Never Have We Ever, page 2
Granted, Valeska’s family was much more invested in the wedding than she was. The bride was more concerned about what would happen after the wedding.
She was especially worried when she walked down the aisle in the small cathedral and saw her new husband standing in his fitted suit. She had barely kissed this man, let alone seen him naked or felt how he made love.
Because, as fate had it, they were still strangers.
They had courted, of course. Once the engagement was announced, their families’ PR agencies made it clear that they must be photographed together at least once a week, assuming André wasn’t on the other side of the world for business. So they dated – at least once a week.
Dinners, operas, plays, and tours through home cities with only one bodyguard shadowing them in the twilight. Their mutual English was good enough to get their points across and their opinions noted. Yet it wasn’t enough to dig deeper into their hearts and unearth how they really felt about one another.
André was a gentleman, of course. A handsome young man of means who appeared to be good husband material, assuming he stayed true to his gentlemanly word. As for fatherly material? That also remained to be seen.
Except she didn’t really know him. Only a few chaste kisses had ever been exchanged. Kisses that still made her knees tremble and her lips burn for the next several hours, but chaste nonetheless. Even after they exchanged phone numbers and sent each other daily greetings – in their native languages, because wasn’t that adorable? – Valeska still married a stranger.
Hence her occasional desire to run. It was only when she reminded herself why she was doing this that she remained true to her oath to her family. The Reiters already reaped the immense benefits of joining with the Dubois family. Valeska’s father had new business connections in the Francophone world, and in return, money was pumped into a Dubois investment in western Russia. Everyone they spoke to declared the match heavenly, and the new couple magnifique. Several gossip magazines insisted that they were the most beautiful couple of the year, and everyone wept to imagine how Valeska would look in her wedding dress.
She was presentable, she supposed. The lacy sleeves itched, and the veil was unwieldly in her curly hair, but nobody criticized her. Marlene and little sister Hailey were the types to criticize Valeska without consideration.
She removed the veil in the carriage on the way to the reception. Beside her, the man she had joined in holy matrimony asked if she had tracked any dirt on her hem.
“It’s fine,” Valeska insisted, but only because she couldn’t stand the thought of André touching her when she was so anxious. She had married him, but they were not yet close enough for her to feel that comfortable around him. Mrs. Valeska Dubois – shit, that would take getting used to – needed her space in that cramped Victorian carriage.
Everyone complimented on their exquisite tastes, and most of that praise was lobbed at Valeska, who thanked her guests for their kind words. In reality, she had no idea who was catering or that every centerpiece would be a giant Easter lily surrounded by pink baby’s breath. The wedding planning had been entirely left up to Marlene, with only a few bits of input from Valeska. The only thing she insisted on having total control over was her dress. Marlene hadn’t put up a fight, since she and Valeska had the same tastes in high fashion.
This wedding wasn’t about the new couple. It was about their families celebrating their fabulous business deal, and this was their public chance to show their closest confidants and other big names of Europe how rich and tasteful they were. Both the Dubois family and the Reiters would walk away from the reception with Blackberries full of new contacts that would go on to become some of their biggest clients.
Perhaps, if Valeska and André had been in love… her feelings toward her “big day” would have been different.
Instead, she treated her own wedding as a theatrical attraction. She played the coveted lead role of bride, starring opposite of the (formerly) most eligible bachelors in Europe, let alone France. As long as she followed the script of greeting guests, eating cake, and dancing with her male lead, she would be fine.
Unfortunately, the headspace had to end. As twilight loomed on the horizon, the Parisian wedding coordinator whispered in the couple’s ears that it was time for them to leave.
Hailey and Marlene accompanied the bride into a small room built specifically for this moment. While the party continued outside, the other Reiter women looked Valeska up and down and muttered to themselves in brusque German.
“It would be a terror if this dress is harmed. We should have her change.”
“They’re just going to the chateau, Mother.” Hailey, who usually had her baby attached to her hip these days, scoffed. “It would be much quicker to let her into the honeymoon suite and let him deal with the dress. So what if he tears it off her body?”
Valeska gasped.
“You know what I mean, right?” Hailey laughed at her big sister’s embarrassment. “You married the man. You must know he’s a steed.”
“Hailey.” Marlene shook her head. “Please. Your sister is a lady, unlike you.”
“What does that mean?” Hailey looked back to her sister, who continued to blush at the implication she would be bedded mere seconds after being wedded. “Mein Gott! Are you serious? You haven’t fucked him yet?”
“Hailey!”
“You knew that?” Hailey went from shocked to greatly amused in fewer than five seconds. The same amount of time Valeska needed to compose herself. “I’m shocked you never said anything, after all those stories about him in the press.”
Marlene grunted in disproval. “Your sister doesn’t distract herself with tawdry publications. She chose a more appropriate path for her marriage.”
