“A planet. Hand me that iPad.”
Stef narrowed her eyes in warning.
“I’m kidding. I feel like you’re dancing around a point.”
“Why are you doing all of this?”
“I’m winning her back.” Duh. Wasn’t that obvious? “We’re good together and as soon as I can get her to stop ignoring the truth...”
“Which is?”
He blinked at his sister. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Why are you good together, Zach?” she pressed.
He frowned. “What do you mean why?”
“How do you feel about her?”
He let out an uncomfortable laugh and pushed away from the counter. “How do I feel... That’s obvious, isn’t it? I want her around. I want to raise our daughter together.”
Stefanie sat down at the breakfast bar and pilfered a cookie from an open bag. “Why?” she asked around a bite.
“Pen’s fun. She gets me.” And in the bedroom? Forget it. There wasn’t a high enough rating for how explosive they were when they came together.
“What else?” Stef cocked her head.
“I...miss her.” That hurt to admit.
“And?”
“And what?” He put down his mug before he sloshed hot coffee on his arm. Flattening both hands on the bar, he bent to look his sister in the eyes. “Spell it out.”
“Sorry.” Stef polished off her cookie and dusted her hands together, not the least bit sorry. “Can’t. This is heart stuff not head stuff, and Lord only knows what you’re feeling in there. Do you have feelings?”
She pretended to study the ceiling as she contemplatively chewed.
“I have too many feelings. I’m drowning in feelings! Can’t you see that? I’m willing to turn over my entire life. To get married!”
“You were married to a crazy person last year. Why is Pen different?”
“That was...” He swallowed thickly, on the verge of admitting the truth for the first time ever. “That was a test.”
“A test marriage?”
“A test to make sure I could marry and it could mean nothing.” Damn. He hadn’t meant to be that honest.
“So marrying Pen would be nothing?” his sister asked gently.
“Marrying Pen would mean everything.” That same jittery fear he felt when he spoke to Chase about her returned, spreading through his chest like wildfire.
Stef waited for him to say more. Could he? Could he admit what was quaking in his gut? What was making his head spin?
“She’s...the mother of my child,” he started. Lamely. “There’s more.”
Chin propped in hand, Stef waited.
“She’s...” He closed his eyes and then reopened them. Screw it. The truth was obvious to Stef, so he might as well tell her what she already knew. “I’m in love with her.”
Stef burst off the stool and thrust both arms into the air.
“Yesssss!” She strangled him with a hug.
He smiled against her hair, and embraced his sister. His chest filled to the brim with a feeling of right. That ball-zinging surety that had been eluding him—or maybe he’d been denying it for some time now.
He just as quickly deflated.
The sad reality was that he was in love with Penelope and she wanted nothing to do with him.
“She’ll never come back to you if you keep showering her with gifts. You have to make a big statement,” Stef said. “And trust me, I want her back almost as much as you do.” Stef was on the move, her hand lashed around Zach’s wrist. “There has to be some clue in this house as to how to go about getting her back.”
“She took everything that was hers out of this house,” he said as he allowed Stef to drag him room to room. He followed her up the stairs where she made the same sad assessment he had for days in a row.
There was no sign of Penelope here.
Other than the baby’s room, it was like she hadn’t been here at all.
Stef turned from the Dallas Cowboys decorations Zach hadn’t bothered taking down. He’d meant to, but again, that felt like giving up.
He expected his sister to shrug and state that he was a lost cause, but instead a slow grin spread across her lips.
She grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. “I figured it out. I know how you can win her back.”
Twenty-Three
Now that the other bedroom in her apartment housed a crib and a changing table, and Pen had let her office go, she’d taken to working from the sofa. She spread her planner, cell phone and laptop on the coffee table: command central. It was perfect, really, since she was only a few yards away from the coffeepot she couldn’t wait to utilize again, and the bathroom.
Okay, so it wasn’t perfect.
She missed her office. She needed a designated space. Once her daughter was born, she’d be home fulltime—Pen had almost convinced herself that working from home was the best-case scenario.
Until she went mad from being housebound. Then she’d have to...she didn’t know what.
At least she’d landed a new account on Monday. Bridget Baxter, a chirpy, adorable blonde had requested Pen meet her for coffee. Bridget had been referred by Serena, and had a little PR problem of her own. Pen learned that Bridget, who co-managed the Dallas Cowboys, had had a one-night stand with one of the players. She was worried he’d ruin her reputation with the team, and she didn’t want to lose her high-up position. Bridget explained she’d worked hard to prove she was qualified.
Pen could so relate to having her reputation ruined by a man. She could also understand how Bridget had blindly followed her heart and had wound up at a destination she hadn’t foreseen. Pen didn’t hesitate accepting the job.
A job that smacked of her recently annihilated relationship, but also gave her something better to focus on than attempting to heal her heart, which had a million tiny lacerations.
