by Skye Jordan
He bent to meet her eyes, gripping her arms again. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Then louder. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He slipped his arms around her waist and spun her around. “Oh, baby, that’s amazing.” He put her down, his face bright with true joy for her. “Where do you go first? When? You’ll have to give me all the dates so I can work my schedule around them. Shit, we’re going to rack up so many frequent flier miles—”
“Um, no,” she said, a little nervous after his show of excitement. “We won’t.”
His smile dropped. Confusion clouded his expression. Dread crawled in. “Why not?”
“Because…” She bit the inside of her cheek. “I turned it down.”
Oh God, hearing the words out loud shot a wave of sickness through her belly. But it cleared in three seconds flat, replaced by reassurance and strength and calm.
He straightened, dropped her arms, and put a hand to his forehead as if it was helping him think. “You…what? No! No, no, no!” He turned and paced away, swung around and paced back. “Call him. Call them.” He yelled at the room. “Someone get me a phone.” Then to Giselle. “You call whoever you need to call and tell them you’ve reconsidered. You can’t turn this down. This is your dream, El. You’ve worked your whole life for this. You’ve given up everything for this. Phone, someone, please!” He turned in a circle, raking both hands into this hair. “I think I’m going to puke.”
Giselle fisted his tee and dragged him to face her. “Troy.” She lifted her hands to his face and ignored the woman who stood uncertainly nearby with a phone in her hand. “Listen very closely to what I’m going to say. I. Don’t. Want. The. Deals. And I’m relentless, remember? Nothing you can do or say is going to make me take them.”
His hands flew out to the side. “Why the hell not?”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Wes herd the crew away from them, giving a small measure of privacy, which, while appreciated, wasn’t required. Giselle would have stood on stage and said this in front of thousands.
“Because you were right,” she said, smiling when his eyes squeezed closed. “About so many things. I have been letting my career just happen to me. I have been letting my career control my life instead of living my life and controlling my career. And I’m not happy.
“These crazy-ass tours require a two-year commitment. Two years of my life. Two years away from you. And I won’t do it.”
The air whooshed out of his lungs, and his expression registered pain and love and a handful of other emotions she couldn’t define. “Oh my God, El. We can work it out. I promise, I—”
“Troy.” She let her hands slide down his hard chest. “It’s not what I want anymore. Maybe two weeks ago, but not now.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her body against his, and looked up into those deep brown eyes. “Now, I want a home, a family, friends. I want more walks on the beach, more sunny days watching the ocean, more surfing lessons. And you know me. I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t true. I love you. I want you.”
He enveloped her in his arms, kissed her hair, and whispered, “I love you so damn much.” He pulled back just enough to kiss her lips, softly, slowly. Then he pressed her forehead to hers. “And when you decide what you want to do, no matter what it is, even if it’s that crazy-ass two-year world tour, I’ll be there. From here on out, I’m all in, all the time.”
She smiled, with so much love in her heart it overflowed. “That makes two of us.”
Troy jogged from the limo to the rear stage door, praying Giselle’s show didn’t end early. He hadn’t seen her perform these new songs live yet, even though he’d heard her sing them a thousand times. Even though he could sing them all word for word himself.
He dragged out his wallet and flashed his ID for the security guard, then said, “Can you point me toward Brook Dempsey?”
The man gave him directions, and Troy wove his way backstage, passing the cast and crew, finding his way through the complex areas like the second home they’d become. When he spotted Brook monitoring the show from behind a pair of crimson velvet drapes, relief swept through Troy’s body.
He pressed a hand to his heart as he slowed. And for the first time, his hearing seemed to come back online, and Giselle’s gorgeous voice filled his ears, then his heart, then his soul.
When he reached Brook’s side, he stopped, closed his eyes, and just listened to Giselle stretch her voice to the fullest, cleanest, most resonant deep belt he’d ever heard from her. From anyone. And even before he could fully appreciate the practice and skill she’d achieved to master that pitch, she utilized a lightning-quick melisma to traverse the registers, ending the song with her higher, brighter, lighter, more feminine voice, one that was crystal clear and airy, giving the song its cotton-candy, fantasy-inducing sparkle with an effortless beauty that had kept the song at number one on Billboard’s Top 100 chart for fourteen weeks running.
When the song ended and the audience exploded in applause, Troy reached for the nearest vertical structure to steady himself.
Brook rushed over to him, her pretty face glowing with joy. “You’re back in one piece. That always makes Giselle happy. How was Boston—? Whoa.” Concern dragged her grin down a few watts. “Are you…okay?”
