I grab her and drag her back down with me, burying my face in her neck. “Morning,” I grumble. Her stomach makes a gurgling sound, making me laugh. “What time is it?”
“Four o’clock,” she says. “I got up maybe twenty minutes ago and tried to shake you awake, but nothing, so I got on my phone instead.”
“Okay, let’s go eat,” I say, rolling out of bed and putting on shorts while she grabs a robe. We walk down to the kitchen, and I open the fully stocked fridge and see trays and platters of cooked food all labeled. “We have mac and cheese, chicken fried steak …”
I look over at her, and she is holding a box of Honey Nut Cheerios in one arm while her hand is in the box, and she is shoving them in her mouth. “I don’t care.”
I grab both trays and put them in the oven. “Thirty minutes,” I tell her, looking at the instructions on the top of the container.
“Well, it gives you thirty minutes to fill me in.” She looks at me, and I just nod my head. Grabbing her around her waist, I head to the couch. She puts the box of cereal down and sits on the couch, and I sit next to her. I lean in and kiss her lips. “Spill it.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, let’s start with the obvious,” she says. “How did you find me?”
she whispers.
I close my eyes, not wanting to remember the moment my heart literally stopped in my chest. “The plan was for you to get off stage and then Cori was going to have you brought to the plane where I was going to be waiting for you.”
“I was going to my house,” she whispers. “Cori made sure it was all set up.”
“I was going to be on the plane, and I was going to force you to finally listen to me,” I tell her, grabbing her and pulling her on my lap. “I was going to tell you everything, but then she called me, and I thought my heart had stopped.”
“Honey,” she says softly, putting her hand on my face, and I turn my face and kiss the palm of her hand.
“Anyway, it all happened so fast. Cori called me, and Dante called Hunter. The team back home was already in place and getting a ping off his phone.” I breathe out a huge sigh of relief. “Then when I found out what he told you, I had Rachel dig into his background and check accounts, and I have to tell you it didn’t take long to put the pieces together. He was broke. He was even lower than broke,” I tell her, and she looks at me in shock. “He was at the end of his rope, and he was getting sloppy. We put a tracker on his phone. He turned it off, but you can still get a location from the Bluetooth in his car.”
“I texted Cori,” she says. “She is going to find out what I have left.”
“You have everything left,” I tell her, and she shakes her head.
“He blew all my money and took out loans on the houses. I have nothing.” I shake my head. “I have the house in Nashville only because my mother co-signed.”
“Baby, you aren’t losing anything,” I tell her, and then I tell her what she is going to find out soon anyway. “Cori stayed in New York to go talk to my lawyer.”
“Your lawyer about what?” she asks me.
“About buying all your stuff back,” I tell her. “You aren’t losing everything you worked hard for because of a piece of shit like Tommy.”
“What?” she asks, confused.
I look up at the ceiling. “My father is Harold B. Kitch the second,” I tell her, and she just looks at me. “My older brother is Harold B. Kitch the third, and lucky for me, my mother got to choose my name and went with plain old Brian.”
“Hold on one second,” she says, getting up. “Your father is the oil tycoon who was in the newspaper just last week for acquiring the biggest tech company in the world?” she asks but doesn’t wait for me to answer. “It was all over the papers last week.”
“That would be him,” I confirm. “I don’t have anything to do with the business. When I turned eighteen, my father was ready to give me a larger role in the company, but I ran away and enlisted.” She opens her mouth in shock. “My big brother went to Warton and graduated at the top of his class, and my father assumed I would be following the same path, but just the thought … I couldn’t do it.” I hold up a hand. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have stocks in them, or that I don’t have a trust fund that has more money than I know what to do with, and even if my children’s children spend stupidly, there is much more.”
“He’s a billionaire. Your brother was on the cover of Forbes.” Her voice is monotone as she gets all the information I’m throwing at her, and she is putting all the pieces together. “The company was worth over a hundred and forty-five billion dollars.”
