Adam wrapped an arm around Brandi. “To answer your question, I’m not disappointed at all.” He pulled her closer and captured her gaze with his. “How could I even think of being disappointed when I’m in Paris with the woman I love?”
Brandi’s eyes widened. “Love?”
He nodded. “And because the scent of it brought you into my life, I’ve already won chocolate’s grand prize.”
“Oh, Adam, I love you, too,” she said.
He kissed her again, the taste of her mouth even sweeter now that he knew her heart truly belonged to him.
Brandi broke the kiss. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We have the rest of the day free before our flight tomorrow. Where do you want me to take you first? The Eiffel Tower? The Louvre?
She shook her head. “Back to the hotel. We’ve got a bed to break in, Mr. Dark Chocolate.”
* * *
The next morning, Brandi awoke but kept her eyes closed. She wasn’t ready to leave this bed or Paris.
As Adam had shown her repeatedly last night, it truly was a city for lovers.
And he’d told her he loved her.
She reached out for him, but opened her eyes when she discovered his side of the bed was empty.
“You still playing possum?” He was wrapped in his robe in front of the balcony sipping coffee and watching the snow come down.
“I wish we didn’t have to go back.” She threw back the covers.
“Don’t bother getting up,” he said. “Your wish was granted an hour ago.”
“What do you mean?” She joined him in front of the balcony’s glass doors. Snow blinded what yesterday had been a scenic view.
“It’s been snowing all night. Both Paris airports are closed. So is London’s Heathrow,” he said. “Europe hasn’t seen a blizzard like this in over a decade.”
Brandi felt a split second of elation, and then it quickly crashed. “Erin’s wedding,” she gasped.
“I’ve done some checking. If it stops when the forecasters predict, and the airports reopen, I can still have you back hours before the wedding. However, more than likely you’ll miss the rehearsal dinner.”
Brandi heaved a sigh. “I’d better check in with Erin and Mom to let them know I’ll be delayed.”
The conversation with her mother went about as expected. Jolene Collins wasn’t pleased her elder daughter would be missing the rehearsal dinner. In contrast, her conversation with Erin was a breeze. Her sister had only just arrived home from Atlantic City the day before and was grateful Brandi’s delay had diverted their mom’s attention from her.
After the calls Brandi returned to Adam’s side to watch the snowfall.
Adam put down his coffee, came up behind and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned back into his embrace. Even in the near-whiteout conditions, she could make out the outline of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
“I hope you aren’t too disappointed. I know I promised to have you home in time for the wedding festivities. I’ll get us back as soon as the weather lets up.”
She turned around and kissed him. “How could I even think of being disappointed?” she asked. “I’m in love and in Paris.”
Chapter 18
There were six voice-mail messages awaiting Brandi on her cell phone when their plane finally landed in Nashville the afternoon of the wedding.
She began listening to them as the plane taxied to the gate, the first three from her mother panicking over whether Brandi would indeed make it home in time.
So she fast-forwarded to the fourth.
Beep: Brandi Collins, this is Lina Todd. I just viewed your video, and I’m very interested in talking to you about Arm Candy. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.
Stunned, Brandi’s hand shook as she held the phone. “Oh, my God! You’re not going to believe this. Lina Todd called me yesterday. Oh, my God!” Brandi threw her arms around Adam’s neck and hugged him. “She wants me to call her.”
The plane stopped at the gate. He unbuckled his seat belt and then hers. “Well, let’s get off this tin can so you can return her call.”
“Okay, but let me listen to the last two messages first. Maybe she left a second one.”
The next voice Brandi heard on her voice mail was her sister’s and it sounded like she’d been crying.
Beep: Brandi, it’s me. Maybe rushing this wedding isn’t such a good idea. Maurice has to have his own way about everything, all the time. Do this, Erin. No, it’s that way, Erin. I know what’s best, Erin. I don’t want to mess up all of the plans, but I can’t… I don’t know. Just call me when you get this message.”
Brandi’s finger trembled as she pressed the button to move on to the last message, which was from a second call Erin made a few hours after the first.
Beep: It’s me, again. Forget my last message. It was just a little case of cold feet. I talked to Mom, and then Maurice and I had a real heart-to-heart. They made me realize how silly I was being. So forget about all the nonsense I was babbling on about earlier. Everything is okay now. I’ll see you when you get home. Love you.”
Brandi felt Adam’s hand on her shoulder as they exited the plane. “Everything okay?” Adam asked.
Her call from Lina Todd practically forgotten, Brandi shook her head. “Not really. I need to talk to my sister. Now.” She glanced at her watch. The evening ceremony didn’t start for another four hours. Time enough for her to make sure Erin wanted this wedding and the husband that came along with it.
Adam pulled his keys from his pocket. He removed his door key from the ring and pressed the one to his Cayenne into her palm. “Take my car and go to your sister,” he said.
“What about the baggage? And how will you get home?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll see to our bags and grab a cab.”
Relief coursed through her. “Thank you,” she said.
He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “I love you,” he said.
