by Joanne Rock
Her skin heated where he kissed it. “I actually really liked the gift shop trinket.” She skimmed a hand under his jaw to cup his face and looked in his blue eyes.
“You want another necklace from the gift shop?”
She thought about why the impromptu present had pleased her so much the first time.
“For my whole life, I was taught to be the best. That second wasn’t good enough.” She’d been trained from early childhood and she was ready to break free of the mold. “I don’t want to strive for perfection anymore. I want to know that our love is strong enough it can bear a misstep and we’ll trust in each other to get through it.” She warmed to her theme, imagining a future by Damon’s side. “I want to take spontaneous walks in the middle of the workday and not feel guilty about it. I want to play. To have fun. To just be.”
“I can do all of that.” He wrapped her up in his arms. “I can play and have fun, I swear. But I’m still going to work my tail off not to make any more mistakes with you.”
“Just love me the way I love you.” She felt confident saying it because she knew it would be returned in full. Maybe even with interest. “That’s all I need.”
“I’m so glad to have my wife back.” He kissed her lips. Slowly. Thoroughly. “You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.”
Actually, she had a very good idea because it made her glow inside to be reunited with him. But for now, she simply closed her eyes so she could feel the love all around her.
Epilogue
One month later
Damon bent over the portacrib and settled his son onto the sheet covered with smiling blue jellyfish. Two weeks ago, he’d relocated his whole family to a private bungalow at the Birdsong Hotel, the property his brother Gabe owned in Martinique. He’d felt the need to solidify the new, expanded family dynamic that included Lucas, Caroline and Caroline’s two younger brothers. Even Victoria had requested a leave of absence from her university program to join them for a week. New McNeills and honorary McNeills filled two bungalows of the Birdsong, giving them time to play together on the shore of the Caribbean, safely away from the headlines about Stephan Degraff back home.
As Damon watched Lucas huff out a sleepy sigh, his arms flung wide in that careless, baby way, Damon’s heart filled with love. Again. The way it did dozens of times a day as he marveled at how full his life had become in such a short time. He’d gone from a year of devastated loneliness to having a beautiful wife and three sons. One by blood, two by law.
He wouldn’t be able to adopt the boys, as much as he would love to, since their father would never sign any more paperwork that would benefit Damon. But Caroline’s brothers knew they would always have a real family now, and they were excited about the idea of attending public schools and being under the same roof as their sister and baby nephew.
Damon turned on the nursery monitor for Lucas’s nap even though he wasn’t venturing far from the crib. He didn’t mind sitting on the deck of the bungalow with the baby monitor while he watched Caroline cavort on the beach with her siblings. Damon double-checked the video feed on the nursery monitor before he dimmed the lights so his boy could rest and dream of happy times.
Stepping out of the baby’s room, Damon wandered out onto the patio to find his brother Gabe already there, sprawled on a deck lounger, a silver bucket full of ice and bottled beers at his feet. Flowers bloomed on either side of the deck, spilling bright petals around them like a private luau. Gabe had been remodeling the property for years, recently hiring a landscaper to redesign the gardens.
“Don’t try to tell me there’s no drinking on duty,” Gabe warned him, popping the caps off with a bottle opener. “I know you’re committed to being a good dad, but one beer is allowed during naptime.”
“Is that right?” Damon dropped into a lounger, his eyes already moving to the beach beyond to see where Caroline and her siblings had gone.
“They’re right there, Mr. Overprotective.” Gabe pointed down the beach to where the four of them were dragging paddleboards onto the shore.
The two boys were having squirt gun wars at the same time, shooting each other while running for cover in the bushes that spilled onto the beach.
“I’m still getting used to life without bodyguards.” Damon had let the security detail go once he knew Stephan would be in prison for good.
Or at least until his sons were over eighteen.
But after having Caroline disappear on him once, it wasn’t easy relaxing his instincts.
“I know, bro.” Gabe clapped him on the shoulder and then tipped his bottle to Damon’s. “And you’re dealing with everything like a champ.”
“I don’t want to be so protective I drive Caroline away.” He had spent every second with her since the day she’d regained her memory, hardly daring to believe that she was back. Whole.
His.
Getting to know her all over again made every day happier than the one that came before. And seeing her as a mother made him so damn proud he thought he’d burst with it.
Gabe laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think that’s happening. That woman loves you something fierce.”
Lifting the beer to his lips, Damon relaxed into his seat, inhaling the sea air. “I’ll drink to that.”
“You’re a lucky man.” Gabe’s words were wistful, hinting at a wealth of mixed emotions beneath the surface.
