grabs both of my hands when I try to turn away from him. “You.” He pulls me close and drops a hand to my stomach between us, his blue eyes burning into mine. “This child.” His head starts to shake back and forth. “You’re nothing I ever thought I would—” He swallows and looks down. It’s unlike him to be at a loss for words and I can’t help pressing.

  “What?” He can’t close up on me now. After learning what I just did, I can’t deal with vague half-truths.

  His eyes come back to me. “You’re a dream, all right? Something I’m afraid I’ll wake up from and you’ll be gone. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.” It’s the second time he’s said that in the space of half an hour. What the hell is that all about? But he keeps talking so there’s no more time to unpack it. “I thought with the inheritance that maybe I could do something good. I could live out my life in peace without hurting anyone, maybe help some old horses. Then I found out about the heir clause.” His nostrils flare. “And then there was you.”

  The intensity of his gaze is making my stomach curl, with warmth and love and the lingering embers of the orgasms he gave me not fifteen minutes ago. But there are still so many questions.

  “So what does all this have to do with your father? Does he get the money if you don’t?”

  Xavier’s mouth tightens. A sure sign I’m hitting a nerve.

  “If I don’t have a child, my father can direct the money toward the political super PACs and political charities of his choosing. So while he doesn’t get the money per se, he’s still invested in the outcome of where it goes.”

  “But I guess,” he kicks at the grass, another very out of place gesture for my usually so in control man, “he still thinks he might be able to spend that money on my candidacy.”

  My eyes pop open at that. Xavier’s… what?

  “My father was never happy with the career path I’ve chosen. He was very invested in me joining the family business. And I was a rank and file soldier who went along,” he tilts his head back and forth, “if a bit grudgingly at times. He’s still got it in his head that all of this is a phase.” He nods out at the land then back at the stable. “Not to mention this is not the face of a politician. You can’t exactly kiss babies when one look at you makes them scream.”

  Now I’m the one scoffing. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that I can’t even imagine you in a suit.” I try to circle one of his muscular biceps using both of my hands and they still don’t touch. “Do they even make suits in your size?” I shake my head. “God, I just can’t picture you anywhere but out here in the open air. You have such a sense with the horses. You’re so natural with them.” I can’t stop shaking my head, it’s too strange an image to even try to compute.

  “I’ve told him enough times that this is my future. My only future. When I had my lawyer look into the inheritance issue right after I turned twenty-nine last year, I was shocked to find out about the stipulation that I had to have a child for the inheritance to pass to me.”

  His voice takes on a lower, growling quality. “Dad knew the whole time. He kept it from me because he was trying to force me back into politics. So I’d effectively have to depend on him for my livelihood through his influence and financing of my campaigns. He said we could play off my deformity for votes because in Afghanistan I was an American hero.” He spits the last words like they’re filthy curse words.

  His hand is fisted and when I look closer, I see that his whole arm is shaking.

  What the hell happened to him over there?

  “Xavier—” I reach out to him but he turns his broad back to me.

  “No.”

  I can’t help flinching. It hurts. God, it hurts that he won’t open up to me.

  “I just can’t, Precious.” His voice sounds ragged. Raw. “Please don’t ask me.”

  I sigh deeply, feeling overwhelmed by this entire conversation.

  “All right. I guess we should go in.” Then I look over my shoulder toward the pastures behind us. “I haven’t brought in Sugar yet or brushed her down.”

  “She’s fine.” Xavier’s voice still sounds off, but it gains strength as he talks about the more mundane topic of his horses. “I leave her out to pasture for whole weeks sometimes in the summer. Let’s just go try to survive this dinner.”

  We take a few steps before something else occurs to me and I stop again.

  “Wait, so when do you turn thirty?”

  He’s still faced away from me when he answers. “December 23rd.”

  I gape. That means…

  If I hadn’t gotten pregnant when I did… that would have been it. Inheritance lost. He only ever had two months to get me pregnant.

  And apart from a couple tries, he basically wasted the whole first month
I was here! Wtf?! I assumed it was because he had all the time in the world, but he only had two months and he—

  “Why?” I tug on his arm. There’s no way my tiny pull would move him, but he turns back at the pressure.

