by Elise Faber
“They’re your family though.”
“Real family doesn’t act that way.”
Cecilia thought about her own parents, about all they’d done—and hadn’t done—and knew he was right. Jordan and Hunter, Abby, Heather, and the girls were more family than her own blood.
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” He smirked, but cupped her cheek with gentle fingers. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“Oh no. I definitely want to clear the air. Now about that cocky smile you were sending my way a few minutes ago,” she said, her hand snaking down his stomach.
Colin’s groan was enough to rid her of any doubt.
This was right.
They were going to make it.
Colin opened her car door then laced his fingers through hers as they walked up the drive. The McGregor Estate, informally called Rock Hill, loomed large and gloomily overhead.
She used to love those spires and the way the windows curved at their top corners.
Today it looked as bleak as she felt inside.
The last time she’d seen this place—
So. Not. Going. There.
Colin released her hand but snaked an arm around her waist, tugging her flush against his side. “I’m here.”
CeCe melted. This man . . . he was it.
The front door opened before they could knock and CeCe was surprised to see Joanne.
“Oh, look at you!” she said, running toward them to grab Cecilia’s shoulders. “You’re as pretty as ever.” Then she hugged her tight, whispering in her ear, “Did my Col make things right between you?”
“Yes.” Her lips twitched. “Now I know how he heard about the daffodils.”
Joanne winked before releasing her to hug Colin.
“Your mother and sister are in the study and . . . Olivia is there too.”
Cecilia’s heart clenched, but Colin just nodded grimly, pulled her close again, and led them inside. “Can you send a tray into the study?” he asked. “We haven’t eaten yet.”
They’d been too busy christening his shower.
And then his kitchen counter.
And the front door.
Those memories shored up her spine. She could totally do this.
But that was before they actually walked into the study, because the trifecta of beautiful and cold women standing before her was beyond intimidating.
No one spoke as Colin settled her in a chair and then sat on the arm of it.
He placed a hand on her shoulder when she opened her mouth to break the awkward silence. Wait, he seemed to be telling her.
She gave him a small nod.
Bridget was the one to cave. “How could you do this to us?” she wailed. “This stupid American bitch has you on tenterhooks again, and you’ll just throw over your family for her?”
Olivia winced, but Lana inclined her head, encouraging her mother along.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Colin’s tone was frigid and she shivered from the force of it.
“All I have to say?” Bridget pointed a bony finger at CeCe. “She—”
“Actually,” Olivia interrupted, looking extremely frightened but determined all the same. “I do have something to say.” She stood and crossed over to where Cecilia sat. “I’m so sorry. I was”—her eyes were glassy—“well, it doesn’t matter what I was. It was horrible and wrong, and you need to know that I forged—”
“Shut up!” Lana snapped. “You’re supposed to be helping, not—”
Colin leveled her with a glare that had his sister paling and clamping her mouth shut. “Go on,” he said, his tone so soft it was almost deadly.
Olivia took a deep breath, releasing it before the words poured out. “I took Cecilia’s journal and helped Lana set up an account to make it look like she was stealing. Then I sent Ewan to the church, following him with my camera so I could take pictures looking like she’d run off with him.” She bit her lip. “This is all my fault.”
“I—” What could CeCe say? It’s okay? But it wasn’t. Instead, she settled on, “Thank you for telling us.”
Olivia reached a hand out, as though to touch Colin’s arm, but the look he gave her had that palm freezing midair and returning to her side. “I was a jealous coward,” she said. “No. Worse because I didn’t confess my part in it until now.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “I robbed you of y-years. I’m so sorry.”
“We’ve all made a lot of mistakes.” Cecilia patted Olivia’s hand. “Maybe we try to move forward now?”
A tearful nod. “I’d like that.”
“Good.”
Colin flicked a dismissive glance in Olivia’s direction. “Anything else?”
She shook her head.
“Good. Leave.”
Bridget and Lana gasped. “You can’t talk to her like that,” Lana said, but Olivia just sent them one more apologetic look before leaving the room.
“What have you got to say for yourselves?” he lobbed the question to the room.
“You can’t honestly believe her,” Bridget attempted. “They must be working together—”
Colin stood, hands fisted at his sides. “Shut. Up.”
“You know what I don’t get,” Cecilia said, touching Colin’s back in an effort to calm him. Then pushed past her discomfort to ask the next question. She needed to know the answer. “Is why go through the effort? Why befriend me? Why make me feel like part of the family?”
Lana rolled her eyes, but Bridget’s were as cold as those nights in Finland. “You took him from me,” she hissed. “You were never supposed to come back.”
Cecilia snagged Colin’s hand when he would have stridden over to them. “I guess fate had different plans because I never did expect to be back here again.” She tangled her fingers with his. “But I’m so glad I am, because everything you did to tear us apart has actually made us stronger in the end.”
