Alarm tightened her stomach again. “Walsh—”
“I needed to talk to you. In person.”
“Then why didn’t you just wait until I got home?” She felt a guilty flush crawl up her neck. “I saw that you’ve been calling, but I’ve been pretty wrapped up.”
He nodded. “I know. I wish I could have been there to help you last night and be there when you drove Jeb and Lucy to your grandparents today.”
“You couldn’t. You have that meeting with York—” She broke off. “You’re supposed to be meeting with York!”
“Yep.” Walsh shrugged.
“What do you mean, ‘yep’?” She glared at him. “You’ve been wanting this for a long time. Did you screw it up?”
A little smile curved his mouth.
“What am I saying? Of course you wouldn’t screw up an important business deal. You must have finished early.”
“Actually, I don’t even know if we have a business deal anymore.”
Honey’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“I walked out on him. Left him there with Nancy and the Nerf Battalion for company. I hope they don’t drag the blasters out with the boss and his so-valuable admin out for the day.”
“I’m out forever, Walsh.”
“See, I’m hoping I can change your mind about that.” Looking down, he toyed with her fingers. “I walked out on York Featherstone because I realized something important.”
“What’s that?” she asked, wary.
He glanced up. “Well, the most important thing I didn’t realize until I was talking to the drunk who was sleeping it off on your couch.”
“Brody.” She made a face. “I think he’s in a bad place.”
Walsh released a low laugh. “It’s a place I’m coming to be familiar with.”
“You’re usually not this cryptic,” Honey said, narrowing her eyes.
“I’m stalling,” he confessed. “This restaurant’s more crowded than I expected.” He hauled in a breath. “I left York at MadSci because I couldn’t stand the idea of you going through the situation with Jeb and Lucy alone.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “As I said, you’ve always been nice when it came to the twins.”
“I like them, Honey, that’s true, but the things I do for them…it’s mostly for you.”
Her mouth went dry, and the intense look in his dark eyes knocked her off balance. “Walsh—”
“You need to hear me out.”
Confusion infused with a dose of panic churned her stomach. “But Walsh—”
“Shh.” He squeezed her fingers. “Listen.”
“I…okay.” She closed her eyes for a brief instant and told herself to calm. “I’m listening.”
“Today I left the biggest deal of my life on the table. For you. I jumped in my Karmann Ghia—a car I bought, well, for you, because you once said you liked the Type 34s.”
“Then how come I never get to drive it?” she demanded.
He laughed again. “Now I think you’re stalling.”
Her heart was pounding and her stomach was still roiling. What was this about? she wondered, trying to make sense of the situation. It felt as if it could all go horribly wrong.
“I’m afraid of what you’re going to say,” she admitted.
“It’s nothing that doesn’t come straight from my heart.” Now he gathered both her hands in his and stared straight into her eyes. “Honey Brooks, I’m in love with you.”
She jerked back, but he had a firm hold of her. “You…you don’t want to be in love.”
“Mmm, true.” He smiled a little. “Except when it comes to you. I’m happy to be in love with you.”
“But…but…” Could she believe him? Her pulse was ricocheting around her body and there wasn’t enough air in her lungs.
“Oh, you’re going to make me pay, aren’t you?” There was humor glinting in those dark eyes. “Make me pay for every jaded and wrongheaded idea I had on the subject.”
“I should,” she said faintly. He’s in love with me?
“There’s no woman I’m closer to, Honey, and no woman I trust more. You’ll see, as I’m about to make a fool of myself and I have faith you won’t bring this up hourly for the rest of our lives.”
He’s in love with me? “What are you talking about?”
He reached to his side and brought up a fat plastic bag with the name of a discount chain store on the front.
“To help with your bad day,” he said, then dumped out a bajillion candy bars onto the table in front of her, all kinds in all colors of packaging.
“'If there’s been a disappointment, a loving spouse will be there with a sympathetic ear or maybe a favorite candy bar,’” he continued, quoting her.
She looked down at the treasure trove then up at him. “You remembered.”
“Just about every second from our weekend in Mexico.”
Then he set another plastic bag on the table and from it drew an instrument. She had no idea what to call the small, almost toddler-size keyboard, each key a different primary color.
“Trust, remember,” he warned, and with another glance around the crowded room, he started poking out a tune and singing in his low, deep voice.
Both were a bit off-key.
At the last note, the customers in the restaurant broke into an awkward applause. Walsh’s expression turned sheepish and Honey’s eyes began to sting.
“It’s not my birthday,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a lot of time to learn how to play it, so the effort’s symbolic.” He put the instrument down to take up her hands again, the four of them resting on Snickers and Reese’s and Baby Ruths. “I want to share with you everything that’s inside me, Honey. Music, laughter, passion, and most of all…love.”
A tear spilled over. Her elegant, intelligent, all-business boss had tracked her down in a fast-food restaurant—while leaving a deal on the table—to admit his feelings.
He was in love with her.
And suddenly—he’d left a deal on the table!—she believed him.
