Exposing the Heiress

by Jennifer Apodaca

  She took out her phone and held it up. “I’d like to show you. This is the video I did for you.”

  He’d forgotten she’d been working on that before the attack. “You want me to watch it now?”

  She nodded, pressed play and handed it to him.

  The video was her third regret? What, that she hadn’t shown him? Didn’t matter, this was important to her. Taking the phone, he watched as Lyssie appeared on the screen.

  “When I was six years old, I was pretending to be a princess one day. I asked Hunt to be my prince and rescue me from a dungeon. He refused, and told me he wasn’t going to be some dumb prince, he was going to be a Marine. I didn’t know what a Marine was, but I knew it couldn’t possibly be as cool as a prince.”

  Lyssie smiled into the camera. “Hunter Reece grew up to become a Marine and proved me wrong. This is his story…”

  In the next eight minutes, Hunt saw himself through Lyssie’s eyes. Images of him growing up, laughing, playing, sculpting, swimming, and then she began interweaving her interviews with him.

  His chest hollowed. There were moments where his coldness showed, then melted away to show him laughing and tossing Erin in the pool. There was another shot where he chased and caught Lyssie wearing a tiny bikini, sweeping her up in his arms with a happy grin on his face. Erin must have taken that. How the hell had she done this? There were pictures of him with his friends, Adam, Logan, Griff and Cooper. In all but one, they were having fun.

  The grim one was them all standing at attention and saluting Trace Lorrey’s casket as it came off the plane. Alyssa panned from that to Hunt’s Sacrifice Remembered tattoo. The way she did it captured the honor given to those who laid down their lives.

  In eight minutes, she had captured Hunt’s world. His throat filled as he saw himself through the eyes of Alyssa Brooks.

  Lyssie came back on camera. “I know what a Marine is now and it’s much better than a prince. A prince is born to a life of privilege, while a Marine is made from courage, strength, honor, sacrifice and vulnerability. They are willing to die so we may live. Hunt is a Marine, an artist, and so much more. He’s my hero and the man I’ve fallen in love with.”

  The screen faded out as the video ended. The knot in his throat kept growing. This was how she saw him.

  Lyssie’s eyes shone and her smile tilted in that way that he adored. “That was my third regret, and maybe my biggest, that I hadn’t told you I loved you so I’m telling you now. I don’t want you to say it back, that’s not what this is about.” She leaned up and kissed him, then pulled back. “I love you, Hunt. No matter what happens in the future, my love is yours.”

  He understood she didn’t want the words back like a boomerang. She’d given them to him freely. Hunt treasured it, and instead said, “You make me want to be your prince.”

  …

  Three months later

  Alyssa laughed when Hunt grabbed her hips as she climbed over the crumbling wall of the castle ruins. “I’m not going to fall.” She kept taking pictures, utter joy filling her. Every time she stepped up on a piece of debris, Hunt steadied her. Just as he’d steadied her through the night terrors and emotional days and weeks after Nate’s death. His easy patience and constant support had been her lifeline.

  Some nights he still sculpted. If she couldn’t sleep in bed alone, she went to his studio and curled in the recliner to be near him. He never minded, but covered her up and went back to work, then led her to bed when he was finished.

  They’d found peace and friendship together, and for Alyssa, she loved him with every cell of her body. That he’d given her this trip to Scotland took her breath away. “I love this gift, Hunt.” On her twenty-fifth birthday, Hunt’s present to her had been two tickets to Scotland, and he’d told her he was taking her to the same castle ruins as the one her parents had gotten engaged at.

  Being here now, with the cold Scottish winds blowing off the turbulent sea, the jagged stone work that had withstood time and wars, and the incredibly blue sky dotted with clouds, she could almost feel her parents. It had been twenty years since her dad had died, and recalling his physical shape was murky without a picture, but she could recall his voice, the feel of his hands when he scooped her up, his booming laugh and his scent.

  And the smile he had whenever he looked at her mom.

  The night she almost died she’d thought she might see her mom. She hadn’t, but right now, if she squinted, she could see her parents from long ago, her mom sitting on the broken wall, her dad kneeling and asking her to marry him. Tears burned her eyes. “Best gift ever.”

  Hunt took her hand. “Let’s take a break. We’ve been at this for hours.”

  “Uh-huh.” She was totally on to him. “I’m fine. The second trimester is the best time of pregnancy. No morning sickness, more energy and I’m not too big yet.” Except maybe a few hormones that made her cry too easy and laugh too hard. Everything in her life was brighter and richer now. Especially since Maxine had fully recovered and was running Alyssa’s life as her assistant.

  Hunt straddled a knee-high wall and patted the spot in front of him.

  She sat.

  He pulled her back to his chest. “This is my first time having a child, so you’re going to have to be patient with me. I want to take care of you.” He tilted her head back and kissed her. “I also want to get you back to our room, strip off these clothes and lick you until you’re begging.”

  She groaned, knowing full well he could make her beg. The sexy things he said to her did it and he loved wielding his wicked power. “You’re taking advantage of my hormones.” Hunt loved her changing body.

  His rich laughter rippled in her ear. “Hormones, my ass. You want me.”

  “More every day.”

  Hunt drew his fingers down her throat, stopping at the top of her jacket. “Same goes.”

  She knew he wanted her, cared about her. What they were building together was special and it deserved time and care. She wasn’t rushing or pushing. The baby would come, and she hoped they’d be married before her first birthday. No matter what, the child would have a mother and father who loved her.

