by Avery Flynn
There was no way either of them was leaving this church without settling things between them. Life without Everly wasn’t one he wanted to lead and he didn’t care what kind of public fool he had to make of himself to get her to understand that.
“Hey, 3B,” he hollered over the buzz of the crowd, loud enough to silence them. “You still interested in that parking spot?”
Everly turned in slow motion, hands on her hips, a queen-of-not-putting-up-with-your-shit look on her face. “What are you talking about?”
A Harbor City man would have run from her don’t-fuck-with-me attitude, but he was from Waterbury and he had stones the size of watermelons. He pushed through the ushers and started to make his way up front. “The closest to Mrs. MacIntosh’s Chevy—even though I’m sure no one can afford that ding insurance.”
She cocked her head. “I don’t live there anymore, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right.” He halved the distance between them. “Guess I need to sweeten the deal. How about you get the whole building? It was my first, you know. The one I love more than any other, so it’s only right that the woman I love should have it.” Taking advantage of her shocked silence, he grabbed his wallet from inside his tux jacket and pulled out the grubby quarter that he’d had since he was twelve. The one he’d used to take the emotion out of decision-making, the one he’d let guide his life for way too long. “Flip for it?”
Oblivious—or more likely not giving a shit—to their rapt audience, she strutted over to him, all badass woman from the tips of her black heels to her ebony hair pulled back in some kind of fancy bun. “Are you trying to buy your way back into my pants with a building?”
“No.” He wanted more. He wanted all of her.
“Thank God,” she said, the hard upward curl of her lips looking nothing like the smile she’d given him the first time he made her pasta. “I thought you’d—”
“I’m trying,” he said, cutting her off, “to worm my way into your heart by making a complete and utter ass of myself in front of the most powerful people in Harbor City, the ones I’ve spent my life trying to get to see me as something other than I was.”
She blinked in surprise, and there was no missing the nervous way she razed her bottom lip with her teeth. “Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“A fool.” Yeah, that about summed it up.
She let out a shaky breath, and there was just enough interest in her gaze to give him hope.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
The only answer he could give was the real one, the one that cost him everything. “It all.”
She didn’t say anything. She just stared at him without blinking. His hands turned clammy and a line of sweat slid down his back. Then something changed. Her face softened. Her chin trembled. And her mouth—that lush red mouth that did such dirty, dirty things—curled up on one side.
“You’re so infuriating,” she said, her voice trembling just the slightest bit. “And you can’t cook.”
“Not true. I can make pasta,” he said, pulling her in close. “You drive me nuts, too, with your loud clomping shoes and love of German painters when I like paintings of dogs playing poker.”
“Your taste in art is atrocious,” she said, relaxing against him. “How could I have ever fallen for a guy like you?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out how I fell in love so hard with the most stubborn hard-ass woman in the world. I had to rethink everything about my life until I realized that the only thing I could do was admit to myself that I loved you—the woman you were, the woman you are, and the woman you’re going to be. I love all of you. Forever. So let’s do it; let’s get married.” And now he meant to be hers as much as she was going to be his. He adjusted his stance so that his hand with the quarter was free and angled his thumb for the best odds just like he’d practiced for years, not realizing that it was all for this moment. “So let’s flip for it. Heads you say yes.”
The coin went flying into the air and he held his breath because everything was riding on the outcome. Everly snatched it out of midair.
She handed it back to him without looking. “Heads.”
Cupping her face, the one he wanted to be the first one he saw every morning and the last one every night, he moved in to kiss her, stopping just short of heaven. “You told me once that you don’t believe in happy endings. I didn’t, either, until I met you. I love you, Everly Ribinski from Riverside.”
There was no missing the emotion in her eyes. “I love you, too.”
Kissing her like it was the beginning of forever—because it was—he lost himself in the woman who’d sent every plan and plot he’d ever made on its ear. By the time they broke apart, everyone in the church was clapping.
“I guess there’s only one thing left for us to do,” he said, unable to take his gaze from Everly’s beautiful face.
“Get married,” Carlo said. “You have the minister here.”
Everly threw back her head and laughed before giving Tyler some prime, grade-A Riverside smack talk. “No way—you’re gonna have to work to get me in white.”
That was his girl, never one to take the easy route without offering a challenge of her own. “Oh, believe me, I’ll come up with the perfect scheme to make that happen.”
“Well, bellissima,” Alberto said from somewhere behind them. “It seems it’s up to us to take advantage of having a church full of family and friends.”
…
Dumbfounded, Helene turned to Alberto. This was not what they’d discussed. A quiet courthouse wedding and then waiting for the right time to break it to Hudson and Sawyer.
“We can’t just get married now,” she said, looking around at everyone watching them, her gaze stopping on Hudson and Sawyer standing in the fourth pew with Felicia and Clover, all four of them looking completely and utterly shocked.
