Force of Forever (All In #0.5)

She shook her head. She turned her head his way, one eye open. Her lips lifted in a soft smile that felt like a punch to the chest. “Effing fantastic.”

He chuckled. With some regret, he pushed himself off the bed and headed to the bathroom to clean up. It was fucking tragic that they couldn’t dothatagain and again and again. Célia was off for the night, and he wouldn’t subject either himself or Pia to another run around Paris for more condoms, especially on public transportation. No, they’d have to get clever. Or get some sleep. Whatever she wanted.

Back in his bedroom, he saw that she’d snuggled under the comforter. Smiling, he slipped in beside her.

“Want me to move to the guestroom?” she asked.

Matt pulled her body against his. She rolled into his side, hand splaying across his chest. He was already feeling too much, but the connection would fade when she stepped back on that plane in a few hours. At this point, he had nothing more to lose. “Absolutely not.”

For a while, they just breathed. Just shared sweet touches that soothed and scared him in equal measure.Why is this so easy? Sonice?

Pia was the first to break the comfortable silence. “That was the best…anything I’ve ever shared with a man. Thank you so much for this whole night, Matt.”

He gave her the same answer, the true answer, he’d been giving all night. “It’s my pleasure, Pia.”

They dozed off and on. Then a question, like on the plane, would bring them back into wakefulness. She wanted to know all about OrbitAll, so Matt shared about the space tourism company he was building in the California desert. The hundreds of employees he’d need to start designing and building their spaceplane. How he’d purchased an abandoned apartment complex in town and was renovating it for the staff that didn’t exist yet. He explained how his future was all just variables and dreams at the moment, but not for much longer.

“Are you going to be living in California then?”

“There’s a villa there in Victory that’s part of our family estate. It hasn’t been used in years, to my knowledge. The villa is partly why I chose that spot for this company. That, and the land was cheap. But living there?” Matt had pictured himself traveling back and forth from Victory to Paris. France was his home, where he had started building his corner of the Geier Group empire. The dusty, empty desert town held no appeal. “Not on any permanent basis.”

“Your family is all here, right?”

His fingers drifted absently up and down her satiny skin. “Yes, but my family isn’t like yours.”

She propped her chin on his chest. “What do you mean?”

“You make it sound like your family is afamily.”

She blinked. “We are. We’re big and loud, and there’s too many of us in too small of a space, and we’re together all the time, driving each other crazy. But we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Warm. Loud. Loving. None of those adjectives applied to Matt’s family.

“My family is the opposite in every way. I hardly even lived with my parents. We traveled with them when we were really young, but mostly were raised here in Paris while they were…elsewhere. Quinn, my cousin, had it a bit better. Her parents actually wanted children.”

“What?” Pia’s surprise brushed against his skin.

He shrugged. “My parents are excellent business partners. Our company under my mother has seen incredible gains. She’s a shrewd businesswoman, a strong leader. But a mother?” Matt shook his head. “She doesn’t know how to fit into that role. She hired nannies and tutors instead.”

“What about your dad?”

His dad had tried, when they were younger. He’d played games and read them stories at night. But as their company grew and became more successful, his parents were around less and less. In hindsight, Matt thought that being around his boys made his dad feel guilty. Like their lives—all their lives—were totally outside his control. Like he was fighting a losing battle. It had probably been easier to stay away, to pretend he only had one role to play—that of the partner of Remi Geier. “He tried to be a dad, but not hard.”

“I’m so sorry,” Pia whispered, snuggling back down against his body.

“Don’t be. Tate and I are fine. We had Quinn and her parents nearby. Still do, actually. More cousins in Paris than I can count. Most of ourau pairswere amazing. My mother is uncannily skilled at hiring good staff.”

“Still sounds lonely.”

Not lonely, because he’d always had Tate, and the ideas in his head, to keep him company. But unfulfilled in some way, yes. Like he’d been denied something he hadn’t even had a chance to want. “Regardless of what our parents didn’t give us, they did teach us to be savvy in business. We were groomed for greatness. Those are skills that will serve us forever.” Matt had accomplished more for his company by twenty-nine than many accomplished in an entire career. He knew that. He appreciated that. He had to, just as he had to ignore everything else his parents hadn’t groomed him for. Like being a partner, a real one, or a parent.

She stayed silent, as if she might not agree. Then, “So, you’ve got your life all mapped out.”

“Not fully. I’ll get OrbitAll going, get it successful, then I’ll move on to the next idea.”

“I see.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Is being a flight attendant the adventure it seems to be?”