“This is the most romantic moment ever,” she whispered.
Walsh smiled, starting a fire in her belly. “No, baby, this is the most romantic moment ever.”
And, sliding from his seat, the man in the expensive, sophisticated suit got down on one knee on the sticky floor. Then he presented her with the most garish bubble gum ring that she’d ever seen.
“Another symbol,” he murmured. Then he raised his voice. “Honey Brooks, will you marry me?”
And to the squeals and claps and whistles of her fellow fast food patrons, Honey launched herself at her boss. Laughing and crying at the same time, she let him slip the oversized bauble on her left ring finger.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, rising and pulling her into his arms.
She looked into his face, knowing her eyes were shining with love for him. “Is that the best deal you have to offer? Marriage?”
“Okay, okay,” he pretended to grumble. “I’ll throw in a happy-ever-after, too.”
“Done!” she said, tugging his head down for a kiss.
Happy-ever-after, she thought, as his mouth ravished hers. A lifetime of seeing monkeys.
Yes.
The End
Dear Reader:
Thanks for reading! Walsh and Honey have found the perfect partnership. The trust they have in each other allows them to share their hearts and dreams. This is the fifth book in the Rock Royalty series and I am so enjoying writing these emotional and sexy stories.
Interested in sharing your thoughts with other readers? I hope you leave a review for the book here.
The Rock Royalty rock on in the next in the series, Wild Child. “Good twin” Brody Maddox has a mysterious woman’s photo on his phone—what does the haunting beauty mean to him?
Currently available in the series:
Light My Fire (Rock Royalty 1)
Love Her Madly (Rock Royalty 2)
Break on Throu
gh (Rock Royalty 3)
Touch Me (Rock Royalty 4)
Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty 5)
Wild Child (Rock Royalty 6) Coming soon!
Read on for an excerpt from TAKE ME TENDER, the first book in my Billionaire’s Beach series.
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Enjoy!
Christie Ridgway
Excerpt – TAKE ME TENDER
Billionaire’s Beach Book 1
© Copyright 2015 Christie Ridgway
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair…
—JOHN MILTON, COMUS: A MASQUE
One
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
—ELSA SCHIAPARELLI, FASHION DESIGNER
Slowly threading through the tables of the darkened restaurant, Nikki Carmichael refused to let a single tear fall. No, she wasn’t going to cry, though the night’s last entree had been plated and served two hours before and the last patron escorted out the door thirty minutes ago. For the final time, she’d heard the clear-bell clink of the wineglasses greeting their partners as they were slid into their nightly resting place in the rack over the bar. The kitchen’s enormous stock-pots that had simmered broth all through the dinner service were now clean, their steam no longer able to corkscrew the baby hairs that escaped her braids.
Pausing beside a table, she tweaked a white linen napkin already folded in the signature Fleming’s twist, ready for the next day’s dinner rush.
The dinner rush Nikki wouldn’t be here to see, sweat over, or even swear about, as from now on a different sous-chef was responsible for the production of the restaurant’s elegant meals.
Still, she wasn’t going to cry.
After all, she’d been the one to turn in her resignation. And she’d had plenty of time to accustom herself to the idea of leaving the place where she’d worked since cooking school.
Not to mention that she never cried—not since she was fourteen and her father told her at her mother’s funeral that crying was something big girls didn’t do. Don’t let anyone think you’re weak.
At the locked door of the employee break room, with nothing left to do but gather her things and head home, she keyed in the pass code and then pushed it open.
“Surprise!”
Startled, Nikki took an instinctive step back and felt that familiar, dangerous doughiness in her right knee. Her leg almost gave way, but she gritted her teeth and fought for balance. The small crowd in the room didn’t seem to notice, and then she was being dragged inside.
Colleen, the youngest member of Fleming’s full-time waitstaff, grinned at her. “You didn’t think we were going to let you go quietly, did you?”
Nikki had really hoped so. She didn’t know how much longer she could remain upright on her listing leg.
But slices of the pastry chef’s celebrated Chocolate Can’t Kill You cake were already set on a rolling cart beside champagne glasses filled with bubbly. The dishwashers, grizzled Joe and his baby-faced sidekick, Carlos, passed out forks. Colleen danced around with the champagne.
“To Nikki!” she finally said.
And everyone there, from the bartender, to the waitstaff, to her favorite prep cook who must have made a return trip just for the occasion, echoed the words, their glasses held high. The enthusiastic goodwill surprised Nikki all over again. She’d inherited her keep-your-distance DNA from her dad, so she didn’t get too friendly with people, not even coworkers.
In the convivial atmosphere, though, Nikki did okay through the next few minutes, sipping at the champagne she hoped would work like ibuprofen. Then Colleen asked her about her future plans.
“Do you have your next chef job lined up? You said you had prospects.”
It took a moment for Nikki to clear her throat of her latest swallow and her sudden awkwardness. “Not, um, yet. I’m still, uh, sifting through those prospects.”