“Are you kidding me? Even I fucked my husband at least once a week before I married him. I needed to make sure I knew what I was getting into after you set us up.” Hailey had only been the first to receive her arranged marriage because her husband Dillon Undercroft, one of Ireland’s most celebrated businessmen, caught sight of her at a party and demanded to date her that night. When he found out the Reiter girls were candidates for arranged marriages, he proposed to Hailey on the first date. They had been married for three years, and Hailey was already pregnant with her second child. “It’s not like Valeska’s a virgin!”
“I’m right here, thank you.” The bride smoothed down her bodice, although fantastical thoughts of her new husband making short work of it enticed her to find some privacy. “I wasn’t opposed to premarital relations, but the opportunity never presented itself. That’s all I care to share with you.”
Marlene chuckled while Hailey considered that statement. “Well,” Mrs. Reiter said, “we’ll leave the wedding night up to you, dear. Like Hailey so astutely pointed out, you are no virgin, so I’m sure you don’t need us to give you advice.”
“He’s fucking some girlfriend on the side,” Hailey muttered. She didn’t look at Valeska. “That’s the only explanation.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like sex.” Valeska removed some of her jewelry and secured it in a lockbox her mother would look after. The only thing she was taking with her into the honeymoon chateau was the wedding gown on her body. “Which is fine with me. We’ve already agreed to keep the wedding closed for the first two years, and will then assess what we wish to do with our private romances.”
This was her first time sharing that detail with any of her family. Hailey shrugged. Marlene’s mouth dropped open.
“Adultery?”
“One year of this marriage at a time, mother. Please.”
She knew her family would be no help to her nerves, but she truly did not need them ribbing her about the wedding night she had been both dreading and anticipating for weeks. Once Valeska realized that premarital sex was not going to happen with André, she detached her immediate thoughts about the issue and assumed it might happen one faraway day from whenever she contemplated what it would be like to have sex with her future husband. Well, it was now her wedding day. She figured there was a good chance André still would not be interested in her. If he didn’t approach her about the issue within two days’ time, she would assume he saw this wedding as nothing but business for their families, and that would be that.
In which case, she would look forward to opening things up in two years’ time. Maybe she could find a lover to keep her physically content while André likewise fucked off. Many arranged marriages were like that.
Although… the man was exactly Valeska’s type. One of the driving reasons she agreed to marry him was because of her attraction to his physique and mannerisms. The thought he could be intense enough to warrant tabloid stories did not help her overactive imagination.
She kissed her family goodbye before rejoining her husband, who had removed his jacket and loosened his tie for the last of the public photos. They shared one practiced kiss for the cameras. Then, the bouquet toss, which landed in the hands of a young Monegasque heiress who spoke better Castilian than French. Ms. Dolores Bolivar would meet the French banker of her dreams at that reception.
“Are you ready?” André offered his arm to Valeska as they turned away from their guests.
She wrapped her hand around his arm and nodded. “Please. I am so tired.”
“Me too. I hear they have a lovely suite arranged for us.” He whispered one last thing into his wife’s ear. “Very private.”
Her imagination went into overdrive the whole carriage ride back to the chateau. Not even the clanging of cans and the showers of birdseed could knock her out of her fantasies.
Chapter 3
The suite in the chateau was indeed private. A shame they would only spend the first two days of their month-long honeymoon on the estate, because the picturesque sunset was enough to calm Valeska’s anxiety after a tiring wedding day.
“Do you want some champagne?”
She slowly turned from the window, letting the sheer curtain fall back into place. André stood only a few meters behind her, a glass of golden champagne in his hand. Two, actually. One for him. One for his bride.
“Thank you.” Valeska accidentally stepped on her skirt as she approached with an outstretched hand. She caught herself before André could see her misstep.
“Cheers.” André clinked his glass against hers before raising the rim to his lips. “Happy wedding day, Madame Dubois.”
She waited to drink her champagne. “I suppose Valeska Dubois has a certain ring to it.”
“Certainly more than André Reiter does.” He walked away, one hand in his pocket. He briefly gazed at the large bed covered in white satin and sprinkled in red rose petals before checking his phone. “Although I’m surprised you took my name. I thought you might at least hyphenate it.”
“It’s the proper thing to do.” Valeska would never get used to her married name. She would always feel like a little girl writing fantasy names in her schoolbook. “VR + AD 4ever!” “Besides, if we have children, I should at least have their name, since I doubt I’ll have their accent.”
André spun in her direction. Some of his leftover champagne sloshed in his glass. “Yes. Right. Children. Suppose that’s practical.”
They hadn’t had the Big Talk about children yet. That would come at the two-year mark, depending on how they felt about the marriage. That, of course, assumed Valeska didn’t become with child by happy accident before then.
That thought made her start drinking.
“So, in two days we shall fly to Italy and begin our great tour of the Mediterranean.” André grinned. “Best to rest up.”
Panic rose in Valeska’s chest. “We still have tomorrow to rest.”
“Yes. We do.”
They did not say anything for a few more agonizing seconds. Finally, Valeska couldn’t take it anymore.
“I will see if they have another room prepared.” She gathered her ivory skirt and walked toward the door. “So we can rest up for the traveling.”