Or maybe she was being dramatic.
The reminder for Bridget’s appointment popped up on the laptop screen. Pen needed to leave soon if she expected to arrive at the stadium on time.
She’d given a lot of thought to Bridget’s situation. How to best utilize the media, if at all. The more she turned it over, the angrier she became. Why was it up to Bridget to save her job? The guy she slept with certainly wasn’t in danger of being ousted from the team because he slept with an executive.
It was all so unfair.
Life was unfair.
The team was practicing today, which was why Bridget wanted to meet there. That was where her former beau would be, and she wanted to pull him in on the conversation if needed.
After winding around a bunch of corridors and walking into the wrong office, Pen stopped a coach-looking guy wearing a cap and holding a clipboard, and asked for her client.
“Bridget Baxter?” he repeated, regarding Pen like she’d sprouted a horn.
“We have an appointment.”
“She’s practicing on the field.” He shook his head. “You can follow me if you want.”
She followed, her head held high. If Bridget was getting this much disrespect from the coach, Pen could imagine the uphill climb she’d have if everyone found out Bridget had slept with a guy on the team.
Determination propelled her steps out into the sticky weather where teammates and cheerleaders dotted the field.
This kind of unfairness wouldn’t stand. Pen would make sure Bridget saw justice. She scanned the crowd for the tiny blonde. Ho boy. There were a sea of blondes in cheerleader uniforms and not a single pencil skirt in the mix.
Then one of the blondes separated from the crowd and shot Pen a wide grin.
Bridget.
Wearing a cheerleader uniform.
What?
“She’s here!” Bridget shouted. In a blur of blue and silver, the c
heerleaders formed a line on the field. The guys didn’t stop practice, but a few of them looked at her and smiled.
Bridget bopped over to stand in front of Pen. “Sorry for the subversion. It was his plan. But I did have fun playing a corporate mogul.” With a wink and a buoyant giggle, Bridget ran back to her girls.
“Whose plan?” Pen asked, confused.
“Give me a Z!” Bridget called out, and the cheerleaders echoed with, “Z!” What followed was an A, a C, and an H.
With each letter, Pen felt her knees weaken.
“What’s that spell?” Bridget called. In answer, the cheerleaders parted, pom-poms swishing, and a tall, blond man wearing a tuxedo emerged.
Zach’s hair had been recently trimmed, and his sexy dimple was in full force. Talk about input overload. The sun, the cheering, the crash of football players in the background, and in the center of it all, the very man she’d been trying to put in her rearview mirror.
“Penelope Brand,” he said, looking confident and cool, and...different from before. There was sureness in each step he took toward her. Certainty in the way he dismissed the cheerleaders with a “Thanks, ladies.”
“What are you doing?” Her voice was cautious for a very good reason. If he’d gone through this trouble, it was because he was making a gesture of some sort. One that didn’t involve sending the UPS truck to her building every single day.
And if he asked her again to share his life with him, she didn’t trust herself to tell him no. If nothing had changed in his heart, then she couldn’t allow anything to change in hers.
He lifted her hand, the hand where her engagement ring used to sit. She’d left it on Zach’s dresser the day she went with the movers to the house. She couldn’t bear to look at it on her hand when she knew the truth behind it.
That the love she felt for Zach had ultimately not been returned.
It’d all been a ruse.
“A long time ago,” he said, “I made a rule to never get hurt again.”
Oh, my God, he was doing this...right here. Right now.
“Zach, please.”
“You asked about Lonna. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
She swallowed around a lump forming in her throat, curiosity and hope—so much hope it made her head spin—at a peak.
She nodded. He dipped his chin and continued.
“After I proposed to Lonna and she told me in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t take me seriously, I swore I’d never fall in love again. Avoiding love was the only pathway to happiness. The only path to a fulfilled life. Or so I thought. Then I met you.”
She couldn’t look away from his earnest green eyes—from the sincerity in them.
“I love our daughter, Penelope, but you have to understand something.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “I love her because of how much I love you.”
Pen froze, eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar. Did she hear him right? She shook her head, refusing to hope. Refusing to believe.
“You’re...you’re... That’s not true,” she finished on a whisper.
“I’m not attached physically to our baby girl the way you are, Pen,” he stated. “The only way I could feel this much love and devotion for her is because I felt it for you first. I’ve been in denial about this for a long time. Since the moment I proposed at my brother’s birthday party.”
She blinked.
“Even then, I knew.” He tugged her close, locking an arm around her lower back. Between them, her swollen belly pressed against his torso.
“I love you, Penelope Brand. I’m sorry I bullied you into everything. Staying when you didn’t want to stay. Moving in with me when you didn’t want to give up your place. Proposing without confessing how I felt about you. It was a childish way to get what I wanted—you—without putting my heart on the line. I take it all back. I don’t want you to marry me.”
