by Lisa Childs
It had been because she loved him, too. Because they were perfect for each other. Just as everyone had believed but the two of them. Why had it taken them so damn long to realize it?
“I was scared,” he continued, his voice gruff with emotion. “I was scared that you didn’t feel the same way. That you would leave the business and I’d never see you again.” His grasp on her hand tightened. “Now I might never see you again, and I hate that you won’t know how I feel about you...how much I love you.”
Was she dead? Was that why her dreams were finally coming true? Was that why Heath didn’t think she would be able to return his feelings?
She didn’t want to be dead—not now. Not when everything she’d ever desired could be hers. Heath...
She fought against that damn lethargy, finally drawing a deep breath that filled her lungs as his love filled her heart. And her love for him overflowed it...along with the tears that streaked down her face.
She returned his grasp, entwining her fingers with his as she squeezed. And she opened her eyes.
He’d been crying like he had at the funeral. He’d been crying over her. His pain filled her now, along with his love. “I’m sorry...” she said, her achy throat making her voice raspy.
He blinked, as if he didn’t believe his eyes. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“I’m not dead yet,” she said, in a raspy whisper.
He shook his head. “What? Why are you sorry about that?”
“Because I heard your confession,” she said. “I know that you love me.”
He leaned over the side of her bed and pressed his lips to hers. “Good, because you better get used to me saying it,” he said.
He kissed her again, and her lips curved beneath his. “I guess I can,” she said, as if it was going to be a burden. But it was a gift. One she wanted to return with all her heart. “I love you.”
He pulled back, and he looked like he had at the penthouse, when she’d doubted him, as if she’d slapped him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She’d thought he would want her to return his feelings. But maybe she’d just been dreaming this whole time...
Or maybe she was dead and this was some cruel kind of hell.
* * *
Heath was stunned. He’d known he loved her. He’d known it long before he’d been brave enough to acknowledge his feelings. But he hadn’t dared to hope.
“You love me?” he asked.
Her voice was so soft, her throat probably so raw from swelling closed, that he couldn’t be sure he’d heard her correctly. Maybe he’d only imagined it or projected what he wanted to hear coming from her lips, her sweet lips.
She didn’t speak now, only stared up at him. Then finally, her chin bobbed as she moved her head up and down.
“Save your strength,” he advised, as he noticed how the small motion seemed to take such effort.
She pointed toward the carafe of water on the tray next to her bed. A glass with a straw sat next to the carafe, so he poured some water into it and brought the glass to her lips.
She coughed and sputtered as if the water was choking her. But when he moved the glass away, she pulled it back. She was getting stronger, strong enough to take a long draught from the straw, before pushing it back.
He put it onto the tray again. “I should get the nurse, let her know you’re awake now,” he said.
“How am I alive?” she asked, as if she wasn’t certain that she was.
“I found your EpiPen,” he said. “It took me too long to figure out how to use it.”
“But she wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t,” the nurse said as she joined them in the bay of the ER where the paramedics had brought her. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a bus,” Kylie admitted.
He wasn’t sure if that was because of the poisoning, or because of his confession. She must have realized that because she winked at him.
“You’re lucky you survived,” the nurse said.
“I am lucky,” Kylie agreed, and she was looking at him.
He was the lucky one.
The nurse inspected her throat with a flashlight and nodded in approval. “The swelling is gone now. It’s just red and irritated, but you’ll be able to go home tonight.”
“Thank you,” Kylie said.
The nurse nodded. “I will have the doctor get the paperwork ready for your release.”
“You can’t go home,” Heath said.
Kylie’s eyes widened. “I can’t?”
“She hasn’t been caught yet,” Heath said. “Gina is still out there somewhere.” And she was so deranged that she would definitely try again. “You’ll have to come back to the penthouse with me. We’ll throw out everything in it, everything that Gina might have poisoned with iodine, and get the lock changed for the door. Something I should have done long ago. I’m sorry, Kylie. I’m sorry I put you in so much danger.”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. “You saved my life—over and over again.”
“But I wouldn’t have had to if not for putting it at risk in the first place.”
She squeezed his hand, her grasp strong now. She was definitely recovering quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She did.”
“You always knew she was crazy, didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “Jealous and possessive. But I didn’t realize until you were playing those messages how unhinged she truly was.”
He nodded. “Me neither.” If he hadn’t put off playing those messages, they would have known sooner who was after them. If he’d told Kylie his feelings earlier, he wouldn’t have had to worry that she might die without ever knowing. “I’m not putting off anything ever again,” he said with sudden resolve.
She nodded. “Good plan.”
“So marry me,” he said. “Right now. Right away.”
“What?”