André watched her struggle with her skirt as if she hadn’t been walking in it all day. Why was she suddenly so damn clumsy? Nerves? They were back? Ugh! “Wait. Where are you going?”
Was he truly confused? “To see about the other room. Why? Do you presume we are…?” Valeska needed more alcohol.
“It’s our wedding night, isn’t it?”
Valeska was fairly certain that her heart thumped at dangerous speeds. “It is. Are we…?”
André placed his half-empty glass on the nearest table. “Are you too tired?”
She swallowed. “For what?”
“Please. You want me to say it?”
Valeska was too embarrassed to respond with words. Her reddening cheeks would do.
“L’amour.”
Her French was good enough to know what that meant. It didn’t sound quite as romantic in German. God, why couldn’t she have married some German? Some Scandinavian? Maybe an Englishman with a crass way of saying making love? André’s lovely way of putting it only made her frustration worse.
Because, seriously, how dare he?
“You are angry?”
Valeska released her skirt from her hands. “Why didn’t you ask me to sleep with you before we got married?”
André absentmindedly pulled on the few blond hairs sprouting from his chin. Valeska would soon learn that was a nervous tic whenever he was in deep thought. Particularly, when he attempted to communicate something complicated to her and worried about any language barrier still erected between them. “This is more romantic, non?”
She sighed. “Can you appreciate how nervous I am? I married you for reasons unrelated to… that… but I wasn’t sure what was going on. We never discussed it.”
“I never knew how to broach the subject. To be fair, you never brought it up, either.”
“We’ve been on some pleasant dates, André, but they were quite chaste. You never hit on me once.”
“I did not take you for a lady who appreciates being hit on.”
“Because I am well-bred?” He should have seen that one sex tape she made with her college boyfriend before she deleted it in shame. Some real good stuff in that!
“Because you are Valeska Reiter.”
“What does that mean?”
He was only a few centimeters from her now. Close enough for her to kiss, although she refused to make the first move. “It means that you are on another level from the type of woman I would normally date. Perhaps it is not a modern thing to say, but the women I used to date before agreeing to marry you… they were for fun. When I met them, I knew they were only for l’amour. For playing. It was an agreement between us. I spoil them, they spoil me… we move on when it is time. But you? I create a marriage with you. Maybe we have some children.”
“So it’s a respectability thing?” He was right. That was not a modern thing to say. Valeska wasn’t impressed.
“Ah, not so much. I don’t know how to explain it in English. Or German.”
Valeska probably wouldn’t understand it in English anyway. Her English skills were already deteriorating the angrier and more frustrated she became.
“You were to be my wife. I must think of you differently. Not because of respect, but because I did not want our relationship to be nothing but physical communication. It was best to come later.”
He was right. He couldn’t explain it well in English. “I thought that maybe you weren’t interested. Or that you had someone else.”
“I told you. I broke up with the girl I was with. There is no one else but Madame Dubois.”
“Well… there is no one else in my life, either.” Valeska didn’t want to divulge how agonizing it had been for the past year and a half having no partner to share her body with in the bedroom. She had been hopeful that she and André could gradually start having sex before they married. It had never happened. She still wasn’t sure she knew why. “I have needs. So, if you’re not interested in a sexual relationship, please let me know so I will stop thinking about it. If it’s all the same to you, I can spend my wedding night taking a nice hot bath.”
She turned. He took her by the wrist, hand overshadowing the simple diamond ring on her left ring finger.
“I am interested.”
Valeska stopped breathing. His words, his tone, his touch… this was the side of him she had hoped to see over the past year. The real man she was marrying. Dear God, she had hoped!
Now here he was. He had waited until their wedding night, because he wanted to wait until she was his wife. Perhaps that was romantic in a way. Romantic, but so frustrating!
“Really?”
“Madame Dubois,” he began, grip tightening around her wrist. “I must insist that you sleep with me tonight. The only reason we would not is if you do not want to.”
She sucked in her bottom lip and gently dislodged her wrist from his grip. Her gaze lingered on her trousers.
“Do you need to see before you agree?”
Valeska scoffed in disbelief. “So this is the real you, huh?”
“Are you disappointed?”
Her face softened. “No. Forgive me, I’m nervous.”
“You think I am not? It’s my wedding night, too.”
“But…”
“And you are my wife. And you are beautiful. And I have spent many nights wondering what it would be like to make l’amour with you. Do you not believe me?” He continued to laugh as if she were so silly to think otherwise. “Maybe I want to impress you.”
“Maybe… I want to impress you too.”
“I doubt that would be difficult.”
Valeska couldn’t stop blushing. She hoped to God her new husband found that attractive, because it wouldn’t stop anytime soon.
The only way she would snap out of this was if André made his move. A move she desperately wished he would have made a few months ago. Was it really too much to ask that they get these nerves out of the way by now? Would it have been terrible if he invited her to a hotel or back to his Parisian flat five months into their courtship? Because this was agonizing. This was…
