“Who was that?” Emmeline asks, speeding my already racing heart with the surprise of her voice. I didn’t realize she’d come out of her room. Everything around me is tunneled and my breath is shallow.
I’ve just closed the door on a beautiful forever. The gravity of that isn’t lost on me.
Mom follows her, a cleaning rag thrown over her shoulder. “Yes, who was at the door?”
“Trey,” I say.
“And what did he say?” Mom asks.
“He wants me back …”
“Duh,” Emmeline says.
“Yes, but what did he say?” Mom asks again.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes!” they say in unison.
Before I can answer, Mom’s at the window, brushing the curtains aside. And in an act of total unexpectedness, she dashes out the front door.
He’s still here …
He didn’t leave.
He’s going to fight for me—even if it’s a battle he can never win.
Fifty-Five
Trey
Present
I run my hand along the steering wheel, parked in the driveway, staring at the back of Sybil’s minivan, when my passenger door swings open and none other than Sybil herself climbs inside.
“This is unexpected …” I say.
“Isn’t it though?” she asks. “I came out here to tell you not to give up.”
I raise my brows. I wasn’t even sure she liked me. That first—and only—night we met, she was lukewarm at best, avoiding eye contact, alternating between stoic and fidgety. I couldn’t get a read on her, which is rare for me.
“I don’t intend to,” I say.
“You see her the way I do. Complicated and beautiful. And you like her anyway.”
I don’t just like her, I love her. But I don’t tell Sybil that—Sophie should hear those words first.
“I’m crazy for your daughter,” I say.
“I know,” she sighs, staring back at the house. The curtains are still. If Sophie’s watching from inside, I can’t be sure. “You have no idea the amount of angst she carries in her heart. And sometimes she lets that cloud her decisions. She doesn’t think straight. She’s always worrying over everyone else, never about herself. She likes to take care of people. Her greatest trait is also her biggest weakness.”
“I’ve gleaned that much from my time with her,” I say.
“Just promise me you won’t throw in the towel,” Sybil says. “She’ll come around.”
“I have no doubt.”
She turns to me. “You sound like a man with a plan.”
“I’ve got one.” I can’t speak on dismantling Ames’ company just yet. Not until our paperwork’s been filed and the acquisition is final.
“Good,” she says. “In the meantime, you work on that. And I’ll work on her.”
With that, she gets out and vanishes inside the house.
The dismantling of Ames’ company can’t happen soon enough. But when it does, I’ll be back to take my bride.
Fifty-Six
Sophie
Present
It’s been a week since Trey pulled into my mother’s driveway and asked me to come home. I haven’t heard from him since. Not a text. Not a call. Sometimes I glance outside and picture his SUV parked with perfect clarity, but it’s always a mirage.
I tried to turn in my two-week’s notice last week, but my manager talked me out of it, reminding me of the “mental health hiatus” built into our benefits package. I can take up to six weeks, fully paid.
Maybe by then I’ll feel like coming back …
Though I can’t say it’ll be easy seeing him around.
“Oh my gosh, Sophie, come in here,” Mom calls from Emmeline’s room.
I grab my phone off the coffee table and sprint back, assuming the worst. Only when I get to the doorway, I exhale my harbored breath. Emmeline is fine.
“What?” I ask, hand over my heart, taking shallow, adrenaline-fueled breaths. “You scared me. What’s wrong?”
“Did you see this article?” She shoves her phone into my hand and I read the headline.
WESTCOTT CORPORATION TO DISMANTLE AMES OIL AND STEEL AFTER FINALIZING MERGER.
This has got to be a joke.
I check the news source—NPR.
It’s legit.
“I don’t understand,” I say, scrolling and inhaling each sentence with an impatient fervor. This makes zero sense. “It says he’s selling for pennies on the dollar. He’s losing hundreds of millions of dollars on this. Why would he do that?”
“Don’t be so dense,” she says. “He’s doing this for you.”
I furrow my brows, attention flicking from her to the screen and back. I read the article once more, ensuring I got every last detail.
“Why would he do this for me?” I ask.
After his visit, I told my mother that he knows about Ames. I also broke down and told her about the contract we had. Every last detail. She made me a cup of peppermint tea and fished my favorite fuzzy blanket from the hall closet and together we cried—for the past we couldn’t change, for the heartache of the present, and for the future that slipped out of my hands before I could grab hold of it.
She told me not to give up. And she said she’d be okay with moving if it meant I was happy. She also assured me we’d find new doctors for Emmeline, but there’s no guarantee they’ll put her on the same experimental regimen that’s given her life back.
“Shouldn’t we all be so lucky to have a man put a woman’s heart before his bank account?” Mom asks. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a man like that before.”
“This still doesn’t make sense …” Even if he piece-meals Nolan’s company and feeds it to sharks, it’s no guarantee he’ll get his desired outcome—me.
“You’re the one thing he can’t buy,” Mom says. “This announcement is his way of showing you that he’s choosing you. That you matter to him more than this company ever did.”
