Reggie's Girl Ch. 09

He lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "Of course it's in Paris. This is a celebration, Jasmine. Where'd you think I was gonna take you?"

"Out to dinner," she burst out. "Not out of the country! And don't get me wrong, Reg, I love the idea of visiting Paris - with you - but can we do that... maybe later on? You travel a lot, don't you?"

"I do."

"Yeah, I suspected. For business or for pleasure?"

"Business mostly, though I do my best to balance it out."

"Well then, we'll definitely travel together," Jasmine said brightly, then with less and less enthusiasm. "Out of the country even. To another continent. Where I don't know the people. And I can't speak the language. Fun."

He chuckled. "Don't knock it till you try it, love. But now that you've shot down Paris, what did you have in mind?"

"I don't mind a celebration on a slightly less grand scale." If there was an order of monks who lived by the credo "extra as fuck" Reggie would be their patron saint, she thought with fond amusement.

"As long as it's a celebration."

"Well. If you're in the mood to go away together, maybe... take me to Miami?"

Reggie tilted his head. He got a look on his face like he was savoring a superior wine. "Sure," he said slowly. "Miami it is."

This time they didn't stop by the ostentatious party palace up the road. Xavier and the rest of the crew weren't here to tear up the mansion. It had belonged to the now-dead drug baron. It had seemed a fitting reward, as it was their illicit labor that had helped build it, so Reggie had let them have at it for that one buckwild weekend. Now it stood dark and lifeless and abandoned.

In his quiet, art-strewn sanctuary by the sea, Reggie managed to rustle up some Dom Perignon anyway on the Friday night they arrived. Dinner was already served on the terrace again, by discreet staff Jasmine never managed to lay eyes on.

She and Reggie talked and laughed as they ate. Late into the night, they were still laughing as they conversed on the beach, where the tide had ebbed, gone chasing after the shining full moon.

It struck Jasmine how different this was from her first visit here almost three months ago. Reggie was different, but then, so was she.

She felt steadier, stabler, more confident in herself, and her knowledge of herself. More than once she marveled that she was not nervous at all about the ostensibly major change she'd just made in her life.

But moving in with him just seemed natural. She'd been living there for months now, so it would just be more of the same anyway.

Except better. Because she wasn't there to seek refuge. She was there because that's where they both wanted her to be.

She learned a whole lot of other things that he wanted. Most notably, he quite liked children. In addition, he had always seen himself in a house teeming with daughters: female-centric households just seemed to him more stable. Jasmine had her doubts, but she thought she understood how he'd come by such a preconception.

Also, it surprised her how easily she could picture him as the outnumbered male in such a household. But surely a son, or even two, wouldn't come amiss. He'd have so much wisdom to impart to a boy, after all, molding him into the kind of wonderful man he himself was.

At one point, Reggie confided that he blamed himself for the death of his first marriage. Measuring his success in dollars, he'd pushed himself to make more and more. Charis had not needed this nor approved of his materialistic outlook.

He had never been afraid of spending money to make money so he'd snatched up a lot of houses with the intention of renovating and reselling. He also made a slew of investments in various businesses, Kai Rysma's Beauty Solutions being one of the more spectacular successes.

Charis had called him out, warned him he was acting no better than a gambler. He had waved away her concerns.

Then came the crash of 2008. Charis went from being his spouse to his accountant - and his bank - while his finances recovered. Afterwards, she decided she preferred their new dynamic and filed for divorce.

He hadn't contested it, though he'd experienced it as a humiliating failure. She was happier, after all, and his pride was pretty much guaranteed to heal. A bruised ego was no reason to hang on to a marriage that, whilst not loveless, was obviously needless.

The second marriage had been even more short-lived. Reggie had been wary of whirlwind romances ever since, because it had been love at first sight with Della.

A singer aspiring to stardom, she had apparently determined that a McComb would do wonders for her street cred. She'd been proved right to an extent, but Reggie had resented so much being reduced to, of all things, his father's son that this time he'd been the one to file for divorce.

Jasmine's life seemed so mundane in comparison she blushed to answer his endless questions. But she told him whatever he wanted to know. He seemed enthralled by all of it, from the art commissions that earned her a modest income online to her basic-ass middle name (Paige, ugh).

While relating how she had no memory of her father, that she never really thought of him anymore, she noticed that he got very quiet. She already knew he rather disapproved of her mother, in some ways, but when she described some of the scrapes they'd gotten through due to her, he expressed his admiration in clear, ungrudging terms.

"Plus she's aware of how she comes across," Jasmine told him, encouraged by his open-minded reaction. "Kinda spacey, kinda ditzy. Easy to let down, easy to dismiss. She's gotten her fair share of abuse for it, including from me, but I came to understand her. That's what the men liked where she was raised, and the men had all the authority and the power, so..."

"I'm just glad she got out from under 'the men' and raised you different."

She nodded, smiling at him. "And she raised me all by her lonesome. She's not one to brag much, but that's the one thing she'll brag about. In fact she'll be absolutely unbearable about it."

"I guess she's earned it," Reggie mused with a smile. He looked at her in the silvery light, windblown hair forming a tousled frame around her pale heart-shaped face. Before he really knew what he was doing, he reached for her arm, pulled her close until he felt her breath on his lips.