“You can’t take it!” Bridget shrieked. “He’s mine. The money is mine. I deserve it, not you.”
“Ah,” Colin said, sitting back down on the arm of the chair. “Then let me make it easy on you. Your money is still safe, but the only way you’ll see another pound is if you get the hell out of this house and never come back.”
“You can’t cut us out of the business’s profits,” Lana said.
Colin’s smile was wolfish. “Oh, but I can.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He shrugged as if to say, Wouldn’t I? and the smug expression on Lana’s face slipped.
“Now you can enjoy your fat inheritance far, far away from here in the home I bought for you or buy one in another bloody country for all I care, but neither of you will ever be welcome in this house again.”
“But—”
Joanne bustled in, a tray heaped with food held aloft. “Hungry, dears?”
“No,” Lana and Bridget snapped.
“Great,” Colin said, tilting his head toward the open door. “Then you can finish packing your things.”
Forty-One
Colin, six months later
* * *
He was sitting in the waiting room of a hospital when Cecilia burst through the doors, a huge smile on her face. “It’s a girl!”
She launched herself into his arms, kissing him soundly on the mouth. “Abby had a perfect little girl.”
Colin stole her lips for another kiss. “How are they?”
“Tired. But healthy and resting.” She pushed herself up from his lap. “We should go relieve Bec. She might not do delivery rooms, but I’m sure Hunter and Carter are running her ragged.”
He smiled, having just spoken with Bec only a half hour before. CeCe’s friend was being run ragged, but she’d also been in on his plan and enthusiastically for it. “I was thinking,” he said and held out a gold ring. On it was an obscenely large diamond surrounded by emeralds that matched Cecilia’s eyes. “We haven’t exactly had the best of luck with planning weddings, so may
be we can go to Vegas instead?”
Her jaw dropped open. “Are you serious?”
A nod.
“I—oh, my God. Col!” Tears streaked down her cheeks, but she eventually managed a “Yes” and let him slip the ring on her finger.
“How mad do you think your friends will be to miss it?” He nodded in the direction of the door that lead back to where Abby, Jordan, and Seraphina were sequestered.
“Furious.” Cecilia grinned. “But I don’t care.” She threw her arms around his neck and stole another kiss. “We’ve waited long enough for this, baby. Let’s do it.”
* * *
The jet was ready and waiting, so he just grabbed his woman’s hand and led her out to the waiting car.
“Should we stop by the house and pack some clothes?” she asked when they’d buckled in.
Colin pointed to the trunk. “All taken care of.”
Cecilia’s brows pulled together. “Really? Did you pack me underwear?”
“You doubt me?”
A huff. “How many pairs?”
“Bec packed it for me.”
Her face relaxed. “Oh. So why—?”
“I didn’t want you to miss out on anything you might want.” He cupped her cheek and rested his forehead against hers. “After all we’ve been through, you deserve everything you could ever dream of.”
“We deserve,” she said. “We deserve a happily ever after.” A beat. “And the only thing I dream of is a future with you. That’s what’s important. Not some silly fantasy, but the fact that I love you with every part of my being.”
Her chest was rising and falling in rapid breaths, teasing his lips, and Colin gave in to the urge to kiss her.
He never had any hope of resisting anyway.
Cecilia tasted as sweet as ever, as intoxicating as a bottle of whiskey, and fuck did he love kissing this woman.
But eventually, and as much as it pained him, he had to take his hands off his woman.
“We’re here, sir,” the driver said with a cough.
CeCe jumped in his arms and pulled back, the tops of her cheeks stained pink.
“You see our need for Vegas,” he told the driver then chuckled when she smacked him across the chest. “Come on.” He snagged her wrist and tugged her up the stairs to the plane. “Let’s get married.”
It turned out that though Bec had helped him keep his plan from Cecilia, she hadn’t kept it a secret from the rest of their friends.
Case in point, Heather.
Who was standing outside the chapel he’d reserved, phone in hand and three tiny female faces crammed into the screen on the other side.
“Don’t mind me,” his business partner said, pointing the phone at them while the interfering hens cackled through the airwaves.
He narrowed his eyes at Bec. “You promised.”
An unrepentant shrug. “We’ll hang up if you guys really want us to, but we love her and need to see her happy.”
“You’re nosy,” he said.
“That’s true.” Another shrug. “But also the other.”
Sighing, he turned to CeCe. She was radiantly happy. “Do you mind?” she asked. “It’s kind of perfect that they’re here this way.”
As if he could ever deny her anything.
He pointed his thumb in the direction of the door. “I guess you ladies are witnessing a wedding.”
They squealed as he held open the door for Cecilia and Heather.
“But you’ll be witnessing it with the volume all the way down.”
Heather smirked, adjusting her phone so that the noise coming through the speakers wasn’t ear-piercing then twisted her thumb and forefinger in front of her mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
He shook his head as his fingers found Cecilia’s. “I love you,” he whispered, “and can’t wait for you to be my wife.”