  Taking his hand in hers, she stared out over the rugged landscape. “I wanted to ask you something.” Linking their fingers, she asked, “Are you sure about leaving Once A Marine?”

  “Were you sure about giving up Dragon Wing to Parker?”

  “Ninety percent.” She didn’t regret it. She and Parker talked a few times, but it was always business. She didn’t have a real relationship with him, but her mother and Parker had loved each other. She didn’t want Dragon Wing, and so she gave him her shares in her mother’s memory.

  “I’m ninety-one percent. Once A Marine helped me transition from active Marine to civilian. I loved the work, but it’s time to lay down my gun. I did my job to my country, now I’m going to focus on my personal life. The only people I want to protect from here on in are my family and friends.”

  Alyssa took a breath, relaxing against him. He may have been right that she needed to take a break from all the walking and climbing. She saw no reason to admit that to him, though. “And you want to sculpt.”

  He wasn’t ready to publically show his pieces yet. His art had taken on a very personal meaning to him. They were his healing. When he’d been ready, he’d shown her all the sculptures in his studio in Sonoma. They were stunning. Some were tragic but some were surprisingly tender, showing the heroism that happened daily on the fields of war. All of them had an emotional brilliance that hadn’t been in his early work.

  “Yes.” He laid his free hand on her belly over her coat. “I’m much more interested in taking care of my family.”

  She couldn’t help but smile, seeing his hand over her stomach. “You mean your daughter.” He’d been excited to find out they were having a girl.

  Hunt got up, moved around to straddle the wall, facing her. “I mean you. You’re the woman I love, Lyssie, the woman I want to spend the rest of my life wi
th. I can’t ask your father for your hand, so instead I brought you here to the place your parents got engaged.”

  Ask her father for her hand? Alyssa’s heart sped up, her head buzzed. He was asking her to marry him? Her entire body flooded with a want so powerful, tears filled her eyes. “You love me?” He hadn’t said it before now.

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “I wanted to bring you here, to a place where you can share this memory with that of your parents. I love you, Lyssie. I was pretty damn sure of it the night I caught you before you fell off the balcony. Holding you there, in that moment, I knew I’d go over with you before I let you go.”

  Her chest hollowed and she believed him. What he’d done that night had been superhuman. “I love you, too.”

  He smiled. “Yes, you do. You love all of me, even the part of me that killed a man in front of your face. When you had nightmares you turned into my arms, not away, do you know what that trust feels like?”

  “Like showing me your art you kept locked up. A trust you will die before you betray.”

  “Exactly.” With his head pressed to hers, his breath fanning gently over her face, Hunt added, “When I ask you this, you need to know I’m asking you as my friend and lover, not the mother of my child. Because our child has us whether or not we’re married. Are we clear?”

  How was it that out on these windswept ruins in a vast open space, they were shrouded in warm intimacy and Alyssa could swear her parents were holding hands and looking on? That they would give their blessing? She trembled, afraid to believe she could have this much happiness. “Yes.”

  Rising again, he pulled a small box out of his jacket pocket. Hunt knelt and took her hand. “I told you three months ago, when I’m with you, I feel as if I’m finally home. I love you Alyssa Marie Brooks. Will you marry me?” In his other hand, he snapped open the box and held it up.

  The sun glinted off the ring, but Alyssa stared only into Hunt’s eyes. Those beautiful eyes made of the lightest blue and deepest love. The sensation of her parents faded away.

  Right there in front of her was her future, her home and her family.

  “Yes.”

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  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Alethea Spiridon Hopson for your support, editing and patience as we worked on the Once A Marine series. I appreciate all your guidance and suggestions whenever I lost my way in a story. In particular, I’d like to thank Alethea for supporting Alyssa’s story of a young mother who chose to give her baby up for adoption. That takes a special kind of bravery and love, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to share that in this book.

  Thank you to my husband, Dan Apodaca. You are my hero every single day.

  A special thank you to Marianne Donley for jumping in to help me when I hit the wall and panicked while writing this book.

  And to all my friends and family, thank you for not giving up on me when a book pulls under and I fall short of being the wife, mom, sister or friend that you deserve. I know I say this after I finish every single book, but I’ll try harder! No really, I will…okay, we all know I’ll end up being Crazy, Stressed Jen all over again with the next book. But I count myself a very lucky woman to have you all in my life.

  And most important of all, Thank You Readers! You’re the reason I go to my keyboard every day. I can write the words, but it’s in your hearts and minds that the characters truly come alive. Thank you for sharing your time and love with the characters in my books!

  About the Author

  Award-winning author Jennifer Apodaca grew up in Southern California and met her very own hero at the dog pound. She worked there, he came in on business, and it was puppy love. They married and had three wonderful sons.

  While her husband worked on his master’s degree, Jen did the mom thing by day and went to college at night with the intention of pursuing a marketing degree. But her true passion was writing. With time at a premium, she had to make a choice.

  Choosing writing, she poured herself into her dream. A mere eight years later, she published her first book, Dating Can Be Murder. In her career, Jen has written a fun and sexy mystery series, a variety of contemporary romances, and a dark, sizzling paranormal series under the name of Jennifer Lyon.

  Jen has achieved many of her dreams except for attaining a self-cleaning house, a latte delivery service, and finding the holy grail of non-fattening wine and chocolate. She can live with those disappointments as long as she can keep writing the stories she loves to share with readers.

  Find out more about Jen at www.jenniferapodaca.com or https://www.facebook.com/jenniferlyonbooks

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