A whisper of a sigh escaped his lips. “Grandad.”
The word washed over her just as Maeve stepped forward and folded Jessie into an embrace. The music started up as the room broke into a spontaneous applause. Jessie closed her eyes and inhaled the soft fragrance of Maeve Elliott, knowing that when she opened them, tears would flow. But that was all right. It was a night for tears.
But when she finally opened her eyes, her gaze landed on the man who’d just stepped out of the elevator and leaned against the wall, watching the tableau unfold.
Cade.
The thing that really got her, more than anything, were the tears in his eyes. Tears of joy for her. Tears of love.
For one moment, for one wild and dreamy moment, Jessie’s world felt utterly complete.
He avoided her.
Not that Cade could manage to get anywhere near the lady in lime who was, without a doubt, the star of the Starlight Roof. She was surrounded by new friends and new family.
So Cade satisfied himself by drifting in the background, catching the occasional glance over her shoulder and satisfying himself with the knowledge that she was looking for him.
And the knowledge that he’d seen her out of that dress, out of her mind and out of control. And while that thought had its usual effect below his belt, it was the effect the memory had on his heart and head that made him reel.
His focus on Jessie, deeply involved in a conversation with Scarlet and Summer, was so intense that he didn’t even notice Fin sidle up next to him.
“You know what I think, Cade McMann?”
He turned to his boss and grinned. “Usually. That’s my job.”
“And you’re good at it,” she said, raising a flute of champagne in a mock toast. “But do you know what I think about Jessie?”
His smile widened, and he used the mention of her name as an excuse to look at her again. “I think you’re really happy you finally found a missing piece of yourself.”
“Oh.” Fin let out a little sound of disbelief. “I can’t believe you said that. That is exactly how I feel. I couldn’t have put it into words more accurately.”
This time he raised his glass. “Told you. Knowing what you think is my job.”
Fin tilted her head in acknowledgement. “I do think Jessie is a little piece of my heart that has been missing for twenty-three years. But I also think I’m not the only one in this room who’s found someone to fill his empty heart.”
He said nothing for a moment, his gaze shifting across the room. “Aren’t we a couple of poetic publishing executives tonight?”
“Happiness does that to me.” Fin laughed. “But am I right, Cade?”
Just then, Jessie laughed and he could hear the musical sound of it floating across the party toward him. “You’re right, Fin.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
At the tiny bit of sharpness in her voice, he turned to Fin. “Are you asking me if I plan to make an honest woman out of her?”
Fin’s expression grew serious. “I’m asking, as her mother, that you treat her with all the love and respect that she deserves.”
“Fin, this isn’t an affair. Jessie has asked me to be discreet. She’s actually asked me to be secretive. I’m surprised you know about it.”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time with her,” Fin said. “And she’s easy to read.”
Jessie looked over and caught them both looking at her. Her eyes twinkled and she said something to the twins. Scarlet turned toward him, then Summer.
He held her gaze, beckoning her with his eyes. He couldn’t stand being away from her much longer, but it had to be her choice to be with him publicly.
Deliberately, she set down her glass and, moving like a breeze over spring leaves, crossed the room.
“Maybe she’s ready,” Fin said. “Like I said, she’s easy to read.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Jessie asked with a gleam in her eye. “As if I didn’t know.”
It took everything Cade had in him to keep from reaching for her and kissing her glossy mouth. “We were just discussing poetry,” he said.
Jessie looked suitably surprised and Cade laughed along with her. But Fin wasn’t laughing. Instead, she was blinking back tears.
“What is it, Fin?” Cade asked, putting his hand on her arm. “What’s the matter?”
She let out a short, embarrassed laugh. “I haven’t cried this much in years.” She glanced at Jessie. “Twenty-three, to be precise.”
“What’s wrong, Fin?” Jessie asked.
She looked from one to the other. “I have to tell you both something important.”
They looked at her expectantly, and she took Cade’s hand and then Jessie’s. “Don’t let other people dictate your fate. Don’t…” She closed her eyes and that forced a tear down her cheek. “Don’t be stubborn or stupid or worried about what people will think. Not when you’re in love.”
For a long moment, the three of them were silent. In the background, the opening notes to an ancient love song began to fill the room.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Fin asked.
“I think so,” Jessie said with a tentative smile.
Cade put his arm around her. “Then listen to your mother, Jessie, and dance with me.”
Her smile widened. “I’d love to.”
As he guided her toward the dance floor, he turned to wink at Fin, confident that what he was about to do would be met with the approval of Jessie’s birth mother.
Jessie slipped into his arms like she’d been there forever. Like she would be there forever.
Pulling her into his chest, Cade slid his hands around her back and she looked up at him as they began to sway to the music.
“Poetry, huh?” Jessie asked with a smile. “Aren’t you full of surprises?”
“Did you like the lilacs?”
