But at that moment, with Damon on his knees in front of me and holding up a tray so full of food that I didn’t know how he’d fit it all on there, I found myself at a complete loss for words.
I’d gone to bed ready to throw him to the side and get on with my life, absolutely certain that there was no way we’d ever see eye to eye. It had been a whole new level of foolery to think that I’d be able to match up with him in a relationship. And it had been beyond stupid to think that he’d ever feel for me the way I’d felt for him. Even more stupid? Thinking that he’d manage to settle down into a relationship with a girl he’d only ever thought of as his do-everything assistant.
I’d been convinced that he’d never seen me as anything more than that. And I’d known for a fact that he never would, no matter what I did or how much I wanted him to.
At least… that was what I’d thought last night.
Now he was on his knees in front of me, holding up a tray of food like it was some sort of sacrifice to the gods—or me—begging me to let him stay in my life. Asking me to be his girlfriend.
So you’ll forgive me if I was standing there with my mouth hanging open like a total idiot, rather than figuring out what to say in response.
Meanwhile, the voice in the back of my head—the one that generally gave me such good advice—was screeching at me.
My God, woman, get it together! The man has just bared his soul to you and you’re standing here gaping at him like you don’t understand the words coming out of his mouth!
I closed my own mouth with a snap at the thought, and tried to get my mind to do something other than screech at me. Like, you know, provide words. Maybe even tell me what I thought about what he was doing, or how I felt about the idea of staying in his life. Give me a response. Ideally, something witty and wonderful that would tell him exactly how I felt about him.
Something that would tell him that I felt the same way. That I’d been in love with him for years and now couldn’t imagine my life without him, but was going to leave anyhow, because I’d thought he didn’t want me around.
I wanted to tell him that I was only leaving because he’d made it sound like he didn’t care that I’d slept with him.
I wanted to tell him that I wanted to stay—more than anything—but only if he was serious about wanting me to. Only if he was going to agree to something that didn’t have an expiration date. Only if he could actually manage that—which I still didn’t really believe.
Of course, those words stayed stuck in my head, rather than moving helpfully to my mouth. Because in moments like that, things almost never went the way I wanted them to—which was exactly why I usually armed myself with a script.
So instead of saying anything, I dropped to my knees in front of him, the tears already starting to come to my eyes. He watched me move, his own eyes huge with the suspense of waiting for my answer, and for a moment I felt sorry for him. He truly didn’t know what I was going to say, I realized.
He truly didn’t know how I felt about him. How I’d always felt about him.
If he’d known, would he even have slept with me that first time? I doubted it. Because at that time, this hadn’t been anything to him, either. And I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t have put our professional relationship at risk by doing something that he knew would have hurt me.
I hadn’t realized it at the time. But now that I was right here, in this moment, I knew that he never would have done it if he’d known it was going to hurt me. And he never would have done it if he didn’t have some feeling for me, as well.
He probably hadn’t known about that feeling. In fact, I was positive that he hadn’t. Because that was just who Damon was. All emotion, all the time, without ever realizing it—or truly understanding what those emotions were.
And I had been a stupid, stupid fool to have expected him to figure any of it out on his own.
After all, he’d hired me to do that sort of figuring out for him. And I’d deserted my post at a time when I needed that post manned. I’d needed someone explaining to him how emotions worked, and the one person who should have been explaining them—me—was so caught up in her own head that she’d forgotten to tell him what was going on.
And right now, I still couldn’t come up with the words to tell him. I was still failing.
So instead, I gently took the breakfast tray from him and turned to set it down inside my room—knowing already that we were never going to touch any of that food. And not only because it looked like he’d burnt both the waffles and the bacon.
No, we weren’t going to touch that food because we had something a whole lot more important to be doing.
When I turned back toward him, his hands were clasped in front of him in something that looked like it could have been a prayer, his face wearing a mask of such intense longing that it almost hurt to look at him. I scooted closer to him and put a hand up to his cheek, caressing it softly.
“I didn’t think you cared about me,” I whispered. “Not that way. And I sort of forgot to tell you how I felt.”
“I’ve always cared about you,” he whispered back. “And then we slept together and I was positive that it was going to ruin everything. I didn’t even think about the fact that it could have moved us forward. I just thought you’d hate that we’d done it. And then you were going to leave, and I realized…”
He paused and swallowed heavily, leaving me hanging for one very long eternity.
“I realized that I couldn’t live without you. I realized that if you left, you’d take all the good things with you. Then during that week, by the beach, I saw what it could be like, but I knew you were still going to leave, and… and I can’t stand to see that happen, Aubrey. I just didn’t realize I’d fallen in love with you until you were almost gone.”
I leaned in and planted a soft, searching kiss on his lips, my hand still on his face, his still pressed in between us, and when I drew back, I let myself breathe for a full minute before I said anything. Mostly because the kiss had done something to my vocal cords, and it took me that long to get them working again.
“Say it again,” I finally said, my voice rough.