“She still takes my breath away. I can hear her sing in the shower, wander through the house humming, rehearse every damn day, but when she performs”—emotions welled up and tightened his throat— “she still steals my heart, every damn time.”
Brook’s grin returned. “Well, that’s good.” She set down the clipboard she was holding and dragged a small box from her pocket. “Because I got it.”
“Oh God.” Troy couldn’t take the box. He just stared at it. “Are you sure it’s the one?”
Brook gave an impatient sigh. “I’m sure. She dragged me around to two dozen different jewelry stores before she picked out half a dozen to take Nathan to. I know which ring stole her breath.”
Giselle was performing another song from the soundtrack of Shangri-La, a Disney movie that hadn’t even been released yet, but the music for which had nonetheless hit record sales and prompted a major prerelease promotional Disney on Ice tour. Music Giselle had both written and performed for the film.
She never had to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to, and she would never have to compromise her standard of living either. Her decision to live her life and take control of her career had given Giselle more than she could ever have asked for out of life.
And Troy couldn’t have been more grateful.
“Do you want to do this or not?” Brook’s prod made Troy reach for the box.
“Did you clear it with Max?” he asked. Troy didn’t want anything causing problems for Giselle’s career or between Giselle and her amazing new manager, Max Collins.
“He’s on board. Just told me to remind you this is a Disney theatre, so no sticking your tongue down her throat while the kids watch.” Brook’s grin turned a little whimsical. “She’s dressed like a princess, so I’d suggest you go for something Prince Charming-ish.”
Grinning, he glanced through the curtains and onto the ice, where Giselle sat atop a platform decorated like a castle, wearing a sparkling purple gown, her hair up in a mountain of curls, surrounded by a tiara. “She certainly is a princess.” He opened the box, and his smile fell when he saw the single, simple diamond. “But…this doesn’t look like a diamond fit for a princess. Maybe I’ve been in Hollywood too long, but isn’t this kinda small?”
Brook laughed. “Giselle insists that it’s not the ring you get but the man who gives it to you that’s the real prize. She sees the ring as a sort of metaphor for marriage. Giselle believes that keeping the ring simple grounds a couple. You know, keeps them from getting caught up and distracted by all the flash. Helps them remember, when they look at the simplicity of the ring, the real reason they chose each other in the first place.”
“Beautiful, talented, rich, and smart.” He huffed a laugh an
d shook his head. “How in the hell did I get so damn lucky, Brook?”
Brook squeezed his arm. “Funny thing is, she thinks she’s the lucky one.”
Giselle couldn’t stop smiling as she signed programs and hugged children and shook parents’ hands around the ice rink’s border. She was really going to have to learn to ice skate so she could get off this darn platform she always ended up stuck on and move freely.
She was exhausted, but in a good way. A great way. And as she reached for another chubby little hand and took in another toothless little grin, she knew she was exactly where she was meant to be. The only thing that could make her life perfect was having Troy with her.
But she’d talk to him when she reached the hotel. And see him in a few days when she flew back to Los Angeles from this leg of the tour in Miami.
“Attention, ladies and gentlemen.” A familiar male voice filled the theatre and sent a sizzle down Giselle’s spine. “We have a special announcement.”
She turned and found Troy in the middle of the ice. Troy, holding a microphone and wearing ice skates. Ice skates. In fact, he wasn’t only wearing them, he was skating in them. Gliding around the ice as smoothly as if he were walking around a movie set.
“Today is a special day here at Disney on Ice, and we hope you’ll all share in our celebration.”
“What are you doing here?” She turned on the platform to face him and lifted her hands. “You ice skate?”
He just chuckled as he glided by, but expertly managed the crowd, slowly leaking information about whatever he had up his sleeve, dragging the audience back from their exit strategies, gathering them around the rink again.
“Today is Miss Giselle Diamond’s birthday.”
A little gasp of excitement ran through the crowd, then light applause. As he traveled past, she said, “Aw. You remembered the date.”
“Of course.”
He took another lap while the rest of the cast and crew slowly ebbed from the background and circled the rink.
“To celebrate this very, very special day,” Troy told the audience, “we would like you to share in some festivities—but first…” He came to a dramatic stop in front of her, spraying ice. “I have a few words and a little gift to share.”
“Where did you learn to skate?” she asked, her voice echoing through the microphone and into the crowd.
