With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(70)

“Oh my, the newly claimed,” Regan observed and both Callum and Sonia, with effort, turned to focus on Callum’s mother. “It’s a shame this business is happening now, you two need a few weeks alone in a castle.”

Sonia stared at her but Caleb spoke in a mutter. “I just hope he can keep his mind on the matter at hand and off his dick.”

“Caleb!” Regan snapped at the same time Callum bit out the same word.

“Give me a break, Regan,” Caleb returned. “You haven’t been here the past ten minutes. Seriously, the newly claimed, f**king hell.”

Sonia, firmly out of the moment and back to embarrassed, squirmed in Callum’s lap. Callum felt it and he didn’t like it.

Therefore, he aimed a dark look at his brother.

“Caleb, I’ll not tolerate that shit again,” he warned in a dangerous voice.

“Whatever,” Caleb mumbled, obviously used to Callum’s dangerous voice.

“All right, moving on,” Regan announced in a way that said she had lots of experience stepping between her battling sons. “Sonia, sweetheart, we’re going to the grocery store. Callum called this morning and said practically everything in your refrigerator is white. I don’t know what that means but I do know it doesn’t sound good. Our people eat,” she finished on a smile.

“Sonia’s taking you to Clear now, Regan,” Callum informed his mother. “You can go to the grocery store later.”

“Brilliant!” Regan cried instantly as her eyes lighted and she clapped happily.

When she did so, Sonia noticed she was carrying a small, glossy, charcoal gray shopping bag.

Wow, it was barely 11:00 o’clock and Regan had already been shopping. Callum’s Mom was clearly the shopping master.

Taking her mind off the bag, her husband and moving it to the day before her, Sonia slid out of Callum’s lap, taking another sip of coffee before saying, “I just need to run up to my office and get the invitations for my Christmas party. They’re ready to post. There’s a mailbox on the way to Clear.”

Those invitations had been ready to post, stamped and addressed since the day after Thanksgiving.

Callum was letting her have her Christmas party, something she looked forward to all year.

And, Sonia hoped, maybe, just maybe, if things kept going like this, the good would eventually outweigh the bad.

“Excellent, sweetheart,” Regan smiled warmly at her and Sonia smiled warmly back.

Another, definitely larger, thimble of cement on the good things side of the scale was Regan. Until then, Sonia hadn’t fully realized what she was missing growing up with Gregor and Yuri and no motherly-type figure.

It was lucky she realized it when she actually had a motherly-type figure.

She smiled to herself, suddenly strangely contented. So much so her headache had disappeared. She walked into the kitchen and put her mug in the dishwasher then ran up the stairs to her office. Piling the invitations down the length of her arm, she ran back down.

Callum was in the living room, his head bent to his mother, when Sonia arrived.

Regan took one look at her and stated, “I’ll go get a bag, easier to carry those.”

“There in –” Sonia started to tell Regan where to find a bag but Regan waved her hand, rushed forward, divesting Sonia of the invitations and bustled off.

“I’ll find them,” she muttered and Sonia watched her go.

“Baby doll,” Callum called and she turned to him. He got close and grabbed her hand, mumbling, “One thing.”

His head was bent to her hand and she looked down too. He was carrying a jeweler’s box in plush, charcoal gray velvet. He flipped it open and she saw the sparkle inside just a moment before he pulled out the two rings nestled together there and tossed the box unceremoniously on a table close to them.

Then, without further ado, he slid a set of wedding rings on her left ring finger.

Sonia held her breath and stared as he slid on the thin wedding band of gold imbedded with twinkling yellow diamonds and its accompanying yellow diamond solitaire. The solitaire was huge, so gigantic it could be seen from space and it was set at the sides with more glimmering diamonds.

Regardless of the diamond’s size, it wasn’t ostentatious but extraordinary. Sonia had never seen anything like its exquisite, extortionate beauty.

Callum dropped her hand in an absent way that didn’t coincide with the fact he just slid a wedding ring on her finger and this jarred Sonia out of her rapt study of the rings.

Then his hand moved to the chain that was resting outside her slacks, his finger hooked it yet again and he gave it a gentle tug.

“This is important,” he declared in a kingly voice and she felt her body start to grow tight at his tone as he went on. “But your people don’t understand the significance so that,” he jerked his head to her hand, “will declare to your people that you’re mine.”

This wasn’t a romantic gesture, a gesture of love.

This was another kind of claiming, one that physically proclaimed the fact that Sonia was Callum’s, his possession. He owned her and the fierce, kingly look on his face cemented that fact.

The thimbles on the good side of the scale started trembling as Regan walked in carrying a bag filled with the invitations.

“Oh look!” she cried. “You’re wearing your chain outside your slacks. What a lovely idea.”