“I love you,” he said. “You said you love me. Just as my whole family has been saying, we’re perfect for each other. So marry me. Become my partner in every way.”
Her brow creased. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m proposing,” he said. And apparently doing a very poor job of it.
Maybe if he matched actions to his words she would understand. He slid out of the chair he’d taken beside her bed and knelt beside her. “Kylie Givens, will you do me the incredible honor of becoming my wife? Of sharing my life in every way?”
Her lips parted, but he couldn’t hear her answer. He could hear nothing but the quick report of a gunshot. Gina had followed them to the hospital.
She was here, apparently hell-bent on finishing what she’d started. On killing Kylie...
* * *
“Shots fired,” Sean told the dispatcher as he pressed his cell phone to his ear. He stood guard at the waiting room door, his gun drawn.
He wanted to go out, to investigate where those shots had come from, but he didn’t want to leave everyone alone and unprotected in that waiting room.
The entire Colton family but for Heath was in that room, waiting on news about Kylie. If Parker had been right and they were all targets...
His heart pounded hard in his chest.
“Two units are already at the hospital,” the dispatcher told Sean. “Detective Parker called them to aid in the pursuit of a suspect.”
Sean cursed.
Heath had called him on his way to the hospital. He’d told him how his ex-girlfriend had tried to kill Kylie. Apparently she’d showed up at the hospital to finish the job.
“You can go,” January told him. “Go—try to stop her.”
Obviously she’d figured out who was firing those shots, too.
He shook his head. If the woman wanted to hurt Heath, she might go after the rest of his family. And here they all were.
Footsteps
echoed in the hallway outside the waiting room, and Sean gestured for the others to get back, to get away from the door.
As the knob of it began to turn, he raised the barrel of his gun. He had yet to officially join the family, but it didn’t matter. To him the Coltons were already family, and he would willingly die protecting them.
Chapter 26
Kylie’s heart pounded with fear. First Heath’s declaration, then his proposal and now this.
The sound of gunshots.
“She’s here,” she whispered.
Gina was determined. She would give her that. Too bad what she was so determined to do was kill Kylie. What irony that it might happen just as she was about to get everything she’d ever wanted.
The love of a man she could trust with her heart as well as the big family she’d always longed to be part of.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She wasn’t going to just lie here while that crazy woman came for her. Heath’s hand clutched hers yet, so she tugged at it. “Let’s get out of here!” she urged him.
But just as she turned toward the curtain drawn across their area of the ER, it was jerked back. Gina stood there, her eyes wild with desperation. She gripped her gun in two hands, the barrel directed straight at Kylie.
But Heath stood up, blocking Kylie with his bigger, broader body. He was bigger and broader, but even he wouldn’t be able to stop a bullet.
Kylie gripped the edge of the bed with the hand that Heath didn’t hold. But then his other hand covered hers, and the same thought must have entered his head...because at the same time, they pushed that bed toward Gina as they dropped to the floor.
Another shot rang out, but the bullet struck the ceiling, raining fragments of drywall onto them. Then Gina screamed as Joe Parker snapped the gun from her grasp and handcuffs around her wrists. He expelled a ragged breath. “I thought I was too late,” he admitted. “But you two, you work well together.”
“Yes, we do,” Heath agreed, as he helped up Kylie from the floor.
She was shaking with reaction and with fury.
So was Gina as she bucked against the detective’s grip on her. “You should be dead! You should be dead! That’s what you deserve!”
Kylie shook her head. “No. I deserve Heath—because I really love him. You don’t even know what love is.” Disgusted, she shook her head.
Maybe Gina realized she was right because she stopped fighting. She let the uniformed officers who suddenly joined them take her away.
Kylie shuddered in revulsion. “She’s so messed up.”
Parker nodded. “I’ll get a psychiatrist to help me question her.”
“Do you think she killed my dad and uncle?” Heath asked.
Parker shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t see what her motive would be.”
“Maybe she thought Heath would turn to her for comfort,” Kylie suggested. “That he would take her back if he needed her.”
“I never needed her,” Heath said. “I only need you.” And he wound his arms around her.
Kylie leaned against him and not just because her legs were shaking like the rest of her. She leaned against him because she needed him, too. “Yes,” she said.
“What?” Parker asked.
She shook her head. “I’m answering a question Heath asked me just as she started firing those shots...” She peered up at the man who was grinning down at her.
Parker chuckled. “I think I know what that question was. Let me be the first to offer congratulations.”
Somehow it was fitting.
If they hadn’t lied to him about their relationship, they might never have taken the chance to have a real one.
* * *
Heath turned the new key in the lock and pushed open the door to the penthouse. Then he swung her up in his arms and carried her over the threshold.
