by Sotia Lazu
That moment had been before Lexi even left the building that day—news had a way of traveling fast in the company—so Edmund had made up his mind on the matter before leaving for Milan, though he didn’t tell her then.
As it turned out, this solution was for the benefit of everyone involved. Lexi had a job she loved, Edmund had saved face and didn’t have to fire his stepdaughter, and Larry had an assistant with whom he got to discuss fashion on slow days.
****
Ric paced the small living room of Lexi’s apartment, pretending he wasn’t looking at his watch every two-point-three seconds. She was late. Not that it mattered. What he planned could wait a few minutes—or half an hour, knowing Lexi—but he couldn’t. “Kitten, if you’re not out here in ten, I’m coming in and dragging you by the hair.” It was the fifth time he’d made the same threat.
“Just one more minute. God. You’re the one who left instructions on what I was to wear.”
“Left more than instructions,” he muttered to himself. “And did I get a bloody thank you? Or an, oh, baby, it’s so pretty? Nah.”
“Did you say something?” Her voice sounded much closer than before. He twirled around to see her at the opening of her bedroom door.
A bit too much of her showed. The red dress he’d surprised with for tonight might be a bit too low cut. Not that he pondered the subject long, once she walked out of the room and he saw her perfect legs beneath the hemline.
The dress was also bordering on too short.
“What was that?”
After dating someone for six months, the breathtaking factor is more or less removed from the equation, but Lexi had a way of stealing his breath every single time she smiled like she did now.
“Nothing. So, where are we going? Or are you still not gonna clue me in?” She made a show of approaching him. He said she should dress to kill, with the little present he left her, and she was following them to the letter.
“Not getting a word out of me. You’ll have to wait and see.” He helped her put on her leather blazer jacket and held out his hand. “Shall we?”
“We shall.” She pulled him to her for a kiss that promised all sorts of wickedness for later, and then led him to the door.
Ric trailed behind her, dazed.
****
Lexi had hinted at a classy restaurant near Bay Street she wanted to try, and she hoped this was where Ric was taking her. She soon realized they were heading a different way. Her excitement washed away when he parked on a dark street she’d never been on before.
While Ric rounded the car to open her door, she spotted a bar at the far end of the street. The neon sign over its door read Willy’s Dreams.
“You know that’s hardly romantic, right?” she asked as he helped her out.
Ric looked at her with a mixture of hope and trepidation. As if he felt she was about to ask something more, he slanted his lips over hers and pressed her between his body and the car. The kiss was full of wonder and untold wishes, and Lexi was at a loss for words when he pulled back.
“Trust me?” He linked their fingers together.
“With my life.” So very corny, even to her own ears. “Besides, you’re not getting any nookie, if this anniversary date isn’t all I hope it’ll be.”
“Minx.”
“But you love me.”
“I do, God help me.”
A god might need to intervene if the date wasn’t amazing.
The moment they passed the doorway, Lexi felt a shift in the air. She couldn’t put her finger to it, but she felt like she was someplace other than in an ordinary bar. Unexplainable tingles aside, she considered making good on her threat, because the place looked nothing like what she’d expected for the night.
“You go get a table, and I’ll fetch something for us to drink. Yeah?” Ric left her with a kiss to the forehead, and Lexi scrunched up her nose. So he really meant for them to celebrate here.
Self-doubt tried to claw its way to the surface, stepping on her insecurities. This could be Ric’s way of showing her six months was no big deal. Maybe he’d given her some sign she missed, like Andrew had with his late nights at the office…
Even as she dragged her feet to the first vacant table she found and dropped herself on a chair, she knew she was being silly. He wouldn’t take her out for that. Wouldn’t make a big deal out of what she’d wear. And the flowers…
She tried to spot Ric and saw him talking to the bartender. She couldn’t see the other man’s face, but something about him seemed familiar.
And six months totally was a big deal.
Ric threw back his head and laughed, but just as she could almost make out the bartender’s features, he moved out of her line of sight.