  His eyes meet mine and he obviously reads the meaning of my question in my face. “I needed to know you would be safe. Before we really tried.”

  That I would be safe? What does that—? My first impulse is to be insulted.

  He needed to know he could control me is what he really means. He needed me to be a dog begging at his feet for scraps.

  But— No, that doesn’t feel exactly right.

  He never gave me just scraps. He fed me richly. He’s taken care of my every need. Sumptuously.

  His nightly massages in the bath. Touching me whenever we’re near. Holding me so close after his nightmares. He’s needed me too.

  Suddenly a barrage of things he’s told me over the months come flooding back like one of those cheesy montages in a movie.

  I’ve been training you because I wanted you to stay. So I could keep you.

  When he talked about Sugar that time: She was always a sweet girl underneath. She just had to learn how to trust. It took a while for me to break through with her.

  And:

  Trust is the most precious gift you can give to any being.

  After those first couple of attempts, he realized he wasn’t willing to have a baby with me until he could trust me.

  And that whole begging for his cock thing?

  Well, there was no better way to prove that I trusted him than allowing him to be intimate with me.

  But… he had so much to lose.

  Turns out, everything was on the line.

  “It mattered that much to you?” I ask him. I can still barely wrap my head around the idea that he gambled so much on me. “That I trust you first?”

  “There was no point otherwise.”

  My mouth drops open. “That’s insane. What if I hadn’t come around in time?”

  The right side of his mouth hitches up. “No chance. You were panting every time I came into the room. You licked your lips when I took off my shirt and you couldn’t keep your eyes off my ass.”

  I make an outraged noise and the smile teasing at his lips turns into a full-out grin. He wraps his arms low around my waist and then yanks me up and against him.

  I gasp in a deep breath and lift my hands to his shoulders.

  “Yep,” he says, leaning in, his breath warm on my ear. “A little like how you’re panting right now.”

  He’s joking and playing it off, but still. He had so little chance to start with. Only two months. Two opportunities to get me pregnant, two of my eggs. If he was only concerned about the money and securing the inheritance, then the smartest move would have been for him to screw anything with a viable uterus and spread his seed far and wide. Or even to have gone the scientific route and fertilized a bunch of eggs in a lab for surrogacy.

  But no. Not my Xavier.

  He hikes me up just enough so that his rapidly growing hard on digs into the perfect spot between my legs. He drops his head to kiss me and I lick my lips to moisten them in anticipation.

  He grins in the way that takes my breath away.

  “Just proving my point, Precious.”

  I startle, then realize I just licked my lips. Annoyed, I start to push him away, but he just chuckles and lands the most loin-tingling, soul-searing kiss.

  I’m half crawling up him by the time he pulls away, still chuckling but also with lust darkening his blue eyes.

  “If my father weren’t waiting and no doubt spying on us out the kitchen windows, I would drag you to the ground right here.”

  I groan as he sets me back on my feet and starts leading me toward the house.

  ***

  Dinner is as awkward an affair as I might have imagined. I fill in with mindless chitchat about life on the farm. Xavier’s father tries to look interested but I can tell it’s a strain to keep his attention focused on our equine feeding schedules or even how Xavier is training Samson.

  “It’s really incredible,” I continue gushing. “He was completely wild only a few months ago and now he’s gentle as a kitten when Xavier’s got his hands on him.”

  Xavier scoffs. “I don’t know about that. He’s still got some snap in him. He about took my finger off when I approached him from the right flank the other day.”

  I raise my eyebrows in surprise and Pritchard drinks some of his ice water, clearly biting back some comment.

  “You haven’t worked on that side as much, I guess.” I look to his dad. “I didn’t know this before I came here, but apparently ideas and things they learn don’t automatically transfer between both spheres of their brains like they do for humans. So if you teach a horse a skill from the left side, you have to teach him the same skill starting from scratch on the right side. Totally crazy, I had no idea.”

  Xavier nods. “Ranchers joke it’s like getting two horses every time.”

  I shake my head. I can’t believe I never knew that. It just seems like one of those fun facts people would talk about all the time. Xavier jokingly talks about Samson as Lefty and Righty. As in, oh, I spent the day with Lefty today.