Even in her frazzled state, his words made her heart turn a cartwheel in her chest. “Love you, too.”
A half hour later she was walking through her mother’s front door.
“Well, it’s about time,” her mother greeted, hands on hips. “And who does the Porsche you pulled up in belong to?”
“The gigolo,” Brandi said, her sister the priority. “Where’s Erin?”
“She’s in her room. Her girlfriends are helping her get…”
Brandi immediately strode toward her sister’s bedroom. She stopped abruptly at the doorway. Her baby sister looked beautiful, and she hadn’t even donned her gown yet.
Sitting at her old vanity dressed in a white, satin dressing gown, Erin’s hair was pulled into a chignon anchored by a delicate red rose. Rubies adorned her ears and neck, and her makeup was soft down to the red stain applied to her lips.
“Brandi, you made it!”
“Of course I’m here.” Brandi looked past Erin to her friends. “I really need to talk to you. Alone.”
Erin turned to Ashley, Tiffany and Taylor. “Will you guys go out and see if my mom needs anything? And try to keep her from coming in here and driving me nuts.”
After her sister’s trio of best friends made a giggly exit, Brandi closed the door. She pulled up a chair beside Erin.
“How was Paris?” Erin asked. “I can’t believe you actually ran off to Europe for the weekend. It certainly tops my Atlantic City jaunt. When I get back from my honeymoon I want to hear all about it.”
Brandi reached over and took her sister’s hands in hers. “I got your messages.” She fixed her with a pointed look.
“Oh, those,” Erin said. “I already told you, it was just a minor case of cold feet. Thank God Mom and Maurice talked me down. I’m okay now.”
Erin may have sounded upset during the first call, but the words had rung true. It seemed to Brandi that her sister had finally had a moment of clarity. “Erin, you don’t have to do this today. If you’re having second thoughts we can postpone the wedding until you’ve had time to be sure this is what you really want.”
Her sister pulled her hands from Brandi’s and gave her a reassuring pat. “Of course I want to get married. All of my friends are either getting engaged or married.”
“And you’re all very young.” Too young, Brandi thought.
“Well, I don’t want to look up one day and I’m over thirty and still single like…” Erin caught herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s okay. I just want you to be certain and that you’re doing it for the right reasons. After all the hubbub of the wedding is over, it’ll be just you and Maurice. No receptions. No pretty dresses.”
Erin nodded. “I’m sure.”
“But do you love him, Erin?”
Erin gave her a dismissive wave. “Of course. Who wouldn’t want to marry a doctor?”
The fact her sister hadn’t actually answered her question wasn’t lost on Brandi. Not sure if anything she’d said had gotten through to her sister, she gave her one last thing to think about.
“When you’re repeating your vows today, take a really good look at Maurice and ask yourself if he’s truly the man you want to spend the rest of your life with.”
Their mother pushed open the door. From the look on her face, Brandi knew she’d been eavesdropping.
“Of course she wants to be with him,” she said. “I can’t believe you showed up here at the last minute putting this nonsense in your sister’s head just hours before she walks down the aisle.”
Their mother put her hand on Erin’s shoulders and turned them until her younger daughter was facing the vanity’s mirror. “You’re the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen,” she said. “And this wedding is going to be the happiest event of your life.”
* * *
Adam paid the taxi driver, adding a generous tip to the fare.
“Are you sure I can’t help you take your bags inside?”
“No, thanks.”
The Ellison Estate employed a household staff to take care of it, Adam thought, looking up at the mansion he’d called home up until a few weeks ago.
He’d decided it would be more convenient to have the driver bring him to the family estate rather than his condo. He could pick up one of his other cars as well as a tux to wear to Brandi’s sister’s wedding.
Before he could fish his keys out of his pocket, the door to the main house swung open.
“Mr. A!” Thomas Gayle, better know as the Ellison household’s “chief of staff,” greeted him with a wide smile and a slap on the back. With a house occupied with all men named Ellison, the staff had adopted the habit of calling them by their first initial. Only his late father was the exception. He had always been Mr. Ellison.
“Chief.” Adam used the name both the Ellisons as well as the rest of the household employees called Thomas. He’d worked for them nearly two decades, and while the Ellisons ran a major corporation, Thomas Gayle ran the sprawling estate.
“So how did the baking competition go?”
“Second place,” Adam said, but the judge’s comment comparing his cake to his late grandfather’s still made him feel like the big winner.
“That’s great.” Thomas looked around, and then lowered his voice. “We’ve all had our fingers crossed for you. Well, at least the staff did.”
“Thanks, man. It’s good to see you.”
“You, too, sir,” he said. “I saw the bags. Does this mean you’re back for good? I’ll have them sent up to your suite and unpacked immediately.”
Adam shook his head. “No, I just came to pick up a few things. The bags are leaving with me.”
“Sorry to hear it, sir. We miss you around here. The house isn’t the same without you.”
“Now that the competition is over, I promise to stop in more often.”