Gabe’s ex-wife had been pregnant when she decided she didn’t want to be a mother. Soon after she gave birth, she’d walked away from the baby and left the marriage. Now, Gabe’s ten-month-old son, Jason, was well-loved but motherless. Damon knew it broke his brother’s heart. The boy was currently napping back at Gabe’s place tended to by a nanny.
“I am, at that. Thank you for letting us crash here for a few weeks.” Damon straightened in his seat, seeing Caroline head their way while Victoria retrieved a huge plastic water gun to chase her brothers. “I hope it’s not...awkward.”
“More than anything, I want Jason to experience having a family.” Gabe picked at the beer label with his thumbnail. “You’re giving him that and I’m glad about it.” He peered up, seeing Caroline wrapping a towel around herself as she walked closer. “In fact, I’m so grateful, I’m going to do you a favor and keep watch on your nursery monitor if you want to take some downtime with the missus.”
Damon grinned. “I’ve got a better idea.” Getting to his feet, he held out his arms to his beautiful wife, hauling her close to kiss her cheek. “I’ll keep the nursery monitor while you go show the Degraff crew how to win a squirt gun war.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “I do have the mother of all water guns in the shed.”
“I seem to remember you trying to blast me with it on my last visit.”
Setting aside his empty bottle, Gabe shot to his feet. “You’re on.”
Caroline called after him. “Victoria is craftier than she looks.”
Gabe was already out of sight when he shouted back, “I love a worthy opponent.”
Damon turned his attention to the woman in his arms, still damp from her paddleboard adventure. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and sunshine; her lips were salty when he kissed her.
“Not as much as I love you,” he told her. “I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing that.”
“I can’t hear it enough.” She trailed a touch along his cheek, cooling his hot skin with her fingers. “And I want to make love to you and hear you say it again and again.” She kissed the words into his skin as her lips traced a path along his jaw. “But first, I want to stare into our son’s crib together and marvel at what a miracle he is.”
Damon’s throat closed with emotion. He was a lucky man to have the love of this strong, incredible woman who’d been through so much. Who’d fought so hard to reunite their family and have a future together.
“Sounds like another perfect day.”
/> “Another happy day,” she corrected him softly. “That’s all I want.”
“One lifetime of happy days, coming up.” Damon would move mountains to give them to her. Picking up the baby monitor, he walked with her into the bungalow to retreat from the sun. To have her all to himself for a little while. “I promise.”
* * * * *
If you liked this story of the McNeill family,
pick up these other
MCNEILL MAGNATES books from
Joanne Rock!
THE MAGNATE’S MAIL-ORDER BRIDE
THE MAGNATE’S MARRIAGE MERGER
HIS ACCIDENTAL HEIR
LITTLE SECRETS: HIS PREGNANT SECRETARY
as well as reader favorite
SECRET BABY SCANDAL
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Contract Bride
by Kat Cantrell
One
Women must have some kind of manual they passed around to each other, opened to the section labeled “How to Dump a Man.”
If so, it would explain why for a record fourth time in a row, Warren Garinger had received the same text message: You’re the world’s worst workaholic. I hope you and your company will be very happy together.
He didn’t think the women meant it as a compliment. Nor did they understand what it took to run a billion-dollar conglomerate. The Garinger family bottled and sold nearly half the world’s pick-me-ups. You couldn’t escape the logo for Flying Squirrel, the number one energy drink, no matter where you looked.
Women did not appreciate the effort that had gone into that kind of success.
Tilda popped her head into his office. “Got a minute?”
Except that one. He nodded instantly.
Tilda Barrett was the one woman he always had time for. Partly because he liked her Australian accent more than he should. “Sure. Come on in.”
But mostly Warren liked Tilda because, as his marketing consultant, she’d exceeded his expectations. And that was saying something. His expectations were always sky-high, for himself and for everyone in his orbit. Flying Squirrel wasn’t performing as well in the Australian market as he’d like, and Tilda was changing that. Slowly but surely.
“I saw the numbers on the new campaign. They’re promising,” he said, as Tilda strode into his bright corner office overlooking downtown Raleigh. Of course, he rarely glanced out the window unless he needed to gauge the weather in advance of a sporting event Flying Squirrel had sponsored.
Today was no exception. Tilda commanded his attention easily, both because of her professional role and because of the one she played in his head. Yeah, he’d had a fantasy or two starring Tilda Barrett, and he refused to be ashamed that he’d noticed she was very feminine beneath her buttoned-up exterior.
