But Red grabbed her by the shoulders. “Wait. I’m sorry, Nicole. Please come back.”
She spun on him. “What do you want from me? I’m here. I’m with you even though your life is crazy. But I love you, I love you more than anything in this world and so I’m going to stick it out with you no matter what.”
He was laughing a little, which only made Nicole more furious. She slapped at his hands, and then he grabbed her and pulled her close. Suddenly he was kissing her hard on the mouth, even though she resisted at first.
But Nicole could never resist Red Jameson for long, and soon she was melting into him, into his kiss, and the warmth and passion that radiated from him.
When they finally broke off, he smiled into her eyes. “I’m a fool. Please forgive me.”
“You are a fool,” she said, shaking her head.
“I know. But I’m smart enough to know that I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy. I wanted to get married sooner because I know that people are going to try and tear us apart. People like my mother…”
“Don’t let her get in the way of living our lives the way we want to,” Nicole told him.
He nodded. “Of course you’re right.”
“And besides, nobody’s going to stop us from getting married and being together.”
He grinned wider. “When did you get so incredibly wise?”
“I just know what we have, Red. You taught me that what we have is stronger than all of the drama and silliness surrounding us.”
They kissed again, longer and just as passionate, if somewhat restrained by earlier standards they’d set. When he was done showing her just how much he loved her with his warm lips, Red grabbed her hand. “Come on, we better get a good meal in and hit the sack early tonight. We’ve got an early flight to Berlin tomorrow morning.”
***
It was strange but also kind of beautiful to be travelling to Berlin with Red Jameson. Sometimes, like when they were sitting in first class on the airplane (no private jet today), Nicole looked over at her future husband and wanted to pinch herself.
This was the man she’d spent months and months idolizing, reading about—setting him up as a kind of god on earth. In the end, she’d found that he really was just a man, but quite an extraordinary man with more layers than she’d ever imagined.
Staring out the window of the plane at thirty-five thousand feet, all she could see were clouds beneath the plane, and the plane’s shadow trailing along on the puffy white surface of them. It was like a dream, an exciting but sometimes terrifying dream where she’d gotten everything she could ever have imagined—but there monsters she couldn’t yet see who wanted to rip it all away from her.
Eventually she rested her head on Red’s shoulder and closed her eyes and slept most of the way to Berlin.
Any hopes Nicole might have had in seeing Germany were soon put to rest, as they immediately were picked up by a car service at the airport, and taken to the Concorde Hotel, a very modern building that looked more like a museum than a hotel.
As they checked in, Red spoke German fluently with the staff. Nicole was shocked, and on their way up the elevator to their suite, she asked him how he knew German.
“Once I realized I wanted to bring Jameson International into a global marketplace, I spent the next four or five years learning German, French and even a tiny bit of Japanese. But I really took to the German language for some reason.”
“That’s incredible.”
“That’s not incredible,” he said, grabbing her and pinning her against the wall of the elevator. “You are incredible. Your mind. Your body.” He looked her up and down, his gaze raking her body with ferocity. “Those tits.”
“Red!”
The elevator dinged and he reluctantly let her away from the wall. They walked to their suite, a large, modern set of connecting rooms with brown and white décor.
“I wish we had enough time for me to throw you down on this bed and show you what the word incredible really means,” he told her, as they dropped their bags and surveyed the rooms.
“You’re frisky today,” she laughed.
“I can’t keep my hands off you,” he said, grabbing her by the waist, picking her up and kissing her deeply on the mouth.
As usual, she melted into his kiss and his embrace. And then his cell was ringing again. “Dammit,” he said, moving away from her and answering brusquely.
As she watched his expression, a feeling of dread overcame her. The color drained from his face as he listened to whoever was talking. “We’ll be right there,” he said, and then put the phone back in his pocket.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Red looked at her and his eyes were like two dark stones. “The dominoes are falling,” he said. “We’re about to lose everything. Come on.”