Never Have We Ever, page 6
She sat on the edge of his desk and waited to catch his attention again. When André finally hung up, he spun his chair around, finger playing with his top lip as his big eyes met Valeska’s. My daughter’s eyes. My daughter’s hair. How many other little girls out there look like her?
Valeska both wanted to kiss him and stab him in the thigh with his own pen. Well, she didn’t get anything from his death if she caused it, so kissing him it was.
“What is it, mon chou? Did you have a nice lunch with your sister and mother? You were doing that today, oui?”
“Ja.” She slid across his desk until their legs touched. André glanced between his wife and his lap. “Daniela is down for her nap. My mother and the nanny are downstairs.”
André continued to look at her expectantly. Waiting for me to tell him what the problem is. That’s all a wife is good for, right? Valeska hated to admit it, but more often than not that’s why she interrupted her husband in his office. She needed money to buy something for dinner. The driver was sick and couldn’t take him to his meeting. His mother was on her way for a surprise visit from Paris. Daniela was sick and needed to go to the doctor’s. Valeska was sick and needed a doctor. Surely, there were better reasons to interrupt him.
“And?”
Valeska braced her hand against the desk, pushing her chest toward her husband’s face. “And Ich liebe Dich.”
André smiled. He knew that much German. I taught him. Valeska could be a good tutor too. “J’taime, my beloved.”
“Do you?” Valeska may or may not have intentionally untied the front of her wrap dress. She was so insistent on wearing them even in fashionable Monaco, that some of the other wives at the charity society saw her as an inspiration and were convinced she had started the new trend. Again. One of Monaco’s most well-known tailors insisted on designing three dresses for her to wear around town. She had worn one that day. Cobalt blue with white flowers. A print that could only be found in certain parts of Italy. “Do you know that Du bist mein Leben?”
It took him a moment to realize what she said. “So you still can’t read my letters?”
That annoyed Valeska enough to send her down onto her knees and instigate the next phase of her haphazard plan.
“Ah. Maybe you can.”
Valeska grabbed his tie and caught his attention once more. “Do you really love me, André?”
He cocked his head as if he couldn’t make out what she really wanted. “Do you think I lie about something so serious? Of course I love you. You are my wife and the mother of my child. Why would I not love you?”
That wasn’t a real answer. Valeska almost didn’t care.
“You must know that I love that look on your face.” André expressed not a hint of surprise when his wife unzipped his trousers, determination taking over her countenance. “The same one you gave me on our wedding night.”
He was flaccid. As if that deterred Valeska after five years of marriage. “You like your women infuriated with your attitude?”
“What women? Just you.”
How dare he, honestly? As if Valeska didn’t know. As if she didn’t know the truth.
Frustration was often accompanied with other kinds of frustration. Valeska hated herself for getting aroused whenever heated with her husband in other ways. What started as oral sex filled with tentative teeth grazing his tender skin and sending a million warnings to his idiot brain soon turned into Valeska’s dire urge to pleasure her husband. Because she loved him. Because she wanted him to be happy. Because he made her happy, both in and out of the bedroom, as long as she stopped obsessing over things she could not control.
Look at me, André. She never once broke eye contact. He would see her own truth in the depths of her eyes. Her truth as his wife, as the woman he entrusted with his genetic legacy, and the woman he should never, ever dare to try.
Why did it turn her on so much?
Fuck me. I’m a weak loser. She almost told him that in her native tongue once he was hard enough to ride in his chair. Even so, Valeska still refused to break eye contact, even though her husband closed his eyes many times. Neither one of them closed the blinds on his office window. Who gave a fuck if someone on their fucking yacht or flying low in a helicopter saw a married couple getting it on in their own home? Not Valeska. She almost dared the world to pap her, even though Monaco was one of the safest countries in the world when it came to the paparazzi. I want these pictures plastered all over social media. Show those sluts who dare to fuck my husband that I will always be the best.
She hated how hard those thoughts made her come.
Chapter 6
Daniela was the most spoiled little heiress in Monaco, and that was a feat. Yet every time Valeska entered her daughter’s room, designed to look like a princess’s fantastical hideaway, she bemoaned what it was doing to the young child’s psyche.
It didn’t help that Valeska’s bulge made her resent not only her swollen feet, but also the fact she was bringing yet another child into this deplorable situation.
“Daniela!” she called for her daughter, but it was Lena who appeared from around the corner. “Where is Daniela? Tell her she needs to get in here and clean her room. It’s a mess.”
Lena acted as if she knew where the child was, but Valeska could tell that the nanny didn’t have a clue. Barring a kidnapping, that meant only one other person could currently have Daniela in her clutches.
“Amazing!” Marlene clapped when her granddaughter did another grand pirouette in the living room. “Absolutely fantastic! Out of all my granddaughters, you are the most talented ballerina, Daniela.”