He leaned toward me, touching his nose to mine. “Say what?” he murmured.
“Say that you’re in love with me.”
Because I couldn’t believe he’d actually said it. And I wanted to hear it again. I wanted to hear him repeat it and make it real. If I was being honest, I wanted to hear him say it again and again, for the rest of our lives.
But first, I wanted to see if he could repeat it right now. Because if he couldn’t, that would mean that this whole thing was just a line. Just a one-time thing, meant to keep me here a little while longer.
This time it was his turn to kiss me, his hands coming up to clench my hair as he did. And this time the kiss wasn’t soft. It was deep and possessive and rough, telling me exactly how much he was holding back—and how much he was feeling.
“I love you,” he whispered. “So much. So much more than I ever thought possible. I just think… I think I spent so long trying not to do it that I sort of glossed right over it. I don’t think I even saw it.”
I laughed, then. I couldn’t help it, when his words echoed my own thoughts so closely.
“You always did need someone else to point out your best ideas to you,” I said, grinning. “You can never see them for yourself. That’s why you hired me in the first place, unless I’m mistaken.”
He shuffled forward, scooped me up, and then stood and started walking toward the bedroom, his stride full of purpose, his face shining with love.
“And that’s exactly why I will always need you,” he said simply. “To show me when I’m missing out on the things life has planned for me.”
He walked into my bedroom and shut the door behind us, and I laughed, knowing that we were going to have an awful lot of trouble making it to the meeting with Mahoyu on time.
Chapter 30
Aubrey
I’m not jo
king when I say we actually ran through the reception area of the hotel, burst through the doors like the heroes in some romantic comedy, and then dashed toward the first cab we could see in the circular drive in front of the building.
Only we weren’t running along in slow motion, and we certainly weren’t running because we were in a hurry to make the plane to Paris for our elopement.
Nothing so exciting, I assure you.
The truth was, we were late. Like really late. Like, we-were-supposed-to-be-there-ten-minutes-ago late.
I was also already on the phone to Janice. Because, shocker: I hadn’t managed to make any phone calls before Damon and I fell into bed. And we were now reaping the repercussions of that.
“Can you call the governor and let him know that we’re running a little behind?” I asked. “Assure him that we’re going to be there in ten minutes, tops. And give him our biggest, most apology-full apologies.”
I heard a pregnant pause on the other end of the line, and then Janice’s voice coming through, full of doubt.
“You’re late?” she asked. “You’re never late, especially to important meetings. Are you guys… okay?”
There was a strange intonation on that last word, and I tipped my head, wondering exactly how much Janice suspected. Wondering exactly how much she’d seen happening between us at work—and how much she’d been keeping to herself.
No, I didn’t think Damon and I had acted like two people in love with each other—especially when we hadn’t even told each other how we felt. But I also knew enough to know that it was hard to hide things like long looks and innocent touches. An attachment to each other that would have crossed the line in any other company. Long nights of work when we were the only two in the office—and an assumption that we would both be completely fine with falling asleep on the same couch when those nights verged into morning.
Everyone in the office had known about all of that, though. And everyone had known that it was only because Damon actually needed about ten assistants, and only had two.
Right?
No, I assured myself. I was reading too much into an innocent question. She couldn’t know anything. Damon himself hadn’t even known anything.
But Damon was a man, and therefore sort of oblivious about that sort of thing. Janice, on the other hand, was highly observant. I’d trained her myself.
“We’re fine,” I said, my voice coming out more sharply than I’d intended. “We were discussing how we were going to handle this meeting and just lost track of time, that’s all.”
It was a stupid excuse. It sounded incredibly stupid even to me, and I was the one coming up with it. She was going to see right through it. And actually… I glanced at the man shouting out for the cab in front of me, his arm raised, his shirt only partially tucked into his trousers, and smiled to myself.
Actually, I didn’t care if Janice saw through it. I didn’t care if she told the whole freaking office. Because now that we were a couple, I didn’t think Damon and I were going to be interested in keeping it a secret. If we even could have—which I doubted. The last hour had proven time and again that we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other.
At that moment, I got to the cab.
“Just let the governor know we’re on our way,” I said, and then ended the call before she could ask any more questions.
* * *
Although the cabbie hadn’t exactly burned any rubber getting us to the governor’s mansion, we did manage to arrive within the ten minutes I’d promised, and five minutes later, we were sitting in Mahoyu’s office, staring at each other and trying very, very hard not to break out into giggles.
“It’s not even remotely funny,” Damon said, his mouth twitching.
I shook my head, schooling my own features to be as serious as possible. “You’re completely right. We’re never late for meetings. I don’t know what we were thinking.”
He leaned forward and trailed his fingers from my knee up to my thigh, then paused to give me a grin. “I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t even trying to think at the time,” he murmured.
I opened my mouth to reply—and then shut it quickly when Mahoyu came into the room, his face registering surprise to see us.