“I know. Trust me, I know. He sent me the article in a frame,” I tell her. “You’ll see he’s a cocksucker, but he took the reins, and for that, I owe him. He got to go to stuffy boardrooms while I got to play with guns.”
“Oh my God,” she says, putting her hand in front of her mouth. “That is what Dante meant. You paid to rent the houses we stayed in?” I nod my head.
“All of them,” I tell her. “I also did this case pro bono.” She smiles.
“You,” she whispers out, stuttering. “You.” Her eyes fill with tears.
“You did all that for me.”
“No,” I tell her, wiping away the tear rolling down her cheek. “I did it for me. I did it for us.” I kiss her. “I did it because you’re mine.”
“How long were you working pro bono?” she asks me, and I smile.
“Since the second time I picked you up.” I kiss her now, and when her tongue slides into my mouth, I feel like I’m home. I feel like my heart can start beating again, and I feel like I’m finally alive again.
Chapter Thirty
Kellie
“So how much?” I ask Cori, who sits at the island in the kitchen, as I pull open the fridge and grab a water bottle. She finally arrived this morning after spending five days in New York with Brian’s lawyers going over everything.
I wasn’t just broke. I had nothing left. Well, I would have had nothing left if it wasn’t for Brian and his lawyers, who got everything back.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” she says, and I glare at her. Brian comes into the room, walking straight to me and kissing my lips.
Then he turns to say hello to Cori. “What are you guys talking about?” He stands next to me. Ever since we got to this house, I never go more than ten minutes without him.
“She was asking how much you paid to get all her things back,” Cori tells him, and he just shakes his head while I look at Cori and mouth, “Traitor.”
I move away from Brian, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why can’t I know?” I ask them both. “I don’t want to be kept in the dark about anything.”
“Fine,” Brian says and looks at Cori. “Tell her.”
“Well, the good news is that nothing was in foreclosure, so all we had to do was pay off the mortgages again,” she says, and I start to calculate that it must have cost him close to twenty million.
“I’m going to pay you back.” I look over at Brian, and now he glares at me. “You are not going to be stuck paying my debt.”
“It’s not your debt. It’s Tommy’s debt, and I won’t have it touching you,” he says, leaning back against the counter. He doesn’t say anything else because there is a ring at the door. “I swear to God,” he starts saying, “if that is one more flower delivery, I’m sending it back.”
I just smile when word got out about everything that I went through, and the flowers started arriving once they found out where she was. Now the whole house has flowers; you literally smell them everywhere. He walks to the door, and when he opens it, the man is standing there in the UPS outfit, and he hands him the envelope in his hand. “Perfect timing,” he says and closes the door and then looks at Cori. “Is everything ready?”
“Yup.” She smiles, standing next to me. “Her bags are on the plane and ready to go.”
“What is going on? Wh
ere am I going?” I look at them, and then Brian comes over to me.
“I know I promised you we could stay here, but …” he starts saying. “Well, I FaceTimed my mom when we got here, and she saw the décor, and she has the men coming in to gut this place tomorrow morning.”
“What?” I ask in shock, looking around. Okay, there is a lot of wood and antlers. “What if I tell you that I don’t want to change anything?”
“Then I’ll ask you if you knocked your head when Tommy kidnapped you,” Cori says.” Jesus, have you looked around here? It’s well, it’s very rustic, and you are a country girl, yes, but you aren’t this country.”
“So where are we going?” I ask him, and he smiles.
“The beach for one month,” he says, and I try to hide my excitement. “One month, me and you on our own private island.”
“Jesus, besides your brother”—Cori looks at him—“is there anyone I can marry?” Brian laughs and then looks at me.
“If you’re ready, the plane is ready.” I look down at my jeans and sweater.
“I’m ready,” I say “I don’t even care what I look like. My man wants to take me to a beach for a month.” I hold his hand, and Cori drives us to the airport where the same private plane is waiting. “Where are you going to go for a month?”