“I loved the lilacs.” She closed her eyes and he dipped almost close enough to kiss her, but inched to her ear to whisper, “You are the most beautiful woman here tonight.”
“I thought you weren’t coming,” she said. “You were late.”
“I had something important to do.”
“What was that?”
He paused their dance, and she stilled in his arms. “I’ll show you later. But I have to ask you something first.”
“What is it?”
“Can I kiss you? Here, in front of everyone you know in New York?” He could feel the vibration of her heartbeat, matching his, against his chest. “I don’t want to hide this, Jessie. I want everyone here to know that…”
Before he could finish, she stood on her tiptoes, tightened her grip around his neck and covered his mouth with a long, sensuous kiss that sent firecrackers through his body. And from the few gasps he heard in the crowd, a few sparklers hit the audience, too.
“You want everyone to know what, Cade?” she asked as she broke the kiss with a triumphant smile.
“That I love you,” he whispered.
Her smile froze.
“I love you,” he said again, a little louder.
Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“I love you.” This time, everyone on the dance floor heard.
The music stopped, and everyone turned to look at them.
And in the one second that the room was suspended in silence, he lifted her off her feet, twirled her around and let everyone in the room know the truth. “I love you, Jessie Clayton!”
All around them, the room erupted in clapping and gasps and the “oohs” and “aaahs” from the crowd while the band started the next song, but the only sound Cade could hear was that beautiful wind chime laugh that he had grown to love.
“Come with me,” he whispered in her ear. “I have one more surprise for you.”
With only a quick glance back to where Fin stood watching them, Jessie slid her hand into Cade’s much stronger one and let him guide her to the rotunda and down the first el
evator.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her heart still battering so hard that she was breathless. And longing for the chance to tell him she loved him, too. But he didn’t wait, didn’t pause.
Through the lobby, onto the street, he slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and put it over her bare shoulders. “It’s a little chilly, but worth it, I promise.”
She curled into the silky fabric, happy for the warmth against the cool September air, but completely bewildered. “Why are we leaving my party?”
“Because you need some wide open spaces and horses.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Even at night, the street bustled with pedestrians and tourists, and taxis plowed along at well over the safe speed limit. But her attention was caught by a cluster of hansom cabs, lined up and waiting to take a lucky couple a romantic ride.
“There he is.”
“Who?” she asked.
Cade flashed her a smile as they walked, pausing when they arrived at one particularly beautiful carriage painted a brilliant white and decorated with two massive bouquets of…
“Lilacs.” She let out a soft laugh and curled into Cade’s arm. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
As they settled into the back of the fairy-tale carriage, the horse’s hooves clopped steadily along the concrete and a nearly full moon peeked out from a cloud.
“This is perfect,” Jessie pronounced, falling back against the cool black leather. “Everyone is going to wonder where we went, but I don’t care.”
“We’ll tell them,” he said, wrapping his arm around her. “Because this isn’t secret anymore.”
She looked up at him and held his gaze. “Can I please say what I’ve been wanting to say since that dance ended?”
“No,” he responded. “Not yet.”
She opened her mouth in protest. “Cade, don’t you want to know that I—”
He put one hand over her mouth and reached in his pocket with the other. Frozen, all Jessie could move was her eyes, and she looked down at the black box in Cade’s hand.
“All I want you to say is yes.”
When he opened the box, the princess-cut diamond caught the light of the moon. Jessie stared at the engagement ring, too speechless and stunned to move.
Finally, she lifted her gaze to meet his.
“Jessie, this is not an affair. This is not a brief romance and this is not a secret.” His gray eyes burned with the need to make her believe him. “This is real. This is love. Will you marry me?”
A little laugh, mixed with a sob, caught in her throat. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I will.”
Cade took the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger, his own hands shaking just a bit.
“Now,” he said with a half smile, “what did you want to tell me?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and let the horse’s steady trot jostle her into him.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “And every day for the rest of our lives.”
Forbidden Merger
Emilie Rose
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
Was the guy at the bar checking her out?
No way.
Men who looked like that did not look twice at women who looked like her. Pumps, a pageboy and puny breasts didn’t spike testosterone in the average male. Not that he was average. Not by a long shot. But she didn’t have time for fun and games.
Aubrey Holt checked her watch. She’d arrived an hour early to scope out the unfamiliar terrain, and she had forty-one minutes remaining before her luncheon appointment. That gave her plenty of time to review the questions her father wanted her to ask Liam Elliott, the financial operating officer of Elliott Publication Holdings, the chief rival of Holt Enterprises, her father’s company and Aubrey’s employer. Something was going on at EPH and no one could figure out what.
Normally, Aubrey would have preferred to meet on familiar turf, but she wanted the F.O.O. of EPH to be comfortable enough to let down his guard and perhaps leak a little insider information. Prying information out of a competitor under the flimsy pretext of an advertiser conflict wasn’t Aubrey’s preferred method of doing business, but if she wanted to prove her worth to her father, then she’d have to play the game his way. She didn’t have to like it, but she’d buckle down and do her best—the way she always did.