“I have a friend—”
“What about—”
“Why not—”
The room filled with suggestions. Wearing a polite smile, Nikki listened to each of them. Her excuse for leaving Fleming’s was creative burnout, so their ideas ran the gamut from Japanese to Egyptian to a place that touted a Swiss-Argentinean fusion cuisine.
That last gave her pause. Swiss-Argentinean fusion cuisine. What would that be, exactly? Reuben sandwiches?
After the cake and champagne were consumed, the well-wishers walked her out to her car. She was forced to smooth her gait as she headed across the blacktop, pretending for the crowd she had two completely functional legs. She’d never wanted pity, or worse, the inevitable questions: Why not see a surgeon? Surely some doctor could…? There were reasons that wasn’t going to happen.
Once home, in the smallest rented condo Santa Monica had to offer, she called out, “Fish, I’m back,” then limped about to gather a 32-ounce bag of frozen baby peas and a week’s worth of unopened mail. With a sigh of relief, she perched on the recliner in the living room, setting the envelopes on the small table bearing a lamp, her answering machine, and the goldfish bowl.
Nikki switched on the light to cheer the early A.M. gloom, then tapped the aquarium with her fingertip. “How you doing, Fish?”
In seconds, she’d popped off her cooking clogs and shimmied out of her black-and-white baggy chef’s pants. Sucking in a breath, she stared at her knee. Swollen to the circumference of a summer melon, it throbbed with each one of her heartbeats. She slapped the bag of frozen peas on it, then pushed back on the chair to elevate the aching joint.
“I’ll take the anti-inflammatories before bed, Fish,” she said, glancing over at her finned roommate. Her eye caught on the top envelope in the pile of mail. Her name was written in a beautiful hand and the return address was Malibu, California, the famous seaside enclave just over the Santa Monica Mountains.
Curious, she picked it up. Leaving the hectic, ever-active restaurant business had become a necessity, thanks to her injury, but doing something else besides cooking—well, she wasn’t trained for anything else besides cooking. With a wonky knee and a decidedly private personality, she’d hit on the idea of working in a home kitchen where her work space and her contact with others would be limited.
So she’d advertised in L.A.-area neighborhoods where households might be interested in a private chef.
Bel-Air.
Beverly Hills.
Malibu.
Nothing had come of it…until now? Her pulse quickened as she tore open the seal—and then it slid back to a slow thud.
This piece of mail wasn’t what she needed. It was an advertisement—granted, a beautiful advertisement—for a yarn shop, address on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Join us each Tuesday for
Knitters’ Night at Malibu & Ewe!
Make a Connection!
Make something beautiful…friends, too.
An enclosed brochure showed the exterior of a cottage-styled shop overlooking a golden beach and an endless ocean. Other photos captured the displays of yarn and a cozy, comfortable-looking seating area filled with women chatting and knitting. There was an open spot on a particularly inviting sofa.
Shaking her head, Nikki tossed the papers back on the pile of mail. What she needed was a job, not a hobby.
“And who needs friends, Fish,” she murmured, glancing at the aquarium as she pulled the bands free of her braids and untangled her gold and brown hair, “when I have you?”
With a frown, she no
ticed his tail sinking southward and used her fingers to spoon him out of the water. Then she wound the tiny screw on his side and tossed him back in, gratified as he whirred around his little pond just as if he was a real, live pet.
He was perfect, wasn’t he? Perfect for her, anyway. She didn’t have a good track record keeping things that lived and breathed. And a twenty-seven-year-old woman with culinary school loans and without a job couldn’t afford to feed another mouth anyway.
“Yes, you are perfect, Fish,” she said aloud.
And she wasn’t going to cry, even though her knee was still throbbing like a bitch.
It was then she noticed the light blinking on her answering machine. Who would be calling? Her parents were dead and her social life was practically nil. Was this something about a job? Her heartbeat picked up again, even as she remembered how disappointing the envelope from Malibu & Ewe had proven to be.
Make a Connection!
She needed a way to make a buck or she wouldn’t be able to afford the water to fill Fish’s bowl, let alone the rent on her condo.
Crossing the fingers of her right hand, she reached over with her left to press Play. A man’s voice rumbled into the air.
“Yo. Nancy? Nellie? Whatever. Your friend Sandy gave me your number. Said to call. This is Jay Buchanan.”
Nikki crossed the fingers of her other hand. “Fish…” she breathed. Jay Buchanan. Editor for the hip men’s magazine NYFM, L.A.’s man about town, and former employer of her fellow cooking school student Sandy Bivers. For two months, Sandy had worked for him while he wrote a journal-style account of the bachelor joys of having a woman in his kitchen who wasn’t also warming his bed. The attention had garnered Sandy a gig on one of the food channels.
Nikki’s mind flashed on what her fellow chef had told her about the man. Like that yarn shop, Jay Buchanan was a resident of Malibu, and though he was credited with the magazine’s sexist signature tagline, “Men are boys and women are toys,” Sandy claimed the worst thing anyone had ever said about him was that he was born under a lucky star on a sunny day at a Southern California beach.
Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5) Page 21