  “Guess you need to focus on spending some time with Righty, then,” I smile at him.

  Xavier inclines his head before shoveling in a huge bite of shepherd’s pie. I’m really happy with how it came out today. Since I’ve gotten pregnant and don’t have to work so hard out on the ranch, I’ve taken to experimenting in the kitchen.

  Well, at least the past couple weeks once the first trimester was over and the smell of meat didn’t send me running for the nearest bathroom. This is one of my favorite recipes because it’s hard to screw up. It’s the third time we’ve had it in the last two and a half weeks.

  What? So I’m slowly expanding my menu of things I can cook. I grew up a New York where take-out was a major food group.

  It’s also a bit odd to be using a fork and feeding myself. God, it’s the first time in months and it feels a bit… well, unsettling and lonely being so separate from Xavier all the way over there at the head of the table with his father sitting across from me. I can’t believe him feeding me has become such a source of comfort and connection after how much I fought it in the beginning.

  The few times I catch Xavier looking at me, his eyes focused on my fork disappearing between my lips, I wonder if he isn’t thinking something similar.

  “So, son,” Pritchard says after Xavier’s midway through his second helping, “what will it take to get you to come home?”

  Xavier’s fork only pauses briefly on its way to his mouth. Behind him, I notice it start to rain outside.

  He continues to take his bite, chews normally, and washes it down with his water. He has beer in the fridge, and I’m surprised he didn’t want to take the slightest edge off for this meal with his father. I take a sip of water as I look back and forth between the two men like I’m at a tennis match. Oh dear. Is this where the yelling starts?

  But Xavier only says with an easy smile, “I am home, Dad.”

  Pritchard gives a half-roll of his eyes and puts his napkin down on the table after wiping his mouth. “Be serious. Your mother and I indulged you long enough with this horse farm fantasy, but it’s time to grow up. Especially now that you’ll be starting a family—” He gestures in my direction.

  “Leave Melanie out of this,” Xavier says. It’s shocking to hear him use my name. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard him even say it out loud.

  “I won’t change my mind on this, Dad. You need to let it go. I left that path a long time ago.”

  Pritchard exhales loudly and sits back in his chair. “Why? That’s what I don’t understand. Sure, what happened over there was unfortunate but it wasn’t your fault—”

  “Stop.” Xavier’s voice is cold.

  “No, I won’t stop,” his father continues earnestly. “I’ve talked to some
doctors and they say you have all the classic symptoms of PTSD and survivor’s guilt. But it wasn’t your fault all those people died. You weren’t even directly involved in the Quran burnings. You just happened to be in command of those men.”

  “Stop.” Xavier’s jaw is working and I can tell he’s barely managing his usually easy control.

  His father just continues on, though, oblivious or too desperate to press the subject, I can’t tell. “Then with the insanity of the riot— I understand. Really, I do. I know you find it difficult to believe, but in Vietnam I—”

  “You were a REMF in ‘Nam, Dad,” Xavier explodes, standing up and pushing his chair back. I startle and grab the table’s edge. I’ve never seen him so worked up apart from the moments right after one of his nightmares.

  “Just like you tried to make me in Afghanistan. Station the boy in the center of a green zone at a big air base so he can get some military experience,” Xavier spits out the words mockingly. “Looks great for the future political career but keep him safe from any of the actual shit of war. Well, guess what, Dad? My fancy Ivy League education didn’t help me when the protestors were at the gate throwing acid at anyone wearing a military uniform. And I was one of the fucking lucky ones. I came home with a fucking heartbeat.”

  Oh my God!

  “Xavier,” I cry, stepping forward.

  The rain has been picking up and thunder rumbles so loud, it seems to shake the house. Or maybe that’s just everything that’s been revealed in the last few minutes.

  Xavier yanks back from me. “I’ve gotta go check on the horses. Stay here.”

  He turns and stomps out the door, grabbing his coat and hat before slamming it behind him.

  Xavier’s father sits down heavily in his chair at the table and sinks his head in his hands. I wonder just how old he is and if Xavier isn’t wrong about his motivations for coming here. Sure, he might still have political aspirations for his son—you don’t get to his position in American politics without being an extremely motivated man… but maybe he just wants his son back, too.