I inhale and hand her phone back.
“Please, Sophie,” she says. “For once in your life, do something that benefits you. You’ve put our happiness before yours for your entire life. We’ll be fine. We’ll figure something out. I promise. Go to him.”
Fifty-Seven
Trey
Present
“Mr. Westcott,” my housekeeper, Eulalia, calls from phone near the foyer. “Ms. Bristol is here to see you. Shall I direct her to the study?”
I rise from my grandfather’s chair, heart ricocheting in my chest, certain I’m imagining this. The article on the sell-off went public two hours ago. I’d hoped I’d get something from her … a text or call at the least.
But a visit in person is a pleasant surprise.
“Is this true?” She storms into my study, her eyes maelstrom-blue, phone in hand and today’s press release pulled up.
“Every word of it.” I meet her halfway.
“Why would you do this?” Her voice holds anger with a side of confusion. “I thought you wanted this company?”
“I want you more.”
“Ames is going to retaliate. You know that, right?”
“Then I’ll give it back to him tenfold,” I say, wishing we could get this over with so I can take her into my arms already. If she’s come this far, it’s only a matter of time. Minutes, perhaps. “I’ve got a team of lawyers that’ll have him pissing his pants by the time they’re done with him.”
“What about Sasha?”
“What about Sasha?” I answer her question with a question. “He’s not going to do anything to hurt her. And I got the impression his wife has no idea he fathered her. At lunch the other week she said he found some pregnant teenage girl waiting tables and offered to adopt her baby. Didn’t sound like she was aware of your relationship, and I doubt he’d like that information to get out.”
She’s silent as she slides her phone into her back pocket.
“Have you read the comments?” she asks. �
�The whole world thinks you’re insane for doing this?”
“When have I ever cared what anyone thinks?” I ask. “Besides, I’ll gladly be the laughingstock of corporate America if it means pissing off that insufferable bastard.”
A smirk claims her rose-bud mouth, and in that moment, I waste zero time taking her into my arms. Her body is warm and pliant in my embrace, and my palms skim the addictive landscape of her curves.
“Also, I can’t wait until he finds out each and every cent of the proceeds is going into your name.”
She leans away until our eyes lock. “You actually are crazy.”
“Crazy about you, yes.” I drown myself in a lungful of her cashmere-soft, summer-sweet scent.
Sophie’s gaze softens. “Why are you so good to me?”
“Because I see you for who you are,” I say. “And I’m in love with you, Sophie. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved and the only woman I ever want to love.”
Peering up at me through a fringe of dark lashes, expression equally vulnerable and strong, she says, “I love you too.”
I crush her pink lips, greedy, our tongues clashing and my hands in her hair.
So long as I live, I’ll never let her go.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have faith in you,” she says when we come up for air.
“How could you? The last man you thought you loved let you down in the worst of ways.”
She bites her bottom before slipping her fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck—a sweet surrender.
“Please tell me you’re coming home.” My voice is low against her ear as I breathe in the sweet scent I’ve missed every minute of every hours of every fucking day since she left.
“I’ll come home,” she says. “But I want to start fresh. No contract. I want to date you. Really date you.”
“We were always dating,” I say. “It was always real to me, contract or no.”
“You know what I mean.” Her mouth pulls up at the corners.
“But yes. Anything you want.”
She deserves a proper courtship. An actual proposal with a real yes.
I place her on the edge of my desk, pulling her t-shirt above her head before diving in to taste her cashmere-soft skin. Her legs hook around my hips as she guides me closer, and in our haste, we knock over the cigar box, each carefully wrapped cigar spilling onto the floor.
She stops, her mouth moving as if she wants to say something, but I silence her with an impatient kiss. All I want is to be deep inside of her, to have the steady drum of her tortured heart beating against mine, and later, after I’ve devoured every inch of her, I’ll enjoy a cigar on my bedroom balcony, overlooking the garden our future children will run through many years from now.
Finally, something worth celebrating.
Fifty-Eight
Sophie
Present
I wake in his bed the next morning.
Correction: our bed.
His half is vacant, the covers pulled up, nice and neat. I roll to my side with blurry eyes that come into focus on a vase filled to the hilt with blooming pink roses. Their soft scent invades my lungs, and when I sit up, I spot an engraved plaque on the crystal.
To Edie, Yours now, yours forever … All my love, Pierce.
Trey’s story comes to mind, the one he shared in Martha’s Vineyard about his mother’s broken leg and never understanding his father’s obsessive devotion until he met me. Part of me wonders if that was his way of telling me he loved me.
The bedroom door swings open, and when I glance toward the doorway, Trey stands with a breakfast tray, hair messy and broad shoulders covered in his favorite navy robe.
“Breakfast in bed. Nice touch.” I climb back beneath the covers, a delicious soreness between my thighs from last night’s triple encore production, and pull the sheet beneath my arms.
He comes around to my side, resting the tray on the nightstand before propping the pillows behind me.