“Let me think…” He bowed his head, put one finger to his chin, and with one skate secured in the ice, he made one slow, effortless circle. “It might have been… Oh no.” Another slow circle to the audience’s light laughter. “Oh, it must have been… No, no, that wasn’t it.” Another slow circle, more laughter. “Ah.” Another dramatic stop. “I remember now. It was when I worked on the Disney movie Power Play.” He turned to the audience. “Any hockey fans in here tonight?”
Applause erupted through the auditorium. Laughter tingled through her belly, and she delighted in seeing this confident, gregarious side of him.
“I thought so, I thought so,” Troy said. “But I won’t take this special night away from our true star.”
He faced Giselle, growing quiet and serious. And as if the crowd could sense his mood, they also grew quiet. He met her eyes, and everyone else faded. Nothing mattered but the man in front of her and the way he filled her with happiness and laughter and love.
He picked up her hand and threaded their fingers, and while he never broke their gaze, he still spoke into the microphone, sharing this very intimate moment with everyone.
“It’s no secret how much I love you, Ellie. Or how long I’ve loved you,” he said, his voice smooth and rich and soft. “But some days just…intensify…that love. Like today.”
Giselle reached for his free hand, and he held it, but only for a moment. Then he let go to reach into his pocket and pull out a small box, and watched himself turn it in his fingers. Her heart flipped with surprise, and the importance of his impromptu visit suddenly took root, spreading tingles through her whole body.
“And a little bird told me…that you believe in keeping love grounded in simplicity.” Troy tucked the microphone beneath one arm and used both hands to hold the box. “I can’t think of anything simpler than finding myself spending every free moment just thanking God for the day you were born. Or thanking God for the day you were brought into my life.”
Her heart swelled until her ribs ached. Tears blurred her vision.
Then, as he held her gaze, he gracefully lowered to one knee, took her hand in his and offered her the box with the other. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life thanking God for the day you agreed to be my wife.”
She gasped, and her mouth dropped open. Her tears spilled over. She heard a faint gasp around the edges of the room before everything drowned in the thud of her heartbeat.
Time slowed as she sat stunned, watching Troy scan her face, his expression open and vulnerable and so hopeful. Saw his mouth edge up with a grin. A warm, loving, I-can’t-live-without-you grin.
She felt, more than heard, the words, “Yes, absolutely, there’s nothing I want more” roll out of her mouth on a messy mix of laughter and tears, before she fell into his arms and kissed him to the applause of a thrilled crowd. To balloons and confetti falling from the rafters and littering the ice. To performers skating in circles around them, wrapping them in streamers as Troy slipped the ring on her finger.
She pulled back, brushing confetti from his hair, laughing. “God, I love you.”
“Mmm, baby, I swear every day I couldn’t love you more. Then I do.”
He kissed her again, then picked her up, wrapped his arms around her, and skated around the rink with her while the cast and crew served cake and drinks to the audience.
At the first opportunity, he skated off the ice and ducked out of sight behind a stage curtain and pulled her in for a longer, deeper kiss, and she understood why he’d taken her off the ice.
He broke away to drag in air, his smile so wide, so joyful. “The ring isn’t your birthday present.”
She combed her fingers through his hair and pressed her mouth to his throat. She wanted to eat him. “No?”
“No. We leave for Turks and Caicos in an hour. A week of tropical bliss—that is your birthday present.”
Giselle pulled back, grinning, dizzy and dreamy, unable to place the location—maybe somewhere near the Bahamas? Bermuda? “Turks and Caicos?”
“Turks and Caicos,” he whispered, diving in for another kiss. “My angel deserves a little slice of heaven now and then.”
She fisted his hair and kissed him hard, stroking his mouth with all the need built up over the days and nights they’d spent apart on the road, before pulling back and meeting his eyes deliberately. “Hmm. I bet we’ll even find time to sneak in a little lick of hell into that slice of heaven. Devils need love too.”
Her devil agreed with a laugh that mirrored the hot curve of his mouth and the burning kiss that followed.
Dear Reader,
Thanks for reading Relentless, book 4 in the Renegades series! This was an intensely emotional and sexy story to write, and I hope you enjoyed Troy and Ellie’s story. Stay tuned for more Renegades! Sign up for my newsletter for notices of new releases, sales and other special deals and giveaways at: http://www.SkyeJordanAuthor.com/newsletter.
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About the Author
Joan Swan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of passion, danger and suspense. She lives in magnificent wine country on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters.
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Joan also writes red-hot contemporary romance as New York Times bestselling author Skye Jordan.
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