As if magnetized, her gaze slid back to the man standing at the bar. He had his back to her and she took advantage of that to shamelessly ogle him, beginning with his polished black wingtips and working her way up the back of his crisply pleated dove-gray trousers to his tush and then over the royal-blue shirt that had to have been custom tailored to fit that narrow waist and those broad shoulders. His dark blond hair was thick and short. Cut by a stylist and not a barber, she’d guess.
And then his gaze trapped hers in the mirror behind the bar. Busted. Her cheeks caught fire. One corner of his mouth lifted and he turned. Wow. This man definitely wouldn’t need to pick up women in a pub. They probably followed him home in droves.
Blond, Buff And Built lifted his glass in a silent how-about-it toast.
Oh, my God. Aubrey’s breath snagged in her windpipe.
At twenty nine, she’d dealt with her share of come-ons. Occasionally, she allowed a gentleman to buy her a drink. But she had never looked at a man and wanted to get naked with him before hello. Blue Eyes made her want to get both naked and sweaty. Here. There. Anywhere. The sooner the better. He made her want to act out some of those wild fantasies she only dared think about under the cover of darkness in her lonely apartment.
Too bad she wasn’t the type to act out her fantasies. Especially not with a stranger she’d met in a bar.
He headed her way, carving a path easily through the tables and around the waitresses and customers like a skier on a slalom course. Sharp, decisive, athletic. Her heart pounded loudly enough to drown out the patrons of the Irish pub. Gulp.
“May I join you?”
Impossible. His voice was as deep as his shoulders were wide. “I’m, um, meeting someone…in a bit.”
Darn it.
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Then do you mind if I share your table until your friend arrives? The place is packed.”
Was it? Aubrey quickly scanned the tables in the long, narrow establishment. All full. And the bar was standing room only. The tables must have filled while she’d been immersed in her list of questions.
Hello! Aubrey Holt, when are you ever going to meet another man like this?
She hastily gathered her papers and shoved them back into her briefcase. “Be my guest. I should have—” she checked her watch “—about thirty-nine minutes left.”
Straight white teeth flashed. “About that, huh?”
She concealed a wince. Could you be more anal, A.? “Yes.”
He hung the suit jacket he’d carried over one arm on the tall coatrack rising from the end of the booth and then slid onto the bench across from her. His knee bumped hers. The light contact hit her like a bolt of lightning, sending electricity storming through her central nervous system like crackling power lines.
She’d guess he was close to six feet. With that body and face he could easily model for fitness magazines. His cologne teased her nose. Cedar? Sandalwood? She couldn’t place the brand, which meant nothing except that the manufacturer didn’t advertise with any of Holt’s magazines.
“You don’t come here often.” Not a question.
She could drown happily in his Caribbean-blue eyes. “My first time. Do you come here often?”
He nodded. “Best bookmaker’s sandwich in New York.”
“Bookmaker’s?” Not exactly a brilliant conversationalist today, are you, A.?
“Ham, pepperoni and Havarti on Irish soda bread with a red-wine vinaigrette that will make your taste buds sing. Or you can try the Guinness Spareribs if you don’t mind licking your fingers. They’re tender and moist.”
And so was she. Listening to the man talk was practically an orgasmic experience. His voice was low enough to make her lean forward to hear him and rough enough to raise the fine hairs on her skin. He had no detectable accent to distinguish where he’d come from. So many Manhattanites hailed from elsewhere. “I’ll keep that in mind when I order.”
“You do that.” He winked.
One dip of those gold-tipped lashes and she considered pulling out her compact to examine her chin for drool. She settled for licking her dry lips. Did she have any lipstick left on? She looked like a lipless lady without. “Do you work nearby?”
“Not close enough that my co-workers will follow me. When I leave the office I like to leave the office, if you know what I mean.” He grimaced. On him it looked good. But then every expression probably did with a face like that.
“I know exactly what you mean. There are days when I want to run screaming from my office building and never return.” She didn’t ask his name and didn’t offer hers. Fantasy Man had approached her only because he wanted to sit down. After today, she’d probably never see him again.
A totally depressing thought.
“What do you do?” he asked.
Aubrey hesitated. She’d learned the hard way that men saw her as the yellow brick road to a job with her father’s empire, and she’d been burned more than once by mistakenly believing that she was the reason for their interest. “I’m pretty much a Jill-of-all-trades. I do whatever needs doing. You?”
“Number cruncher.”
In Manhattan that could mean anything from a Wall Street broker to an accountant, but she couldn’t fault him for his vagueness since she hadn’t been forthcoming either.
The waitress appeared at the table. “Ready to order?”
Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12 Page 45