“I had thought you two weren’t going to make it!” he said, sitting down behind his desk. “And here I thought you had important news for me.”
He gave me a meaningful look that told me that he knew exactly what we were there to meet about. He knew how important it was, too. He just didn’t want to be the one to start the conversation.
“We’ve had important news for you for the last week,” Damon joked. “That was never the problem. That volcano of yours, though…”
Mahoyu waved that away. “Believe me, if I we could control it, we would. We don’t like it any more than you. Now, what do you need to talk to me about?”
At that, Damon launched right into the speech we’d come up with last night. I was glad to hear that he’d evidently done quite a bit of rehearsing, because it came off seamlessly, as if he was just making it up on the spot.
Which was exactly what we needed. Because this was a big speech.
And to pull it off, we’d decided to offer quite a sizable donation to protect the ecology of the Northern Mariana Islands—in addition to their many coral reefs—while running an advertising campaign on the PBC networks to encourage more tourism in the area. In short, we were going to give them free advertising to the world. Plus quite a big sum of money for their environmental causes.
All for the bargain deal of saying no to Josh Brody and his company. All to happen only if Mahoyu agreed to maintain his networking contracts with Damon, and Damon alone.
It was a terrific agreement for everyone involved. Well, except Josh. The Mariana Islands got a very large donation and free advertising. Damon got to keep his contract with the islands. And I got to keep Damon.
Which was why I was totally not surprised when Mahoyu gave us the biggest grin possible, stood, and stuck out his hand.
“Sir, we have an accord,” he said, his grin growing even bigger when Damon took his hand. “And please don’t think I did this just to get you to come to my side of the table. I had thought that better competition was exactly what this market needed. I see now that I was wrong. You’ve always been fair to the people of the Marianas, and I don’t see any reason to change the deal.”
Damon shook his hand firmly. “I know this market, and I know what the people here want. I don’t blame you for thinking you might want to change it up, but I don’t think you can blame me for standing up for the people around here. I’ve spent a long time taking care of them. I’d like to continue to do so.”
The governor nodded, taking that small reprimand in stride, and within ten minutes we had the papers I’d brought with us signed and everything made official, and Damon and I were walking out of the office.
He reached down and threaded his fingers through my own, sending a thrill of anticipation—and satisfaction—running through my body. I’d never in a million years thought that I would actually get to hold hands with Damon Parker. And I would never in a million years get tired of doing it. I leaned my head on his shoulder, truly happy for the first time in what felt like years, and let out a deep, heaving sigh.
“Think you can take care of telling Josh that he just lost the Mariana Islands?” he asked, a smile in his voice.
I grinned at him. “I’ll put it in the same email where I tell him that I’ve changed my mind about taking that position. And right before I start training a new assistant for you.”
He gave my hand a squeeze and turned his face to plant a kiss on the top of my head. “No one will ever be as good as you, my love.”
I beamed up at him. “I know,” I said mock-seriously. “But don’t worry too much. I might stop working for you in a few months’ time, but I’m not going anywhere.”
Epilogue
A Year Later: Aubrey
I glanced through the front wi
ndow at the large, sweeping lawn of Damon’s house, with its beautiful view of the ocean, then turned my eyes to the people lined up on said lawn, all of them in swimsuits and board shorts, with flip-flops or sandals at best on their feet—just like we’d asked them to.
Some of them, I saw approvingly, were actually barefoot. And as far as I was concerned, that was even better.
It was how I would be appearing, after all.
The yard was all done up in yellow roses, daisies, and sunflowers, and the place looked like some sort of flower bomb had gone off. We’d cleaned out every florist we could find in the entire state of Hawaii to do it, and it had been quite a chore, let me tell you. The organization of getting that many flowers to our house, and then getting them spread out before the big day, had been one of the biggest challenges of my life.
But what else could you do when you were marrying Damon Parker? I just wondered whether the flower population on the islands would ever recover.
Then I grinned to myself. It was over-the-top and definitely exaggerated, and maybe we’d gone a little bit overboard with the flowers. But I didn’t regret one single second of it.
When we’d started planning our wedding, we’d been in agreement on all the major things. We were going to do it at Damon’s house—the place where it all started. And we were only going to invite the people who were really important to us. Because this was the most important day of our lives, and we didn’t want to share it with just anyone. We didn’t want the public or business associates or people we only sort of cared about watching us take our vows. We didn’t want to share this with anyone but the tightest of the tight.
And we definitely didn’t want the press. This was a private ceremony, with guards aplenty out at the front gate to keep everyone else away.
Which was why there were only twenty people out there on the lawn right now.
The other requirement—beyond the casual nature of the wedding itself—was that we were going to have all the flowers we could find, because they reminded us of the jungles on Saipan. The place where we’d realized that we were in love. The place where we finally managed to get over our pride and hurt and stubborn walls and admit to each other that we couldn’t live without the idea of Aubrey and Damon against the world—and that we didn’t want to.
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