“Me?” she asks, getting out and giving me a hug. “I’m going to get my ass back to the house and make sure all that shit is gone, and when you come back, everything is going to be perfect.” I climb the stairs to the plane, step in, and take my seat with Brian by my side holding my hand.
“I love you,” I tell him, and he looks at me. “Even if you didn’t have any money in the world and I had to start over all again, I would be okay with you by my side,” I tell him as the plane leaves the runway and takes me to the beach.
“You can go change,” he tells me. “The bag is over there.” I get up and go into the bathroom and take out my aqua sundress that Cori packed for me. It’s a tube top and goes all the way to my ankles. I grab my gold strappy sandals and put them on and then go out. He looks up from his phone and smiles. “We will be landing in an hour.”
“How close to the beach are we?” I ask him, looking outside, and all I see is crystal blue water.
“Right on the beach. The house is totally secluded,” he tells me, and I climb on his lap now. His hands going to my ass.
“Does this mean we can go skinny dipping?” I whisper, and he nods. “Does this mean I won’t have any tan lines?”
“As long as I’m the only one on the island, you can walk around naked. We have to take a private boat to the island. Then they come back daily, depending on if we need them or not.”
I lean in and kiss his neck, trailing my tongue. “Think we can have some sex on the beach?”
He pushes one side of my hair behind my ear. “I think I can help with that,” he says with a smile. I lean in to taste his lips, then lay my head on his shoulder and just take in the serenity of his arms. The heat hits me as soon as I get off the plane, but a town car is waiting for us. The driver opens the door for us, and the cool air hits us right away.
I look out the window at the view of the ocean, and it looks like there is ocean on both sides as we make our way through the town and then toward the pier. We pull up to a wooden dock with a boat waiting for us. We walk down the dock holding hands while the driver brings our luggage, and I have to say, she really downsized with my packing because it’s just a small carry-on bag. The driver smiles at us and holds out his hand for me to get into the boat, but Brian gets into the boat first and then holds out his hand for me. I shake my head. “It was hard enough to trust Dante with your life,” he says, and I sit on the white leather bench with him next to me, his arm around my shoulder, and I hold my hair when it goes all over the place while the boat zips through the empty ocean, the water so crystal blue you can see the bottom. I see a couple of houses in the distance, actually only three, all with a forest between them. We pull up to the dock, and a man dressed in a white linen suit is waiting for us. Brian gets out of the boat first and then holds out his hand for me.
“Welcome to the island.” He smiles at us. “My name is Andre, and I’ll be giving you a tour of the house.”
“Brian,” he says, holding out his hand, “and this is Kellie.”
I hold out my hand. “Pleasure.” I smile, and he turns to walk toward the house. From where I’m standing, it looks like the house is shaped like a diamond. We walk in, and the air conditioner is working as the cool breeze hits my warm skin. I don’t even pay attention to anything he says. Instead, I go to the living room, going down two steps, and see that it looks like the ocean never ends. The two walls are glass from top to bottom, and the view downstairs where the pool is has a swim-up bar and two huge palm trees on the side of the pool. There are two daybeds at the end of the pool with a wooden dock that leads all the way to the white sandy beach. I see six daybeds down by the ocean along with two awnings for shade. He takes us through the house to the kitchen, the movie theater, and then to the master bedroom, which has the same view as the living room. Except you can open a sliding door and let the ocean breeze come in. The king-size bed is so high you need a stool to get into it.
By the time he’s finished giving us a tour, the only thing that I know is that I need to get my ass in that water on the beach. “If you need anything, my number is by the phone. I’m about five minutes away by boat and available twenty-four hours a day. The maid will come in every day at noon. If you don’t need her or want her to, please let me know.” He turns to walk out of the house, and I grab Brian’s hand and pull him toward our bags in the bedroom.