He didn’t? She blinked, confused. That wasn’t where she saw this speech headed.
“Unless,” he added with a cocky smile, “you love me, too.” He lifted one thick eyebrow and when she didn’t respond right away, some of that certainty bled from his expression.
He wasn’t sure how she felt.
Because she’d never told him.
She’d been as guilty as he was about not sharing. She’d never given him the chance to know how she felt about him. So she’d tell him now.
“I love you so much I can’t imagine my life without you.” She curled her hand around one of his. “And believe me, I’ve been trying.”
His grin was cunning, wicked with intent and promises to come. “In that case...”
He rested his teeth on his bottom lip and let out a sharp whistle. Behind him, in a flurry of movement, the cheerleaders reformed a line and held up giant white cards with letters that spelled Marry Me?
Zach made a circling motion with his finger and a cute redheaded cheerleader at the end flipped her card—a question mark—so that it was an exclamation point instead.
Zach faced Pen, who dropped her purse on the ground at her feet, wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed to her toes.
He sealed her mouth with his.
Behind them, cheers and whistles, and low male hollers of approval, lifted on the air as Pen allowed herself to sink into Zach’s embrace.
Into the promise of his words, especially the three that meant more than anything.
He loved her.
As much as she loved him.
Epilogue
“Penelope told me she hated me,” Zach announced. “Over and over.”
His father, sister and brother regarded him in shocked concern. His mother, on the other hand, stood from her seat in the waiting room and let out a loud chuckle.
“Women who give birth always say that. Remember, Rider?”
“Three times,” his father confirmed, standing next to his wife. “Three times I went through the birthing process at her side and she hated me every time.” He pointed at Chase. “Mostly with you, though. Since you were first.”
Chase and Stefanie stood from their chairs, Stef ribbing him about how it was no surprise he was the cause of the most strife of the three of them.
Zach’s smile emerged—so big, it hurt his face. It’d been a relatively fast labor, but a long night. “Ready to meet her?”
Stef and his mom shrieked happy sounds, and his father and brother didn’t hold back their widest grins. Zach shook his head at their attire. “I hate that she is meeting you all dressed like this, though.”
“Ugly sweaters are tradition!” Stef argued, her glowing-nose-reindeer sweater one for the books.
He led his family into the room, and a collective gasp lifted on the air when they spotted the pink-wrapped bundle resting on Penelope’s chest.
Pen’s eyes were drooped, her hair tangled. Her own ugly sweater tossed aside on a chair with the rest of her clothing in favor of the hospital gown she now wore. She was the most beautiful sight Zach had ever seen.
Well. Second to his daughter.
“What’s her name?” Elle cooed as she scooped her granddaughter into her arms. “Can you finally tell us?”
“Olivia Edna,” Penelope announced with a smile. “After my grandmother, and Zach’s.”
His father and siblings bent over Olivia in his mother’s arms. Even when handed off, Zach’s daughter slept soundly.
“Your mom and dad are on their way from the airport,” Zach told Pen, swiping her hair from her forehead.
Her eyes drooped sleepily, but her smile was everlasting.
He bent and placed a kiss to her forehead. “You did it.”
Her pale blue eyes opened and stabbed him in the heart. How had he ever denied loving her when she was his everything?
“We did it,” she corrected, giving him credit he hadn’t earned.
&nbs
p; A gurgle came from Olivia and she fussed in Chase’s arms. Those years of holding and kissing babies must have paid off, because the mayor of Dallas bounced and shushed her and a moment later, she cooed.
Chase shot his brother a cocky smile.
“I love you,” Pen whispered to Zach, reaching for his arm with her hand—a hand that boasted both a wedding band and an engagement ring. They hadn’t waited. They hadn’t wanted to.
Zach kissed her lips, lingering a moment. “I love you.”
She played with the longer hair at his nape, in need of a trim, and whispered two words that made Zach more grateful than he’d ever been in his life.
“Merry Christmas.”
Olivia was the perfect gift. Better than every wrapped present they’d left piled in his parents’ living room to rush Penelope to the hospital. Better than the moment Zach spotted Penelope in the jazz club and wondered if she’d let him sample her mouth.
Better, he mused, than the moment she vowed to be with him and he with her, until death do they part.
“Uh-oh, she’s had it with us,” Stef announced, placing Zach’s daughter in his arms.
He adjusted her so that she sank comfortably in the crook of his elbow. Looking down at the faint sweep of blond hair, puckered rosebud lips and tiny fisted hands, Zach’s heart filled to capacity—who knew there was more room in there?
“Hey, Livvie,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
* * * * *
Don’t miss Chase’s story, coming August 2018!
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Available now from Harlequin Desire!
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Keep reading for an excerpt from TAMING THE BILLIONAIRE by Dani Wade.
Lone Star Lovers (Dallas Billionaires Club Book 1) Page 16