“Why not, bellissima?” Alberto asked, picking up her hand and kissing it. “I know we were planning on having your judge friend do the ceremony and then breaking it to your boys when the time was right, but the minister is here. We have a license. And I love you.”
Torn, Helene looked around at the church filled with the people she’d spent most of her life with, those who helped her with fund-raisers, those who’d seen her through Michael’s funeral, those who made her grit her teeth and remind herself that it wasn’t polite to tell them to go shove off, and—most importantly—her boys, who didn’t look angry or offended at the idea. They looked…hurt.
“Mom,” Sawyer said, striding forward to where she stood holding Alberto’s hand. “You were going to get married without us?”
Mommy guilt—it never went away no matter how old her children got—twisted her stomach into knots. Her job was to protect them. To keep them safe. To see them into adulthood and help them become the men she knew they could be. Did that job end? Shouldn’t that be her first and only priority? And they both had loved their father so much, she hadn’t wanted to make them think they had to divide their loyalties.
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” she said in a rush, for once floundering for the right words to say. “I know it will be hard, and your father, what would he say?”
Hudson walked over, a soft smile, so much like his father’s, on his face. “That he’s so happy you found love again.”
“Exactly what we would say,” Sawyer added.
And for once when the tears spilled down her cheeks she let them flow, unashamed and owning them fully.
“Bellissima.” Alberto wiped away her tears. “Say yes.”
The three-letter word was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it without making certain. She looked over at Hudson and Sawyer. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this?”
“On one condition,” Hudson said, his face turning serious. “We get to stand up with you. I’ll be your maid of honor, of course, since I’m prettier than Sawyer.”
<
br /> Her eldest snorted. “And so much more of a pain in the ass.”
“Boys,” she said, her tone the sharp one of rebuke that every mother used on occasion. Then she smiled. “That would make it perfect.”
After that, it happened quickly. She stood up at the front of the church saying “I do” to a man whom she loved with all her heart and who had taught her one of the most valuable lessons of all. A new love didn’t mean forgetting who came before, it only meant remembering that there was always more to come.
…
Everly loved weddings. Loved them. How could she not after that? Walking toward the church doors with Tyler, their hands intertwined, behind the newly married couple, her heart fluttered in her chest.
“I can’t believe all of that just happened,” she said.
Tyler chuckled. “People are going to be talking about it for years.”
Her steps faltered. “And you’re okay with that?”
He jerked to a stop and turned to her, his face serious. “I couldn’t care less about what they say. You’re the only one who matters to me, and I promise to spend the rest of my life showing you that.”
What could she say to that? Nothing. So she kissed him, a soft brush of her lips across his that promised so much more—an eternity of more. She broke the kiss and they started down the aisle again. Just as they were about to walk out, though, Tyler pulled them to a stop. He took his wallet out and plucked the quarter from the little pocket inside where he always kept it. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he dropped it into the poor box by the door.
“But that was your favorite quarter,” she said, trying to figure out what in the world he was up to.
“That’s what I thought. But it wasn’t really. It was just a quarter I filched off my dad’s dresser the day I decided I’d never be like him, and I kept it as a reminder. I used it to take the emotion out of decisions—at least that’s what I told myself—but it turns out it was more than that. It brought me to you.” He looked sheepish as he turned to face her, his gaze not quite meeting hers. “I have a confession to make. Now, I know that what I’m about to say might end in my physical pain, but all I ask is that you keep an open mind…and remember, I never used my power for personal gain.”
She narrowed her expression as she tried to pull the truth from him. If he ruined their perfect reunion with another idiotic stunt… “Then what did you use this power for?”
“Funny you should ask. Umm… It’s entirely possible that I know how to finagle a coin toss to put the odds in my favor.” She is going to kill me. “But let’s think of all the good I did with each coin toss. I carried your bags in the rain, I cooked you oatmeal, I even saved your car from Mrs. MacIntosh’s ding jobs by leaving you only the one spot. Hell, I even bought a Harley I can’t ride for you. All of it for you—even when I didn’t realize it yet.”
She shook her head. The man was demented. He’d been tricking her all along with a cheat coin toss. It was bad, of course, but then why did the fact that this man, who was all about appearances, completely risked looking bad just to win more time with her make her want to grin ear to ear? They were both totally demented.
“So let me get this straight. You bought a bike—which apparently you don’t know how to ride—just so I wouldn’t park my Helga next to Mrs. MacIntosh?” She raised one eyebrow at him, daring him to deny it.
When he nodded while side-eyeing the exits, she knew she would love this man forever. This impossible, ridiculous, foolishly head over heels in love man from Waterbury. “Well, you know now there’s only one thing you can do to make it up to me, right?”
He brushed a stray strand of hair from her face and looked down at her with such love it took her breath away. “Anything.”
“You know, I’ve always had a thing for hot guys on Harleys…with tattoos,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
His eyes widened. “Oh hell no.”
She tsked. “But you said ‘anything’…”
Well, he’d said “anything” and he’d meant it. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. Whatever it took to keep that smile on the face of the woman he loved.