She giggled and clutched at his shoulders. “What are you doing? We’re not married yet.”
“We will be soon,” he said. “I’m not sure I can wait much longer.”
She giggled again. “You just proposed last week.”
“And again tonight.”
Tonight he’d done it right. At True, over candlelight, with a ring that encircled her finger now, and his entire family present.
A happy smile curved her lips. “On Valentine’s Day,” she said. “It was perfect.”
She wore a silky red dress and heels, looking more beautiful than his madly pounding heart could handle.
“It was a mistake,” he said as he pushed open the double doors to the master bedroom.
The smile slid away from her face as she slid down his body. “It was?”
“It was a mistake to do it in public,” he said. “And with so many people there. It took too long to get away from them and get you back here where I can make love to you.”
Her smile was back, even bigger than it was. “They’re your family,” she said.
He shook his head. “Yours, too. They all love you so much.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. Happy tears. “I love them, too.”
“But I love you most of all,” he assured her. “Forever and always.”
“I love you, Heath.” She linked her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for her kiss.
He tasted the champagne they’d had to celebrate and the passion. Desire coursed through him, too. He’d had to wait so long to get her alone. He needed to be patient, to take his time. But he wanted her too badly.
She must have wanted him just as much because her fingers frantically fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, tugging them free. Then she shoved his shirt from his shoulders and nipped at one of them with her teeth.
He chuckled then groaned when her tongue flicked out to soothe where she’d bitten him. She trailed her mouth over his chest, to lap her tongue across one of his nipples. She knew what he liked because she liked the same things.
He pulled back and reached for her dress. Instead of worrying about zippers or buttons, he just lifted the red silk over her head. Then he saw that she wore red silk beneath—bra and G-string—and he groaned. “You are so damn beautiful.”
She smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is,” he said. “For me—because I will never be able to deny you anything.”
“Do you want to?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.” Because denying her desires was denying his own.
He lifted her again and carried her the short distance to his king-size bed. Once he dropped her lightly on the mattress, he shucked off his pants and boxers and rummaged in the drawer of his bedside table for a condom packet. “Running low,” he murmured.
Because of her...
Knowing that, she giggled again. But he shut off her giggle with his mouth, kissing her deeply before he moved down her body. He kissed her everywhere until she was moaning and writhing.
Then he rolled on the condom and joined their bodies—like their hearts and souls were already joined. They moved together like longtime dance partners, matching each other’s rhythm, anticipating each other’s next step. Even as tension wound tightly inside him, he was conscious of her—making sure she reached her orgasm first. Her body shuddered, her inner muscles clutching at him. He came, too, shouting her name.
Long moments later, when they’d stopped panting and could speak, she murmured, “Is it real?”
“The ring?” he teased, and he held up her hand, making the diamond twinkle under the can lights. “Can you tell it’s cubic zirconia?”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t care if it was.”
He believed her. She didn’t care about status or money. She cared only about honesty and love and family.
“It’s real,” he said.
“I’m not talking
about the ring,” she said. “Is... everything?”
“You know I love you,” he said.
She nodded. “I will never be insecure enough to doubt you again,” she assured him. “I meant...everything else?”
He grinned as he realized what she was referring to, what he hadn’t been able to ask her until the will was read and he knew what his authority was. “I told you—that day at the ER—that I wanted you to be my partner in every way,” he reminded her.
She nodded. “But I thought we were already partners in the business.”
“We were,” he said. “That’s why it was necessary for it to become official. You work harder than I do at Colton Connections.”
She shook her head. “I don’t—”
“You will for a while,” he said.
She laid her head on his chest and hugged him tightly. “I know it’s going to take you a while to feel the same about work. I will handle whatever you need me to handle.”
He trailed his fingers down her bare back. Her skin was as silky as her dress had been. “I wasn’t talking about that. I don’t want to work the same as I used to.”
“You don’t want to be CEO anymore?”
“I want to be co-CEO,” he said. “With you. And with you taking up my slack, I want to work on some ideas I’ve had.”
She propped her chin on his chest and peered up at him, excitement in her dark eyes. “What kind of ideas?”
He chuckled. “I have plenty of those kinds of ideas,” he assured her. “But I also have an idea for an invention.”
“Oh, Heath...”
“I know I’m never going to be as good as Pop and Uncle Alfie but—”
She pressed her fingers over his lips. “You will. They both had regretted not encouraging you more when you were younger. They’d hoped you would come back to the creative side someday.”
Tears rushed to his eyes, but he blinked them back. “I hadn’t needed to.” But with them gone, there was a void to fill. He wouldn’t be able to fill it completely, but to honor the men he’d loved and admired so much, he would try.