She’s four. Daniela hopped around, still in her pink tutu from ballet class. She was supposed to be changed and fed a snack an hour ago. Who had dropped the ball? Lena? Marlene? Lena was responsible for the oversight, but it was probably Marlene’s fault, and the nanny was not about to upset grandma. I’m upset. I’m the one pissed. My mother doesn’t even need to be here! Marlene parked herself in the residence of whatever daughter was pregnant again. Between Valeska and Hailey – who had been pregnant with her fourth the last time she visited – Marlene rarely spent a whole month in Vienna anymore. From the way Marlene gabbed, it suited her fine. Vienna was cold, stuffy, and the home of her own husband.
“Ma!” Valeska gritted her teeth. I don’t remember my first pregnancy being this cumbersome. She waddled like a whale – if whales could walk. Daniela had been a relatively easy birth, even though she was Valeska’s first. This new baby, however, had the Monegasque obstetricians staring at ultrasounds and shaking their heads in sympathy. They were all men. What sympathy was there to feel? They had no idea what it was like to give one’s body over to a watermelon that sucked up a woman’s nutrients like a parasite!
All right. She was a cranky. Frequently.
“What is it?” Marlene held her granddaughter in her lap. Daniela clung to Marlene as if she were a purer version of Valeska. She certainly indulges you more than I do. Valeska hated being the “bad guy” in the home, and Daniela was definitely old enough to understand that role. Lena merely followed orders and shrugged at the little girl when told to do something that upset Daniela. Marlene was the grandmother who had nothing better to do than to spoil everyone around her, the younger the better.
And André? Whenever he was around, he was the king, the greatest person in his daughter’s eyes. Daniela knew when her father was coming home long before Valeska did. They shared French conversations that she never hoped to penetrate. André brought her home presents from all over the world: Japanese dolls, Chinese silk dresses, Australian hand-carved toys, Swedish snacks, American confections, Italian leather goods… her room was full of crap from around the world!
Yes, Valeska was definitely cranky. This baby in her body was probably going to kill her before she had the chance to go on a rampage, though.
“Daniela needs to clean her room.” Valeska grabbed the back of the couch and stretched her sore legs. “There are toys everywhere.” She looked her daughter square in the blue eyes. “Go clean your room, Daniela.” Valeska had never uttered such enunciated German in her life.
Her daughter shook her head. “I don’t understand!” she screamed in French.
That’s my line around here. Valeska hung her head in defeat. “Please go clean your room,” she tried in English.
“No!”
“Come on, dear.” Marlene waved her hand in front of her daughter’s face. “That’s the nanny’s job. Let the girl enjoy her childhood. She only gets one!”
“She’ll become spoiled and dependent if we clean up after her all the time. I don’t ask much of her around here. Cleaning her room is the bare minimum.”
“No!” Daniela continued to shout. “No, no, no!”
Lena put a hand on Valeska’s arm. “It’s fine. I will do it.”
“No you will not.” Valeska pointed to her daughter. “It is her responsibility. She’s old enough for responsibilities.”
“Papa wouldn’t make me!”
“Papa isn’t here, and believe it or not, your papa doesn’t have the ultimate authority.” I can’t believe I have to talk to my daughter in English. This whole family she created conspired against her.
“Gramma says he is the man of the house and king of the castle.”
Marlene blushed in embarrassment. “I said no such thing,” she insisted in German.
“You did too!”
“Since when do you understand German?”
It was a trap. Valeska had said it in her native tongue and caught her daughter swinging her head around to say, “I understand German! I just don’t care!”
“See?” Valeska threw her hands up. “This is worthless.”
“Meine Dame…”
“It’s fine.” Valeska brushed Lena off. “Leave me alone.”
She intended to go to her room and rest, but her ire was so great that she went back into her daughter’s room and began picking things up. I can’t stand to have things looking like this! Marlene muttered on her way by that Valeska was nesting. Valeska almost had the courage to tell her mother to fuck the hell off.
I’m so over this. She picked up plastic and wooden dolls and tossed them into a hand carved toy chest from Switzerland. My husband, my daughter, my own mother… next the nanny will turn on me. Valeska grabbed her stomach as a cramp overcame her. Look at my baby. Already turning against me, and he hasn’t been born yet! She stood up and stretched her back. Her humongous bulge punctured the air.
Something wet hit her feet.
Oh. God. No!
Valeska convinced herself that her water had not broken. Not with this mess unfolding, and not with her husband away on work. André was due home the next day, since Valeska’s due date was two weeks away, but who said a big baby would arrive on time?
“Scheisse!” Valeska fell forward on her daughter’s queen-sized bed, clutching her stomach and holding back the next groan to accompany the massive contraction clocking her in the side of the head. “Ma! Ma!”
“What is it?” Marlene took one step into the room when she realized what had happened. “Valeska! Ah!” She popped back out into the hallway and yelled at Lena to call for the family driver. It would be faster than an ambulance. “Hang on, Leska. It’ll be over soon!”
She grabbed her daughter’s shoulders while Daniela screamed from her bedroom doorway. “You’re ruining everything!” Daniela wasn’t a teenager yet, and Valeska was already ruining her life by having contractions all over the place. Blood. Fluids. The head was probably already crowning and afterbirth would soon follow on the Turkish carpet.
