Chapter 7

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Sunday afternoon

Sunday, during brunch at a quaint little spot in the village, the family sat eating while Aria and Sophia sat side by side, not really paying attention to their food. Instead, they were looking at each other, both stealing looks at their parents, and conversing with each other, not saying a word.

"You guys wanna share?" David smiled as he looked up from his plate.

"No," Aria said and looked at Sophia.

"Okay, what's up?" Olivia asked. But the girls just smiled at each other. "Soph…?"

"You ask," Aria whispered to Sophia, but Sophia simply shot Aria a look; one that Aria gave back to her and they stayed that way for a moment until Sophia, realizing that Aria wouldn't do it, let off a deep sigh and spoke.

"How come you guys don't kiss anymore?"

Liv and David sat there, both unsure of what to say.

"We...kiss," Olivia answered while looking at David to back her up, but Aria spoke before they could continue.

"Not the long yucky kisses." the girls giggled sillily.

"You guys kiss like you kiss me and Ari," Sophia added.

"They've got a point," David said and Olivia turned around and looked at him.

"No, they don't."

"Mommy, are you and Daddy still in love?" Sophia asked; she and Aria holding each other's hands, nervously. An action that didn't go unnoticed by either of their parents, who looked at each other.

"Do you guys know what being in love means?" David asked.

"It means that you give each other really long kisses and you put your arms around mommy and she puts hers around you," Aria answered, with what her seven-year mind could comprehend.

"...and hold hands!" Sophia added. Aria nodding her head.

"We do that," David said and Olivia looked back at him as she agreed.

"Of course we do! It's just…"

"Just?" Sophia asked as she looked up at her mother.

"Just…David, feel free to jump in here anytime."

"We just...well with the baby coming, your mom has been...she doesn't really like to be...touched at this...stage in her pregnancy?" He said/asked/partly lied with uncertainty while he looked at Olivia before he went back to eating. Aria and Sophia sat for a long moment looking at David and Olivia, and when they couldn't find the lie they looked at each other silently and went back to enjoying their food without an outwardly verbal word between them.

On a golf course on the island of Kaua'i in Hawaii, Amir Answari was about to take a shot on the ninth when his phone rang.

He took the phone from his pocket to look at the number on the display.

"You going to putt?" his friend asked him.

"I have to take this; excuse me a moment…" he said and answered. "what do you have?"

"Turns out, dead men do tell tales. I found a diary."

"A diary? Does it have any information that we can use?"

"…good reading."

"Anything about…"

"A ton. I'm on my way to Hawaii, we'll discuss when I get there. I should see you tonight."

"Very good. I'll see you then." Amir said before he hung up and marched back over to his business associates, who were waiting. "Sorry about that, gentlemen. Now, where were we?"

Later that night, David entered their bedroom and Olivia smiled as she briefly looked up at him from the book she was reading. She was wearing his favorite nightgown. The one that was gauzy, cotton and see-through enough that it showed off every curve of her body so wonderfully. He remembered the weekend before they went for the amniocentesis, she wore it, and he had such a good time tearing it off of her! Now he wondered, with her sitting in bed and smiling that beautiful smile of hers. If they would ever be like they were again; truly, deeply, madly in love.

"I don't think those two will ever want their own rooms."

With her head in her book, she grinned. "Give it time. In a few years when they hit puberty, trust me when I say they won't be able to get far enough away from each other."

"Don't say the p-word. I'm not nearly ready for them to start growing up." He said as he took his robe off and threw it on the seat at the end of the bed.

Olivia couldn't help but peek over her book to sneak a peek at his body. God, she needed to be fucked and he was here looking damn good! God she couldn't wait to see Nick tomorrow.

David laughed as he sat down beside her on the bed, then took a moment where he got silent, searching for the words he wanted to say.

"...the girls are right, you know?"

"About?"

"Us. We both tried to deny it to them but…"

"Where'd this come from?" She asked, but she already knew the answer.

"I don't know…maybe its because the last few months we've been drifting further apart,"

"David-"

"I know I said I wouldn't push, and I meant it. But… It's just… It just seems that ever since we lost this baby…" He had to choose his words very carefully. "...and I'm not comparing my sense of loss to yours. I know that you feel it deeper than any of us can ever understand."