Adam took the stairs two at a time up to the suite of rooms he’d occupied on the second story. Here, his closet alone was bigger than the entire condo he lived in now. He went to the rack in the walk-in closet that held the tuxedos he wore primarily to charity fundraising events and pulled one, and then he scrambled around the huge walk-in closet for shoes and matching accessories.
Having gathered everything he needed, Adam was about to walk through a side door to the six-car garage when his uncle called his name.
“Chief said you were here, so I’m sure your brother has already informed you about the mess with your friend, Zeke Holden, and the Brooks girl,” Uncle Jonathan said without preamble.
Adam heaved a sigh before turning to his uncle. He’d assumed the elder Ellison would be at his downtown office today. Just his luck the old goat was home.
“I heard,” Adam said, not really in the mood for another showdown with his uncle. Jade and Zeke were married now. The Brooks Brand deal was off the table. It was time for his uncle to move on.
“So I guess you came to rub my nose in it.”
“Actually, I just came to pick up some of my things.” Adam held up the cloth suit bag containing his tux. “So, your nose is safe from me.”
“Humph, I thought you’d be itching to take a bite out of my hide after the way we’ve been butting heads the last few months. If I were in you shoes, I’m not sure I could be so magnanimous.” His uncle shoved his hands in his pants pockets and looked down at the polished, marble floor.
“Look, Uncle Jonathan, I’m sorry the deal fell through and the Holdens got Brooks Brand, but there’ll be other deals. Ones I don’t have to sell myself into marriage to seal.”
His uncle looked up, eyes wide. “Hold on a second. Exactly when did you speak with your brother?”
“I’ve been in Paris since Friday, but Kyle came by my place before I left.”
“So you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Let’s go into my office, son,” Uncle Jonathan said. “We need to talk.”
Son. What in the hell was going on? Adam put the suit bag down and followed his uncle to the wing of the house they used to conduct business from home.
Adam glanced at his watch as he sat in the armchair facing his uncle’s massive oak desk. He’d been in the room hundreds of times to discuss business with his uncle and always noted the lack of personal effects. Not one plant, photograph or even a personalized coffee mug.
So the new addition caught his eye, a framed black-and-white photograph on the desk. He reached over and picked it up. He’d never seen it before. It was of two young boys dressed in short pants and striped button-down shirts. Both had massive ice cream cones in their hands and huge smiles on their faces.
The large leather chair behind his uncle’s desk squeaked as he eased his bulk into it. He looked at the photo Adam held.
“The one on the left with the gap-toothed smile is your father. He’d lost two baby teeth that day and was terrified they wouldn’t grow back, so your grandmother scraped together enough change to take us out for ice cream.”
Adam stared at the photo a moment before putting it back on the desk. It was hard for him to reconcile the smiling child with the CEO father he’d grown up around.
“So what’s going on?” he asked.
“Your pigheadedness saved our ass, that’s what,” his uncle said. “Brooks Brand is broke.”
Adam straightened and leaned forward in his chair. “But they can’t be. Our accountants reviewed their books just months ago.”
“Cooked books, with some very creative accounting,” Uncle Jonathan said.
“Brooks had to have known we would have eventually found out.”
“But by then you would have been his son-in-law, and he was banking on us not pursuing legal or criminal action on your new in-laws,” his uncle said. “That’s why he was so eager to make his pretty daughter a part of the deal. All that jazz about the merging of two fortunes in family dynasty was bull.”
Adam couldn’t believe his ears.
“They say old man Holden nearly had a stroke when he found out the only millions his new daughter-in-law comes with are bills and her family’s company is on the brink of bankruptcy.”
Adam’s thoughts immediately turned to Zeke. He must be beside himself. Part of him wanted to reach out to his old friend, but it wasn’t his place. Zeke had a wife to turn to for comfort now.
“That’s a lot to take in. I’m still stunned.”
His uncle crossed his arms over his stomach. “I’m just glad you refused to let me or anyone else pressure you. If you’d given in, we’d be the ones with this nightmare on our hands.” Then his uncle leaned forward in his seat. “I can’t be certain if your father is staring down or up at us, but I do know he’s very proud of you right now.”
“Thanks for saying that, Uncle Jonathan. It means a lot to me.”
“Enough for you to return to Ellison Industries?”
Adam shook his head. “I’m going through with my plans to open a patisserie.”
His uncle nodded, surprisingly accepting of his decision. “The lawyers will be in touch about your inheritance. It’s time you had what’s rightfully yours.”
The two men stood and Adam shook his uncle’s outstretched hand.
“Maybe you could come home now or at least come by for dinner,” his uncle said. “I know your brother and the staff miss you.”
Adam nodded. “Dinner would be good. I have someone special I’d like you all to meet.”
Chapter 19
Between the Paris weekender and worrying her sister was making a big mistake, thoughts of Wesley hadn’t entered Brandi’s mind.
Until now.
She looked past candelabras alight with white candles and standing vases of red roses decorating the church vestibule to see her ex-fiancé staring right at her. He was decked out in a black tux and standing in the very same building he’d shunned on their would-have-been wedding day.
Taste for Temptation (Kimani Hotties) Page 17