Impulsive Ever After SAMPLE (Book 4 of The Conquest Series)

5. Level-headed Leila

“This is going to be a very long two weeks if I don’t get some alone with Carl.” Violet was voicing her concerns regarding living in a hotel suite with two toddlers and an oversexed, unsatisfied husband. Aside from being interrupted by her father on their first day on the island, they’d been cockblocked by the two biggest cockblockers known to mankind.

Mason and Dora Smith.

Leila’s lips twitched as she strummed her fingers over her abdomen, thinking. “Okay. So why don’t we do this. We take turns babysitting the little hellions to make sure we all at least get a few days with our husbands. Alone.”

“And without my father barging in on me trying to get freaky with my man,” Violet vehemently threw out. She was still pretty miffed about that, in retrospect.

Again, Leila’s mouth moved, trying to hide her mirth with a straight line instead of a quirked-up smile, but as snarky people always did, she said something even better than laughing.

“Would you like us to babysit the older Charleses as well? I think your father might take offense to that when we bring them to the kiddie pool or go try to collect shells on the beach. Should I try to woo him with all the Capri Sun he can drink and baggies full of Cheerios?”

Violet cut her a lancing glare, though Mariana chuckled as she listened in on the napping children in the other room. They were all in Leila and Nate’s hotel suite. Harry was off playing golf with Aiden and Carl, while Nate and Ramon babysat most of the other children in another suite. Only Cadence and Parker were in the hotel room, and they were both down for a midafternoon nap and slept like the dead. Leila was fairly certain that Nate was watching the smaller children while Ramon took the others to the pool. Though his three kids were older than the others, they still enjoyed playing with the younger ones. Luca, being oldest, felt he was much more mature than 10-year-old Gabriel, and miles ahead of his younger sister, Leonora, who was a sassy 7.

It didn’t matter so long as the women got a moment to not be mommy, and though Constance was the only one of them without a profession and a full-time mom to boot, she was as eager as any of them to get a little time away from the rug rats. Although it was a mostly a trip for Mathilde and Harry to renew their vows, it was also a vacation for the whole group—one that many of them had always been keen on but never got around to.

“Well, I’m down with taking Mariana’s three,” Constance offered. “They love hanging out with Lizzie, and RJ is his sister’s shadow. Besides, Leonora is close enough in age to Liz, and those two brought enough little girl makeup to start up their own damn salon on the bottom level of this hotel.”

And probably enough to smear into the white linens and have Aiden paying out to the nose for 3,000 thread count Egyptian cotton, Leila thought. She tried to smize only internally, but her snark was on full readiness alert, and she could only imagine what the beautiful curtains would look like by the end of the two weeks.

Hawaii’s Fairmont Orchid would never be the same.

Outside of the women in the room, the only one missing was Mathilde, who had abstained from coming over in order to relax by the pool while taking in the oceanside view. As far as Mathilde was concerned, the ocean was pretty to look at, but much too dangerous. The lagoon-style pool was miles more civilized, in her mind.

“Okay, so what do we do? Draw straws to see who gets the alone time they need first?”

Constance’s face blanked. “Draw straws?”

“Yeah, like in that movie. Clue.”

“They also were searching for a murderer in that movie, as funny as it was,” Mariana pointed out.

“Yes, well if we don’t figure out a way soon, our children will murder any hope of me getting any down-and-dirty time with my under-sexed, overly-virile, insanely blue-balled hubby. I think he might be considering a s*x change, and I just don’t dig v****a,” Violet stated. “Even if it comes with all the genital piercings in the world.”

Leila had to silently agree. If Cadence burst through their door one more time while she and Nate were trying to get in some much-needed nookie, she was going to start looking into adoption agencies.

“Yeah, at least at home, they have all their toys and their own bedrooms,” Violet remarked. “Dora keeps waking up here not knowing where she is and crying. She spends most of the night in bed with Carl and me so that when she wakes up, she’s not terrified of sleeping a strange room.”

Leila suffered the same problems, though Constance couldn’t say she was a victim of that. RJ and Lizzie were sharing a room, and her son was pretty fearless, so long as Lizzie was nearby. He was not only his big sister’s shadow, but her pint-sized partner in crime as well.

“Besides, it’s hard to talk really dirty when everything has to be whispered and the damn baby monitor keeps you from being able to really concentrate.” Violet sounded more frustrated than ever, and her best friend knew it was because of her husband. Carl without s*x was like the ocean without water. The two went hand in hand.

“Well, I’ll be the first to offer to babysit if we need.” Constance took a look at Mariana, who was always the quietest out of the bunch. “You want me to take Gabe, Luca, and Nora to the beach? I think the kids would get a kick out of looking for seashells and shark’s teeth. Afterwards, I can take them out to eat. You can get a whole afternoon and evening with your man so he doesn’t spontaneously combust.”

Mariana gave a Cheshire cat-like grin and nodded. “Sounds good to me. Since my kids don’t nap like yours do, Ramon’s been particularly irritable the past few days. You’d think he was still in his early 20s with the way he’s been fiending for it.”