"David-"

"Please let me finish; I just feel like… Liv, baby, it's been four and a half months, and we don't talk about it, or anything for that matter, except for when you yell at me and tell me to leave you alone."

"That's not true," She said, disbelieving as she took her book down and closed it. Was it?

"Liv, baby, it is," He said softly. This wasn't about trying to make her feel bad, but they were long overdue for this talk. "I feel like you've checked out of this relationship."

And there it was. The giant pink elephant that's been in every room, ever since she started sleeping with Nick behind his back two months ago, but just ignored. She carried on like everything was fine, and David let her, but after today with their girls…

"Is it what I said to the girls; or didn't say about us?"

"No. It's just me realizing that they were right."

"They're not right"

"Do you still love me, Olivia?"

"Of course I love you!" she didn't even need to think about it. She loved him deeply. It's just that she didn't feel that she was in love with him anymore. And for her, it simply wasn't enough to justify staying.

"Then baby, why have you been pulling away from me?"

"It's complicated,"

"Uncompli… hold on." He said as his phone suddenly rang. "Mary, you're gonna need to call me back… Yeah, but I… please just give me..." He spoke into his phone. "Mary, if this can at all wait until tomorrow, I am asking you to please call me then...yes. Thank you, I will. Goodnight." He said and hung up. "Olivia, I…"

"David, I…" They both said simultaneously.

"I'm sorry, go ahead." He apologized.

"I just, these last few months have been really hard for me,"

"Baby," he said as he took her hands. "do you think for a second that I haven't felt it? That I haven't experienced the same things? I lost a baby too and I haven't been able to even grieve him with you."

She was at a loss for words when those words hit her. She hadn't realized until this very moment that David was right. She couldn't think of one time that they'd talked about the baby's loss. She had been so completely selfish when they'd lost him. She'd wrapped herself in her pain and didn't let anyone in, selfishly thinking that it was hers alone. And suddenly, a crippling silence fell over the room as her tears began to fall.

David paused before he uttered another word, overcome by his own tears, but he needed to comfort Olivia, he needed to…

"Queenie… I'm sorry. Maybe...maybe this was too soon. The baby.,."

"Logan" she whispered so quietly as she sat there with her head down, unable to stop her tears but she lifted her head to look at him. To look into his eyes and speak up. "We named him Logan...and I'm so sorry. I never meant to shut you out."

"I know that you didn't mean to, Queenie. But baby, we've fallen apart because we lost Logan. He left and you closed yourself in this shell and didn't let anybody in,"

Except for Nick.

"...we lost one of our little boys. We'd gotten used to the idea that there would be two of them...I am so sorry that I wasn't there when you lost him...you don't know how sick I feel about that, but we can't let it break us, Queenie, we can't and seeing us, seeing the road we're headed down, it scares me so much! My biggest fear in this world is losing you again; it would kill me. I don't want us to come to a point where all of this just builds up until you can't take the silence anymore and then one day you're gone! We've come through too much to find our way back to one another."

The guilt that she was feeling at this moment could have torn her in half. He was right. She never gave him a chance. And for that, she wept as he took her in his arms. She cried for their loss, for Logan. But most of all for making David feel like it was all on him when then reality was, it was her. She planned to leave him any day now and he had no clue, and finally, for the first time, she wondered if she was doing the right thing.

He kissed her forehead and wiped her tears. "Queenie, please don't cry. I know that we dropped the ball, but we can start over as long as there's love there and I do love you, baby! I love you so much!

"David…"

"Let me take care of you!" He whispered as he held and kissed her hands so sweetly. "I wanna be everything to you again."

"I don't know if we can."

"You remember when we first met?" He said as he looked her in the eyes. "It was like we'd finally found that piece of ourselves that was missing. Like we were always meant to be..."

"I remember" She cried, as her tears dropped. She was getting caught up in this and feeling so confused.

"Queenie, baby, I'm not ready to give up on us. I knew from the day I met you that you were the one, and I know you feel it too!" He said as he kissed her lips, and then her neck; softly kissing that one spot behind her ear that he then sucked. That one that if he touched it just right…

"Ohhhhh…" She moaned with her eyes shut. She couldn't fight it. Between what his mouth was doing to her neck and his words to her heart... "David…"

"I know how hard it's been for you, but it's been hard for me too. Please don't say no...not tonight, baby, please. I need you so bad!"