Not one strand of swept-up hair dared escape her severe hairstyle and, not for the first time, he wondered what would happen if it did. Most likely, her sheer will would tame it back into submission. She was the most hard-core professional woman he’d ever met. They got on famously.
“The numbers could be better,” she countered. Nothing ever satisfied her save absolute domination, and the fact that she was on his team made him downright gleeful.
Tilda took the straight-backed chair to the right of his desk, as was her custom when they had briefings. The company’s main competitor, Down Under Thunder, owned the Australian market, and Tilda’s strategic expertise filled a gap in Warren’s roster that he’d been thus far unable to bridge any other way.
“But that’s not why I’m here,” she said—and hesitated.
Tilda never hesitated.
Something was up. The dynamic between them had shifted. Normally they worked so well together that he scarcely had to speak before she’d already read his thoughts, and vice versa. But he couldn’t get a bead on her blank face.
Warren leaned forward to steeple his hands on the desk that had nothing more on it than his laptop and cell phone. Paperwork was for other people to handle, a hallmark of the CEO philosophy that had allowed him to focus on ideas and game plans instead of minutiae. Thomas had taken to the role of chief operating officer like a duck to water, and Warren had never questioned letting his younger brother assume the reins of daily control while Warren got to have all the fun in the corner office.
“Please speak freely,” Warren said, a little concerned he’d had to clarify that when Tilda had spent hours in his company during this project. Normally, he preferred people respect the distance and reserve he deliberately injected into all of his professional relationships. But he hadn’t insisted on being so formal with her. There’d been no reason to. Tilda had always struck him as the female version of himself—dedicated, professional and, above all, never overtly familiar.
In this moment, however, things felt different, and he didn’t like it.
“Right-o. The thing is, I’m not sure how free I am to speak about this issue,” she began cautiously, her accent rolling through him accompanied by inappropriate heat, especially given the gravity of her expression. “At this point, all I can say is that I’m being pulled from this project.”
“What?” Warren shot half out of his seat before catching himself. He sat back in his chair with deliberate care. “You cannot be pulled from this project. The contract I have with your firm is for a full year and we’ve barely covered a quarter of that.”
She nodded once. “The contract doesn’t specify that I will be the consultant for the full year, and unfortunately, there’s an issue with my visa that they’ve chosen not to address. I’m being chucked back to Australia and they’ll provide you with an American replacement.”
Outrageous. Warren clamped down against the flow of obscene words on the tip of his tongue. He’d hired the best consulting firm on the planet precisely so that “issues” with visas did not impede his progress. “That’s a breach of contract. I need an Australian expert who has been immersed in the culture for the whole of her life, not an American who’s read some things on the internet.”
“I’m afraid I can’t speak to the specifics,” she intoned, as if the entire project wasn’t now in complete jeopardy. “My superiors seem to believe replacing me is well within their contractual rights. I do apologize for the short notice.
”
Warren ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated contingencies that didn’t exist. This project needed Tilda. Period. “How short?”
“I’m to wrap up with you today and be on a plane by Friday.”
“Friday? As in the day after tomorrow?”
This was a disaster. And only in being presented with a looming deadline could Warren admit that he needed Tilda, as well. He couldn’t work with another consultant who didn’t get his style the way she did. He could be gruff, short and to the point, and she took it all with grace.
Plus, he liked listening to her talk. Sometimes, when they worked through dinner, she relaxed enough to laugh and he could indulge in a very harmless fantasy about what her chestnut hair might look like when it was down around her shoulders. He’d undone enough hairstyles in his day to know that hers likely hit her midback and would be shiny and smooth under his fingers.
Warren was as adept with a well-shaped fantasy as he was with running Flying Squirrel.
Harmless fantasies fueled a man who was still at the office during the hours other men might indulge in all things female. Harmless fantasies worked for him on so many levels because he’d never act on them. Tilda’s expertise on this project was too important to add her to the list of women who would eventually gift him with an unoriginal text message.
Tilda folded her hands together in that no-nonsense way he’d always secretly appreciated. Her slender fingers locked in place with strength of purpose. No stray movements, as if she never accidentally got into an uncomfortable position worth correcting. Lack of mistakes was as much a part of her personality as her incredible efficiency.
“Yes, this Friday,” she said. “I have about four hours to get my things in order. My replacement should be here in the morning to pick up where I left off.”
“That’s not happening.” As if Tilda could be replaced. It was ridiculous to assume even for a moment that this was a done deal. “Who do I need to speak with at your firm about this? If nothing else, I’ll sponsor your visa.”