“The plan is to get me to the beach,” I tell him, and he just smiles. I open my bag and fish around for my bathing suit. I grab the white bikini, then go into the bathroom and change. I tie the back and then slip on the bottom held together by five strings on the sides, holding the two little materials together for the front and the back. The top is all mesh with two flower decals where my nipples are. I turn and walk out of the room, seeing Brian sitting on the bed already in his suit. “Oh, I thought you would have put your Speedo on.” I see his cock spring to action while he looks me over. I walk up to him, cupping him in my hand. “I take it you approve of the swimwear?” I kiss him, and he groans. “But it’ll have to wait. My toes need to feel some sand.”
He laughs and grabs our glasses, and we walk out. There is a tiki hut as soon as we walk down the bottom steps, covered in shade, and to the side, under the house, is a sitting area with two swings and a chandelier in the middle. I put my glasses on, and we walk past the pool, spotting a sauna in the corner and see that there is a hot tub and a cool tub both on the side of the pool. We walk to the wooden deck, and I feel some sand, and I smile. “Did I mention how much I love the beach?” I look up at him, and he nods his head. “Like I love, love, love the beach. I love my Montana house, but the beach?” I sigh when we get closer as we walk down to the two daybeds. There are two buckets of ice, one with water in it, one with a bottle of champagne, and then next to it is a platter of strawberries with a glass cover. Five towels are rolled up on the daybed and next to it is sunscreen. I put some on my hand and put it on Brian, and he does the same for me. “Are we going in?” I turn to walk to the water and dip my toes into the warm water. “Why aren’t you coming?” I turn and walk back to where he is. “Are you not coming in the water?”
“Yeah,” he says, and then he looks down at the sand. Putting his hand in his pocket, he says, “I want to go in, but I have this.” He pulls out a ring. But not just any ring. It’s a huge ass pink squared diamond ring. “You see, when I was in New York, I went into this shop and told them to bring me their prettiest ring. I mean, it had to be pretty, it had to be feminine, and it had to be magical.” My heart starts to pick up its beat, and my mouth suddenly gets dry when he gets down on one knee in front of me, the wind blowing my hair again. “I wanted all these things because I knew the woman who would w
ear this would never compare to any ring, not even close.”
“Brian,” I say, and the tears start rolling down my face. I take off my glasses and lean forward to take off his also. I need to see his eyes, his blue eyes that I want to look into for the rest of my life.
“You see, this woman is so beautiful she takes my breath away every single time she walks in the room.” He blinks away his own tears, and my hands cover my mouth. “This woman drives me crazy, and she also makes my heart beat a million times faster than if I ran a marathon. I’ve loved her longer than even I knew. I love her smile, I love her smirk, I love her shyness, I love her laugh, I love her playfulness, but most of all, I love her heart. I love her with everything that I have, I love her with the last dying breath that I’ll take. I’ll love her when she gets mad at me, I’ll love her when she argues with me, I’ll love her when she carries our children, but most of all, I’ll love her every second of every day.” He holds out the ring now. “Kellie, I don’t know what the future holds, and I don’t know much about anything, but I know one thing, and that is that I want it with you by my side.” He smiles now. “Will you be my wife and my partner?”
I nod my head. “Yes,” I whisper, and he grabs my hand and slips the ring on my finger. I look down and see that it’s perfect. A pink square diamond with white teardrop diamonds on the sides. It fits me perfectly. I lean down, putting my hands on his face, and I kiss him. “Let’s go,” I say, pulling him up and turning toward the house.
“Why?” he asks me.
“Because I want you to make love to me,” I tell him, “for a long, long time, and I want to do it looking at my ring, and I want us to be totally naked.”
“Well, then let’s go, fiancée,” he tells me, and we run into the house. I leave my top at the door, the bottoms ripped into pieces—those strings really never stood a chance—and when he finally slips inside me, the sun comes in and shines right on my ring.
Hollywood Princess Page 21