Everyone wanted to probe her about what Ramon was really like in bed. After all, over the years, almost everyone had figured out Carl’s secret daddy kink, Aiden’s penchant for office s*x, and—unfortunately for Violet—Nate’s dirty talk under all his outward proper mannerisms. It was only Ramon no one was sure about. He was so reserved most time that he might have outshone them all with his own brand of s****l foibles.

In fact, it would have almost made sense. Mariana certainly seemed like a submissive woman. Did they practice b**m on the side or have a playroom? No one wanted to ask, and Mariana was shut up tighter than Katie Holmes was about her married life with ex-husband Tom Cruise.

Everyone knew who the outspoken i***t was in that celebrity pairing, and one of them wasn’t jumping on couches for daytime TV ratings.

“Okay, that leaves Constance, Vi, and me,” Leila piped up, eager to get them all back on track. “Who goes after Mar and Ramon?”

“You go next, Lala,” Violet offered. “I can watch the kids so you two can do whatever nastiness my brother thinks up. That way you can watch mine when I go on that Segway tour of the jungle with Carl. We can’t take the kids there. They’d be jungle roadkill.”

That was settled, and Mariana said she’d take RJ and Lizzie for Constance when it was their turn. They all had their preferences for recreating, though they planned on doing some of the spa things as well like Mathilde, particularly before the wedding on the beach.

“Do you think Harry and Constance will have a wild honeymoon night after their second marriage takes place?” Mariana asked with finger quotes.

Violet paled visibly. “Good God. Bite your tongue woman. Those are my parents.”

“And they’re my father and mother in law!”

“Poo!” Violet cut Leila with a look. “That’s nothing! That’s almost like Constance saying, but they’re my friends! It’s much more disgusting if you came out of one of them.”

“Ugh.” Leila threw up her hands. She felt that Mathilde was just as good as a mother to her, and it kind of grossed her out that she and Harry could still be f*****g, though she supposed that was quite silly to think that they slept in separate beds like a scene from I Love Lucy. Just because her own parents hadn’t had s*x in ages and were now divorced didn’t mean that many other older couples didn’t enjoy an active s*x life. Even if it was one she didn’t want to think about too deeply.

She was so glad her mom was rid of Stephen Winters man. After her own simple marriage service in Vegas, her friends had tried to get her and Nate to have something bigger, but they’d always balked. That they were married at all was a miracle after having hated—okay secretly loved—each other for all those years. They shut them up with a reception, much to Mattie’s delight. It was a party celebrating the marriage with all the tedious parts like vows and I do’s set aside.

Thankfully, Leila’s mom was now thriving and still lived in the bottom level of her old duplex in San Leandro. She was working at a similar job to her old one before getting married, though being a secretary these days was like reinventing the wheel for her. Angelica Winters had had to take courses in Excel and Adobe and Word just to get the ball rolling on her second chance at a career.

“Lala, is your mom still dating that silver fox of a boss of hers?”

Leila snapped out of it and shot her best friend a glare. “He’s not her boss. He works in a completely different department than she does.”

“I thought he was looking at that big promotion. Did he not get it?”

Leila covered her mouth with a hand. “They’ll announce the results in a few weeks. Then he’ll know whether he’s got it or not.”

“Didn’t you admit that he was obviously more qualified than the…what did you call them again? Oh, yes! The fuckwits they employ at that circus they call a corporate office. Now I remember.”

Sometimes her best friend acted more like her worst nightmare.

“Well, it’s not my fault that they employ more lawyers in that place than is healthy. You can smell the fear and shame from miles away. It’s cloying. You know what I think of lawyers.”

They all did. It was her father’s profession, and that wasn’t a raving review for her mother’s new beau. She was barely able to hold in the palpable disdain whenever her mother spoke about Gene. He was a nice guy—for a lawyer, she supposed—but it didn’t ingratiate him with her at all. Fortunately for Gene’s junk, he treated her mother far better than her father ever had, which was the main reason why the man still had his testicles at all.

“Please let’s not go to where I think this is going,” Leila groaned. “I know you. Just because I had to mention your parents bumping uglies, you think this is free reign for you to kid me about my mother’s s*x life. Isn’t it bad enough I had to endure watching my father flit from one worthless hussy to the next in his secretarial pool? Have some f*****g mercy on me, woman.”

Violet tilted her head at her friend. “You’re right. You’ve had years of shameful bad fathering with his dickish behavior. I suppose it’s only fair to let up on you. For now.”

“Hallelujah,” Leila muttered under her breath.

“Besides, we could always ask about Jared’s latest fling,” Violet pointed out. “Who’s that guy he’s seeing? Carter? Connor?”

“It’s Colton, and the man is a beefcake extraordinaire. Honestly never seen anything like it. Jare’s so tiny compared to him, but I think he’s secretly loving it. I feel like he’s always wanted to be ‘the woman’ in a relationship. If I wasn’t so certain he was begging for his ass to be pounded on the nightly and knowing he’d spill every filthy detail about and turn my hair white, I’d ask him about it. And I just know he’s been hankering to be some bottom b***h to some big old bearded bear.”

Violet snickered. “I’ll bet he’s the one with the bigger daddy kink now.”

Leila sighed. “If he does, you’ll be the first to know, I promise.”

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