"Now, what I gotta do to earn you?" he demanded huskily.

Jasmine laughed, lifting a hand to her hair in a flustered gesture. "I've officially moved in with you just this week," she pointed out.

"So you've got everything you ever wanted from me? My house?"

With a soft noise in her throat, she hiked up her shortish skirt around her thighs and straddled his lap, linking her wrists behind his nape. "I never said that," she murmured.

"Then what are you saying?" He fitted his hands to her waist. "What more do you want from me, if anything?"

"I need you." With ineffable tenderness she rubbed her brow against his. "I love you. Honestly, Reg? That's what I want. To keep loving you. Always."

What else could he do but kiss her?

He carried her back inside, spent and sleepy in his arms. The shower woke her up a bit but she just leaned on him and left it to him to rinse the sand and sex off them both.

Jasmine awoke naked under the sheets with a pleasant breeze caressing her face. She heard Reggie's voice coming from the open French doors, in a tone she recognized as his business voice - cajoling and steely at the exact same time.

This was unsurprising; his work frequently caught up with him at odd times. If work it could even be called. He loved it entirely too much for that, enjoyed the bantering yet serious back and forth, and he was an indefatigable negotiator. Her lips quirked just to hear him wheeling and dealing away.

Whether on account of his phonecall or something else, Reggie was in a buoyant mood today. His good moods invariably spilled over in the form of extra affection to her, and this morning was no different.

They sat down to breakfast at the gray marble island in the kitchen, and he quickly forgot his own breakfast in favor of handfeeding her hers. The toast and bacon went this way. His eyes smoldered as she licked and sucked his fingers clean.

"Can't get enough of me, can you?" Reggie murmured.

Jasmine gave a sassy shrug. "Not yet, at least."

"Oo. Sounds like I need to make a move, then."

She wasn't paying much attention to what he was saying. Till she saw in her peripheral vision his other hand pulling something out of his pocket and placing it neatly before her. Her lips paused upon his fingers as she looked down at it.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was a small, black velvet box. She stared it for a moment then stared at him.

He smiled as he picked up the little box, snapped it open then placed it before her again. It was a ring, alright: a thin delicate band crowned with a fiery orange stone such as she had never seen before. A brilliant cushion-cut gem, with clusters of small diamonds on either side.

"It's an orange sapphire, set in white gold," Reggie explained patiently. "I was going for something unusual, but this piece surpassed all expectations. The minute I saw it I knew it was yours."

Jasmine looked up at him, blinking slowly in a daze. She found her hands were covering her mouth and she had to remove them before she could speak. "Mine?" she croaked.

"And mine, in a small way. It'll please me something fierce to see you wear this, so... you can just think of it as an extension of your lingerie."

She marveled at his cool demeanor. "Just a beautiful ring with no strings attached?"

"I don't see why you're so surprised," Reggie drawled. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because it's a ring!"

He sent her a confused smile. "Y'know, you've been driving around in the car I bought you. Last week you used the tampons I bought you. You're living in a house I bought. We don't read too much into none of that, though, do we? So why not wear this and make us both very happy."

"I've never heard of a no-strings ring," Jasmine said, her voice small and breathless.

"And I'd never heard of sapphires that weren't blue, yet here we are. And just apropos of nothing at all, I happen to find this color sapphire even prettier than the usual."

All at once his manner was brisk, bordering on impatient. "Look, I might be the marrying kind. But you're not so sure you are. Are you?"

"Well... no." She had to be honest.

She'd never been one to fantasize about her own wedding, even as a young girl. As an adult, she didn't know that the institution of marriage had anything to offer her.

But those were opinions formed before Reggie. Now... Now, well, who knew?

"That's what I thought," he replied, cool as a cucumber. "So you keep that." He nodded to the ring.

"Just like that?" Jasmine held up her left hand to visualize that gorgeous ring on her finger. As if she'd given some silent signal, Reggie took her hand at the same time as he plucked up the ring.

She gave him a pointed look but made no protest when he slid the cool metal onto her ring finger. "That's just where an engagement ring would go," she murmured, transfixed by the splendor of the unusual jewel. She might be wearing the fires of the sun on her hand, it was so arresting.

She saw his Adam's apple move as he studied the fit. "It fits there perfectly, though," he said in an oddly raspy voice. "Of course if you'd rather wear it on another finger, I can get it-"

She leaned over and kissed him. "I didn't say I would," she pointed out huskily.

"Then you'll wear it?" At last he looked her in the face, his expression guarded.

Jasmine released a slow breath. But she felt serene as she looked at him. They'd talked about this before. It was important to him that she accept his gifts. So important that he was willing to concoct whatever context was necessary to make her feel comfortable doing so.

This was one more example of that. And yet it was also something more, much more, whether he admitted it or not.

This was a ring.

Her lips curved and she nodded, slightly, once. "Of course I'll wear it," she assured him softly.

How could she not? She loved him and didn't mind if the whole world knew it. Also, there was no pressure tied to it - which wasn't to say it wasn't meaningful. In fact, there was something unbelievably intimate about shrugging off convention and leaving the rest of society on the outside looking in on this beautiful mystery they clearly shared.

Besides, Jasmine thought, anything that made him look at her the way he was doing now could only be truly wonderful.