“Good morning.” He deposits a kiss onto my forehead.
“Thank you for the flowers … I don’t know how I didn’t hear you getting up and doing all of this …”
“You were out cold.” He places the tray in my lap and takes one of the two coffees before getting in beside me. “Didn’t want to disturb you.”
I take a sip. “Someone wore me out last night.”
“And someone has every intention of doing the same again tonight.”
Retrieving a small remote from his nightstand, he presses a button and the curtains part, flooding the expansive bedroom suite with morning light and a picture-perfect view of the gardens. In a crystal-clear daydream, I envision chasing our children through the rose bushes, laughter and teasing and tackling. Grass stains and tickles. Picnics and board games.
When we first started this, I couldn’t imagine Trey as a father … but everything has changed.
One thing at a time, though. We’ve called off our engagement, though I told him to save the trillion-cut ring. We officially have a past, as rocky and unconventional as it may be. He’s my present. And our future is on the horizon.
“I love you,” he says, leaning close to press a kiss into the place where my jaw meets my ear. An electric jolt rushes through me, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, and then it settles between my thighs.
He told me he loved me last night, and I actually allowed myself to feel it—really feel it. It’s as warm as a summer day. As terrifying as an angry storm. It’s equally filled with wonderment and discomfort. Apprehension and certainty. But most of all, it’s a beautiful contradiction of the best kind.
We finish breakfast and hit the showers, making love before heading out. He said he’s taking me somewhere special. I didn’t ask questions …
This new me is letting go of her control-freak ways, and she kind of likes the idea of being surprised …
Something tells me we’ll have a lot of those in our future.
Epilogue
Trey
Five Years Later …
“Trey, did you see this?!” My wife’s voice is a whispered shout as she rocks our two-year-old daughter, Edie Emmeline Westcott, to sleep. “There’s an article about Ames on this celebrity gossip site … Anabelle is leaving him.”
“What?”
She offers her dim-screened phone. It’s not that either of us give a flying fuck what happens to the bastard, but this could get interesting. And we’re especially vested since this involves Sophie’s first daughter.
I scan the article, which is relatively brief. Their source claims that Anabelle was curious about her daughter’s lineage and randomly did one of those AncestryDNA tests, which showed a connection between Sasha and several other distant Ames family members. She was able to secretly procure a DNA sample from Nolan and shipped it off to a private lab, which confirmed with 99.999% accuracy that Nolan was Sasha’s biological father.
“Poor Sasha …” Sophie says, voice broken. “Having to find out this way …”
The article claims there was no prenup, and Anabelle stands to walk away with almost a quarter of a billion dollars as well as three family homes, a yacht, two vehicles, and a Swiss chalet. She’s also pushing for full custody with visitation rights for Nolan.
“Anabelle’s a good mother,” I remind her. “Sasha’s in capable hands.”
Sophie nods, rocking our daughter. “You’re right.”
“You need to accept that not everything’s in your control. Trust that it’ll all be all right in the end.”
She pats circles into Edie’s back before rising.
“When the dust settles, we can reach out and see if we can be of any service,” I say. “Might be a good time to let Anabelle know about you. I’m sure she’d like to hear the truth for once.”
“Yeah.” She carries Edie to her crib across the room. “That’s a good idea. We’ll do that.”
Sliding my hand into hers, I claim her lips with a soft kiss, and we watch our daughter settle into her e
vening sleep before heading to our room. Once we’re settled beneath our bed covers, I pull her against me, placing my arm around her side, hand resting on her belly, where our son kicks.
“I think he’s going to be a night owl like his father,” she says, a grin in her tone.
In the earlier days of our relationship, I’d be holed up in the study at 2am when I couldn’t sleep. Sophie would always tiptoe down and lure me back to bed, reminding me of the importance of a good night’s rest. During the evenings when sleep truly evaded me, she’d accompany me to my sanctuary and we’d spend a half hour just … existing … together. In that space between two and three.
She’s good to me, this woman.
Marrying her four years ago in the south of France was one of the best days of my life. Sybil came. And Emmeline. We kept it family only. I imagine my parents were there in spirit …
I’m committed to spending the rest of my life loving her the way my father loved my mother—fearlessly, relentlessly, like there’s no tomorrow.
Sophie falls asleep with ease tonight, her curves beautifully swollen as she nears the end of her last trimester. Until I had a child of my own, I never understood what my parents felt when they said they loved me. Those were always just words.
Now the magnitude of those words is as overwhelming as a tidal wave when I say them to my daughter. They take on a new meaning. And my love for Sophie has only deepened with time.
All the money in the world could never buy a bliss like ours—what we have is priceless.
From the Author
Dear Reader—
Whenever people ask me how I come up with my ideas, I never quite know how to answer. To be honest, sometimes it feels like they appear out of thin air. Other times, I might watch a documentary, read a biography or magazine article, or stumble upon a word that makes me feel a certain way and somehow it magically spins into an idea (ROYAL happened like that).
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