Epilogue
Three Years Later…
The Carlyle penthouse had been transformed. Oh, it still looked like the home of the über-rich Helene Carlyle, but it was different from the place that he’d first walked into as a scholarship kid in prep school because the people laughing and drinking and celebrating together in it. In addition to Sawyer, Hudson, and Helene, there was Sawyer’s wife, Clover, and her parents, who were cracking up on the couch; Hudson and Felicia, who had made the younger Carlyle wait for years before she agreed to marry him; and Helene chasing toddler Michael by the family piano where Tyler stood on the opposite side. Alberto and his son, Carlo, were catching up in the corner after the elder Ferranti’s latest trip with Helene to the French Alps. No doubt they were talking business; Carlo had become a bit obsessed since he’d broken it off with Irena at the alter—a fact that Alberto and Helene had both decided needed to be taken care of and soon. Those two, they were schemers after his own heart.
“Plotting again?” Everly asked, her voice a tickle on the back of Tyler’s neck.
Turning so that his back was to the piano, his breath caught. The woman was as gorgeous as the day she’d first stomped her way across his ceiling and into his life.
“Busting my chops again, sugar?” he asked. “I’m beginning to think that and my mad bingo skills at Nunni’s are the only reason you married me.”
“It’s true,” she said with a wry grin before leaning closer so that only he could hear her. “You figured me out. But you know what I love more—even more than my name you got tattooed over your heart to celebrate getting your motorcycle license?”
He knew what his answer was and it would be happening again tonight. “What?”
“You.”
And there it was, the unexpected answer from the woman who always managed to surprise him. “Are you getting soft on me, Ms. 3B?”
She laughed, the sound joining in with the joyful chaos around them. “You can’t call me that anymore, since now we’re Mr. and Mrs. Penthouse.”
“We need a monogram.” And maybe matching tattoos. Was it wrong that he wanted to mark her permanently as his? Too bad if it was, because that was just the kind of guy he was. Anyway, he knew the perfect Waterbury tattoo parlor to get it done. Now all he had to do was hatch a plan to get Everly to think it was her idea.
“I’ll just take your parking spot instead.”
“We do have an affinity for parking garages.” And getting naked in them. He had all the camera angles mapped out in the new building so he always knew the best spot to park in.
“I can’t help myself,” she said, her voice turning husky as she trailed her fingertips up his arm. “It reminds me of how all this started.”
“Believe me, I’m not complaining.” Never. Not a single quickie time.
“Well,” she said, her voice turning serious. “There are consequences for that kind of behavior.”
“Jail for public indecency?” He had money for bail, and causing a scene just didn’t seem to be a problem for him anymore.
She shook her head and then whispered in his ear. “Babies.”
His brain fizzled. Literally. He could smell the burned wires and hear the sizzle. He scrambled for something to say. Anything, and all that came out was, “When? How? Boy or girl?”
This time Everly’s laugh wasn’t quiet and everyone in the room turned to look. Not ready to share this bit of news, Tyler grabbed Everly’s hand and hustled her across the room and into Helene’s gourmet kitchen, which was as untouched as it was gorgeous. For once, though, he didn’t have eyes for the subzero refrigerator or the restaurant-quality gas stove. He couldn’t stop staring at his wife and her belly and her smile that went almost from one ear all the way over to the next. Baby. His baby. Their baby.
“As for when, about seven months,” Everly said, walking him through this
because she obviously knew just how much she’d blown his mind. “In answer to how, all I have to say is that you were there so I’m hoping you understand the mechanics of that. And when it comes to boy or girl, I want to wait until the baby’s born to find out.”
Wait and be surprised? It sounded…perfect. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her with enough heat to remind them both of just how this baby thing had happened. When he finally broke the kiss, Everly’s lips were swollen and her eyes hazy while he was wondering just how soundproof the walk-in pantry was.
She raised her hands to cup his face, tears of joy balancing on her eyelids. “I love you, Tyler Jacobson.”
“And I love you.”
Today, tomorrow, forever, and definitely enough to sneak her out the service entrance at the back of the kitchen and down the elevator, because he was either getting her home to celebrate in private or they were going to christen a new parking garage. What could he say, he was a schemer. It was just that now his plots all centered on getting Everly naked and showing her just how much he loved her and always would.
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Acknowledgments
A huge thank-you to Kerri Carpenter for sharing her stories about her nunni, who loved romance books, and for letting me use her grandmother’s nickname in The Schemer. xoxo
About the Author
Avery Flynn has three slightly wild children, loves a hockey-addicted husband, and is desperately hoping someone invents the coffee IV drip. Find out more about Avery on her website, follow her on Twitter, like her on her Facebook page, or friend her on her Facebook profile. Join her street team, The Flynnbots, on Facebeook. Also, if you figure out how to send Oreos through the internet, she’ll be your best friend for life.
Don’t miss the companion novels to The Schemer…