You’re a little spoiled brat, yet you didn’t hurt nearly this much! Valeska screamed into her daughter’s blanket while her son threatened to tear her in two. Marlene fluttered about like a useless hen spooked in its pen. Lena was the only levelheaded one to run back into the room and try to get Valeska’s attention.
“We’ve got to get you down into the car!”
“You’ve got to get my fucking husband, is what you’ve got to do!”
Except André was in Moscow, and wouldn’t even check his messages for another two hours. By then, his wife would be half-dead on a hospital bed while his son screamed his first few breaths.
The only reason Valeska pulled through was because she would be damned if she died without that bastard by her side.
***
She awoke to the harried sounds of two men speaking in incomprehensible French. Even if Valeska were fluent, her brain was so shot that there was no way she would ever in a million years understand her husband demanding more information about her condition.
Give it up. At least I can die now. Valeska was still in pain even with the medicine dripping into her veins. Everything from the waist down was a barren wasteland. Probably literally. She overheard the doctors discussing whether or not she could ever have children again. Her darling boy had almost destroyed her. Too fast, they said. He came out too fast and upside down. He breached the unprepared gates before the doctors had the chance to cut his mother open and take him out the safer way.
Or something. Every time Valeska thought about it, she started to cry.
“Leska.” André grabbed her hand and shook her awake. Her IV flailed, and the nurse on duty not-so-politely told him off in French. He wasn’t listening. “Are you okay? Mon chou…”
Her eyes fluttered. “No. I’m not okay.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He pressed his head against her bruised arm. “I did this to you.”
“Yeah, you did. You weren’t here for me to scream that at you, bastard.”
André lifted his head. “I came as soon as I heard. When they told me you weren’t going to make it…”
“I’m here. I’m alive. Shut up.”
“I did this to you.”
“Ja. Now get out of my face.”
He did the exact opposite. André covered her sweaty, grimy, greasy face with the kinds of kisses he gave his daughter when they were reunited. Last Valeska saw Daniela, the littler girl was screaming in fright that her mother was dead. Only half dead. In time, she would regain her strength, but some things would never be the same again.
“Where is my son?”
André pressed her matted hair away from her forehead. “I have only seen his picture your mother sent me, but he is beautiful.”
“Go see him and let me rest.”
“How’s this?” The nurse entered with their son swaddled in her arms. “Only a day old but already so big! He almost broke the record!”
André’s face lit up in ways Valeska’s could not. He accepted his son into his arms and instantly bonded with the boy. Valeska remained half-dead in bed, her eyes barely capable of staying open.
Even so, she managed to smile. Because nothing was more precious than her husband holding their newborn son. Even if the little nugget almost killed her.
“Did you settle on a name?”
Valeska turned her head away. “His name is Thomas Henrik after my grandfathers. It is already registered.” That was her last act before falling asleep. She hadn’t known if she would wake up again. “There is no debating it anymore. He put me through that, so I named him.”
“Thomas.” André lightly touched his son’s red nose. “It is perfect. There is nothing to debate.”
Valeska soon fell asleep. She wouldn’t wake up for another two days.
Chapter 7
With a baby on her hip and a five-year-old nipping at her heels, Valeska entered the Parisian townhouse to find a stack of mail in the foyer. What a time for Lena to be sick with pneumonia.
“Go upstairs and wash up.” Valeska pushed her feet out of her shoes and motioned for her daughter to do the same. “You need to change before you can go to granddame’s.”
“No.”
Valeska shot Daniela a heated glare. “Now. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Something had happened since Valeska’s near-death experience giving birth to her son. Either she grew a stronger spine with her other child, or Daniela matured enough to realize her mother was someone to keep happy. Regardless, it didn’t take much to get the little girl to obey her mother these days. She would always have that rebellious streak, but if Valeska gritted her teeth or narrowed her eyes enough, Daniela would eventually go do what she was told to do.
Small favors. Because even though Daniela was now in French kindergarten, Valeska’s day was primarily dedicated to taking care of her one-year-old, her home, and her body. In that order.
Daniela would be fine upstairs by herself, assuming she actually washed up and changed. Too bad Lena’s not here to make sure she does it. Or the girl’s father, for that matter. But André was in Stockholm. The third time that year.
Valeska couldn’t remember what was so important about Stockholm. She didn’t give a shit anymore. Since Thomas’s birth, the marriage had crumbled in all but name. Having André around was only a dire reminder of everything that had crashed and burned between Valeska’s overactive imagination and the repercussions of her son’s birth.
It’s all my fault.
She coddled her son in front of the downstairs mirror. His soft brown hair and big, dark eyes were almost more Reiter than Valeska’s genes, but that wasn’t why she felt so close to the little boy who was still too young to talk or walk more than a few wobbly steps. He’s such a good little boy. It’s like he feels guilty for his birth. That was absurd, of course. Thomas couldn’t possibly understand, and Valeska would never bring it up even when he grew old enough to comprehend how his mother almost died in the maternity ward. Yet their mother-child bond was so strong that Valeska swore she sensed that apology every time she changed her son’s diaper.
His chubby face frowned at her in the mirror. It was almost worth ruining her marriage to have him.