"We can't…" It came out as nothing more than a whisper, an utterance as his mouth... God his mouth!" She knew where this would go, where they'd take this and she fought it as hard as she could but his mouth on her neck and lips, his hands on her breasts running over the covered tips so lightly. She couldn't even form a cohesive thought in between being very pregnant and now having her body tantalized and her pussy throbbing and wet, just screaming to be fucked. It practically jumped at him when his lips touched hers. She couldn't hold back this time and kissed him back with ridiculous fervor! They kissed each other ridiculously; her mouth, his neck, her breasts. Stop this, Olivia! She tried telling herself, but her body ignored her and enjoyed what he was doing to it.

"Dav-" She started, but her protests were cut short by his fingers now wonderfully filling her. He had inserted two and was moving them so delicately, but so expertly... God, this man knew her body like an artist knew his instrument and he played her so beautifully. with Nick, she'd be thoroughly fucked and fucked well. But David, he made everything feel like sensuous lovemaking. Even when it was just sex...if that could ever be.

She bit down on her bottom lip as she moaned, and as she felt herself stretching for him, opening up in spite of her intentions... I can't let this happen... She grabbed onto the headboard. He was making her crazy as he drove his fingers deeper inside her and gently moved them against her g-spot. She cried, opening her legs even wider to give him more room. "Oh god!"

"I have to get inside of you, Queenie. I need to feel you!"

"...baby-" She again started, but by then he had sunken his length into her as she cried out, gasping at how he filled her. His size was impressive, and he drew her lips in as he thrust powerfully into her. Holy fucking God! He was so big and felt so ridiculously good. "Go slow..." She cried as he intertwined his fingers with her to hold her down above her head and kept fucking her. She had to have control of this! It was bad enough that she had given in and he felt so incredible… "oh god!" she began bucking her hips, as he drove so deep into her. She threw her head back as she felt him hitting her spot so wonderfully.

"Oh God...oh God… David, I'm gonna cum...I'm...!" she cried urgently... "David…"

"...baby, I'm with you!" He whispered as they came together and he buried his head against her chest as he released her arms and caressed her face. He kissed her so sweetly as she shed tears. Her orgasm was so powerful that she shook as he spilled into her.

"Are you okay?" He whispered. He was still inside her and hadn't gone soft. He, thinking that it had been months for her, wanted to make sure before he continued. Although he was bursting to wrap her legs around him and take her all night.

"David…" she said as she continued shaking. "Love me harder," she kissed his lips. "...please" as she looked into his eyes, and bucked against him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah" She kissed him, cupping his face. "Please baby!" She'd worry about Nick later. Right now, she needed this, and she kissed him deeper then cried out as he went harder.

He thought after David had scared him nearly to death that he was done with the whole racket, and he was. But then came his bookie… he thought he had a sure thing on last night's boxing match; Gutierrez was sure to take down Mickelson, no later than the fifth round and he'd be clear of Mr. Johnson. As luck (or lack thereof on his part) would have it, Mickelson knocked Gutierrez out, second round and Stanley was right back where he started! And now, he had to get that money from David- his life depended on it.

He just prayed that David would never find out what he'd actually done...or hadn't. But fuck it, right? He'd worry about that once he was paid up with his bookie. Right now, he had a week to come up with what he owed.

David had threatened him, and while that in itself frightened him like crazy, the thought of Mr. Johnson killing him, that frightened him more. And so had to give this extortion thing another go. His only other option would be to knock over a jewelry store or a bank and he couldn't bring himself to do that. Besides, David was damn near a billionaire. Something Stanley wishes he had known when they originally made that deal in the first place. But that was neither here nor there.

"He won't miss a quarter million," Stanley said to no one as he sat drinking in his little apartment. "That's chump-change to him." He yelled, slurring his words. "I saw what his fiancee was wearing last night...the custom-made dress, Roger Vivier shoes, and that fucking necklace? We're talking a quarter mill right there, so don't you give me this shit, Haden, you owe me!" He said it boldly but then started to cry.

Tomorrow, he'd give it one last shot. He thought as he looked at the envelope that contained his short, letter to Olivia telling her that he had information that was vital to her. What he didn't include was that it would cost her the $250,000 that David might refuse. But he'd see tomorrow and in the process, pray that he didn't lose his life!

TBC… in the meantime, leave a review.