The place Ric chose still sucked, whatever his reasons.
He turned and winked at her, drinks in hand. The bartender ducked behind the bar, and Lexi forgot about him, her heart melting at the love shining in her boyfriend’s eyes as he walked toward her. She was stupid. He loved her.
“I love you,” she said the moment he sat next to her.
“I love you, kitten.” He looked somewhere behind her. Why didn’t he look at her during such a tender moment?
She followed his gaze, and what she saw surprised her more than the venue he picked for the night.
Her mother stood there, teary eyed. She leaning on Edmund, who had one arm around her waist. Angie grinned behind them, and Sarah stifled a giggle—or a sob—with a hand strategically placed over her mouth.
Lexi turned back to Ric. “What—”
He was no longer in his seat. He knelt on the floor in front of her, holding up the most beautiful square-cut diamond ring she ever laid eyes on.
And she’d laid eyes on it before. She went to the stores with her mom a couple of weeks ago, to look for cufflinks for Edmund. Her mom kept swooning over engagement rings, and Lexi told her the one now in Ric’s hand was the one she loved.
That was very sneaky of her mom. Very sneaky.
Lexi would have given her a killer look now, if Ric wasn’t saying something very important.
“I love you so much, Lexi, that I want the whole world to know. I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours. I want to go to bed”—he caught her mother’s gaze— “to sleep next to you and wake up with you in the morning.”
Oh, God.
“I want to make you breakfast, and—”
Married. He wanted to get married.
“—and to take you places,”
Like for real.
“—and to have brilliant, beautiful, blond kiddies with you.”
But Lexi didn’t do marriage. She couldn’t.
Could she? After how things had gone before?
And kids? Seriously? She, a mom?
“So, Lexi Adams, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She opened and closed her mouth, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
“Honey?” Her mom’s voice was full of worry.
“Love? Are you all right?”
The place seemed awash with a warm blue light, as Lexi scrambled for the perfect way to reply to his question. She blinked, and the bartender’s smiling face came into focus.
Willy. Or was it…?
“Xochipilli. You guessed it. Give the girl a prize. I knew you’d figure it out, if I got you to my bar.” The voice she remembered from her dreams filled her head.
“What should I do?” She was shocked by her lack of shock. As if she expected him to be able to talk inside her head. Or maybe she was losing it.
“I already told you, girl. Follow your heart.”
Yes. That was the only thing to do.
And her heart was with Ric.
“Lexi?”
She wanted to bang her head on the table repeatedly for having caused the worry she could see in his beautiful blue eyes. She smiled. “I’m fine, and my answer is yes.”
“You’ll spend the rest of your life with me?”
“C
ouldn’t pry me off with a crowbar, baby.”
“The lady does know her romance.” Ric couldn’t hide his relief even as he mocked her reply.
“Oh, will you shut up and kiss me?”
“So you sure it’s a yes? You won’t take it back tomorrow?”
“Of course it’s a yes. Kiss.” She puckered her lips, and he chuckled as he put the ring on her finger.
“Kiss you? In here? That’s hardly romantic. Or proper. What with Pedelty and Joy—”
Lexi sank to the floor in front of him and then was all over him, toppling him to the ground, in an effort to capture his lips.
“Screw proper,” she said. “We’re Xandra and Rex.”
Ric glared at her.
“I mean, we’re Lexi and Ric.” And she proceeded to ravish the mouth of the man soon to be her husband.
The End
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
About the Author
Sotia’s making do with Greek reality, while writing and mostly thinking in English.
She loves romances with a twist and urban fantasy novels, always with vivid erotic elements. Her favorite characters to write are not conventional hero-material at first glance, and she enjoys making them fight for their happiness.
Sotia shares her life and living quarters with her husband, their son, and two rescue dogs, one of which may be part-pony. Sappy movies make her bawl like a baby, and she wishes she could take in all the stray dogs in the world.
Also, she hates mornings!
Catch up with Sotia on her blog, her Facebook page, or Twitter. Find out more about her and her books on her website.
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