“Awww!” the peanut gallery’s sighs was audible despite the low volume on Heather’s phone.
Colin rolled his eyes. “Really?”
“Shh, guys,” Heather said. “Or you’ll get us kicked out.”
CeCe gave him a smile that hit him right in the gut. “Let’s go grab our happy ending, shall we?”
Epilogue
Heather
* * *
Heather sniffed and swiped a finger under her eyes as Colin and CeCe drove off in their car.
“So the master businesswoman known as Heather O’Keith has real human emotions?”
She stiffened, whipping around to glare at Clay Steele, successful businessman, rival entrepreneur, and sexy as fuck male . . . despite the awful porn star name.
“I have plenty of feelings,” she snapped. “Just because I don’t make a practice of showing them in my fucking boardroom doesn’t make me less of a woman.”
Clay’s stare drifted down and then back up. “Anyone who says you’re not a woman has lost their fucking mind.”
Heather froze.
Had he—?
Had the man who’d done nothing but dog her steps in the business world, who made it a point of tormenting her by stealing clients and undercutting bids, had he just complimented her?
How in the . . .
Then she saw the glassy look in his eyes.
Ah. Drunk.
“You’ve had a few too many,” she said, waving a hand at the town car parked at the corner. Of all the things that came along with busting her ass to have a flush bank account, having enough money to afford a personal driver was a perk that she really enjoyed.
“So?” he asked, not quite belligerent but close.
Idiot men. She’d seen way too many of them in this situation to be the least bit cowed. “I hope you’re not an angry drunk.”
“No.” Both brows came up, waggled. “I’m a horny one.”
Despite herself, she chuckled. “With a porn star name like yours, I’m not surprised.”
“Hey!” he said and followed her when she strode toward her car, the back door now conveniently open. “I’ll have you know, my name is a family one, passed down generation by glorious generation.”
A roll of her eyes as she pushed through the open door, plunking down on the plush leather seats. “Maybe so. But you’re still drunk.”
His expression sobered enough that she stopped short of slamming the metal panel on his head.
Didn’t stop her from wanting to do it, though.
His next words made her regret the thought. “Rough day for me today.”
Dammit.
Clay seemed to realize he’d said too much and so he stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Who were they?”
“Friends.” No. At this point Colin and CeCe were family.
“Ah.” One of his hands exited his pockets and shoved through his hair, leaving the thick brown locks mussed. Not that it detracted from the image. Rather, it made Clay Steele appear slightly more human instead of his typical.
Which was godlike.
Tall, broad in the shoulders, lean in the hips, with chocolate-colored hair and unusually vibrant mocha irises.
He’d been in her mental spank bank for months.
“I’d give a lot to have one of those again.”
His words made her frown in confusion before she realized she’d spoken aloud. Though thankfully about CeCe and Colin being more than friends and not about her tendency to masturbate to the image of Clay bending her over the bed, pinning her against a wall, grabbing her by the ankles and—
“A family?” she asked, blinking the images away.
“Yeah.” A sigh as he turned away. “See you at the next convention, O’Keith.”
“Wait!” Acting on an instinct she didn’t want to examine too closely, Heather put one foot out of the car, reached to snag his wrist, and hauled him to a stop. “Let me at least take you back to your hotel.”
“I’m getting drunk,” he said, but allowed her to pull him inside the car so that her driver could shut the door behind them.
“Fine,” she said, half-worried
he was going to launch himself from the sedan. She’d never seen Clay like this. Usually he was so cold and uncompromising, impenetrable even under the toughest of negotiations. He was . . . well, he was typically as Steele-like as his last name decreed.
She grabbed his arm to stop any unplanned exits from the vehicle and gave the driver the name of her favorite bar. “If you want to drink, let’s do it right.”
And then she’d drop him at his hotel.
Except it didn’t happen that way.
Yes, they hit the bar.
Yes, they drank.
Yes, they got drunk.
But then they woke up . . . or at least, Heather woke up.
Naked.
With a softly snoring Clay Steele passed out next to her in bed.
That wasn’t the worst part.
Because Heather woke up naked and with a softly snoring Clay Steele in her bed and she was wearing a giant diamond ring on her left hand.
Still not the worst part. That came in the form of a slightly crumpled marriage certificate tucked under her right cheek.
And not the one on her face.
She pulled it from beneath her, a cold sweat breaking out on her body, dread in every nerve and cell.
She still wasn’t prepared for the horror she found.
The marriage license had been signed by . . . Heather O’Keith and Clay Steele.
Holy fuck, what had she done?
* * *
—Bad Husband coming January 25th (preorder your copy of Heather and Clay’s story here
* * *
Did you miss book one of the Billionaire’s Club series, Bad Night Stand? If so, grab your copy here and check out the first chapter below.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE