An Unexpected Confident
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine. I’m just borrowing them for a little while but will return them when I am finished.
Author’s Notes- This is the next installment in “A Modern Romance” and the first from Diavolos’s PoV. This one is set before “Too Much”. I love the brother and sister relationship between Diavolos and Zenobia and wanted to touch on that in this universe (plus I love modern Zenobia).
Pairing- Kenna/Diavolos
Rating- PG-13
Summary- Diavolos opens up to his sister about his relationship with Kenna.
Words- 1016
“How long have you been sleeping with Kenna Rys?”
Diavolos glanced up from the papers he was reading to see his sister resting her arms on his desk, a smirk on her beautiful face.
“Excuse me?” He asked calmly. “Why would you think I’m sleeping with Kenna?” He didn’t deny it, he refused to do that because he wasn’t ashamed of his relationship with Kenna, but he’d side-step it if possible.
Zenobia rolled her eyes. “Well, first of all, this isn’t mine.” She handed him a top that Diavolos recognized as one of Kenna’s “The housekeeper put it in my dresser by accident, which means you have a woman leaving clothing here.”
Diavolos shrugged. “So? It’s my apartment and I’m 31 years old, I think I’m entitled to have a woman sleep over.”
“You are, but you don’t,” Zenobia pointed out, “at least not to the ‘leaving clothes’ stage. You have always avoided commitment, brother, at least until now.”
She was right. Up until this thing with Kenna, Diavolos had always kept his relationship casual and enforced clear boundaries. But with Kenna, all the rules had gone right out the window. She’d changed everything.
“I still don’t know what this has to do with Kenna,” Diavolos evaded.
Zenobia rolled her eyes, “please give me some credit. You’ve had a thing for her for years. Every time you are in the same room together, your eyes are glued to her and lately, your schedules have been overlapping a lot, unusual for a Rys and a Nevrakis, and every time I’ve accompanied you, you and Kenna have ducked out together ‘for a drink’.”
Diavolos bit back a curse, sometimes he forgot how observant his sister was behind that vapid socialite act.
“Almost five months,” he admitted, knowing there was no point in denying it. Five wonderful, exhausting, infuriating months where his feelings for Kenna had grown into something he had never felt before, something so wonderful and right, and yet there was still this giant barrier standing between them and true commitment.
“Wow, a new record,” Zenobia quipped and then she sighed. “What are you doing, Diavolos?”
It was a question he asked himself all the time and he didn’t have a good answer, so he stayed silent…
Zenobia sighed. “Is this some elaborate way of getting back at Father or are you trying to be the good son and seduce—”
“No!” Diavolos exclaimed, cutting her off before she could finish that thought. “It’s not like that, Zen. What’s going on with Kenna and I has nothing to do with father.”
Zenobia laughed, but it was a hollow, humorless sound. “Everything has to do with Father, Diavolos, you should know that by now. Maybe, he wasn’t the motive behind your little romance, but you know he’d have an opinion.”
Diavolos did know that, so did Kenna. She constantly reminded him of everything he was set to lose if his father found out about their relationship and while most of the time Diavolos knew that Kenna was right, it was hard to make himself care.
“I can’t give her up,” he said quietly, absently fiddling with one of the pens on his desk.
Zenobia was quiet. “It’s that serious?”
“I want it to be,” Diavolos admitted, picturing Kenna the way she’d been just that morning when he’d left her bed. The way she’d looked lounging on the sheets, the sleepy smile on her face when she’d seen him and the way she’d clung to him as he’d kissed her goodbye. He wanted more of that.
“Does she feel the same way?” Zenobia questioned, her red nails tapping on his desk.
“Yes,” Diavolos answered, even though it wasn’t that simple, then he sighed, “but she’s concerned about Father.”
“At least one of you has the sense to be,” Zenobia said dryly. “What are you going to do?”
“I want to marry her,” Diavolos confessed, voicing thoughts he hadn’t dared put into words.
Zenobia froze and then she burst out laughing.
“I’m glad I amuse you,” Diavolos said dryly.
She managed to contain her laughter. “Sorry, just imagining the look on Father’s face.”
“Well, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Diavolos told her, “I can’t convince Kenna to call what we have a relationship, let alone to marry me.” His jaw clenched as he remembered how stubborn Kenna was being.
“I’m not Kenna’s biggest fan, but it’s not like there aren’t obstacles,” Zenobia pointed out, sounding remarkedly rational. “It’s not like you can just decide to be together and all your problems will magically go away, in fact, that will probably be just the beginning and create a whole new series of problems.”
“Probably,” Diavolos agreed with a sigh. “But it’s worth it… I just have to convince her of that.”
“And I have faith that you will,” Zenobia told him and then she straightened. “However as amusing as this situation you’ve found yourself in is, I think I’d rather maintain plausible deniability so I’m going back to the West Coast.” Zenobia paused, her expression turning serious. “But if there’s anything I can do….”
“I know where to find you,” Diavolos assured her.
Zenobia nodded and then turned on her heel and swept out of the room.
Diavolos watched her go with a smile on his face. His sister constantly surprised him. The fact that someone so spoiled and vapid could at the same time being so insightful and supportive, but then that was Zenobia, she had been keeping him off-guard since the moment she’d been born.
It felt better to have the secret out, to confide in someone and it filled him with resolve. He wasn’t going to let Kenna push him away, not until she looked him in the eye and told him she didn’t want him. But he knew that wouldn’t happen, that she felt the same way he did, and he swore to himself that he was going to find a solution and that he was going to do what he told Zenobia he wanted to: he was going to find a way to marry Kenna Rys.
- End
