But it was beautiful. I would have given my right arm to have a ring like that when I was five years old. Even now, it was lovely in its innocent beauty.
I looked up at him and smiled. Another tear escaped down my cheek. “Why didn’t you give it to me then?”
“Because…”
He winced – not from his ribs, but because he was uncomfortable stating the truth.
“…because I was being an idiot. I was worried about how you might take it, if you might think there was more there than I meant… even though, really, there was more there. Basically, I freaked out. You remember what I said that night in your bedroom. I was afraid. I wanted more, but I was afraid of more, so I tried to keep my options open. To protect my freedom, or whatever the hell I thought I was protecting. That’s why I made an ass of myself that night. And I was freaked out about what a ring might mean to you, so I didn’t give it to you. And then, once you were gone, I held it in my hand every day and wished I had given it to you… but I was glad I still had it, because it reminded me of you, and how happy we were. Does that make sense?”
“In a weird sort of way, yes,” I said, and put it on my finger – though I very consciously put it on my right ring finger, not my left.
“Do you like it okay?” he asked hesitantly.
“I love it.”
He looked oddly relieved. “You do?”
“Yes,” I beamed. “It’s beautiful.”
He exhaled. “I’m glad to hear you say that… since I got a real one made.”
I stared at him.
I didn’t quite understand, even when he pulled out the jewelry box.
Small and black, it fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.
My brain was still frozen until he opened it up.
There on crushed velvet was the real-life version of the child’s plaything: a platinum band with a gorgeous diamond, with two tiny sparkling sapphires set on either side.
I looked up at Connor – and burst into tears. “Are you… is this…”
He grinned.
I started flapping my hands in the air.
I don’t think I had ever freaked out as much as I did at that moment.
The only thing that stopped me was the pained look on his face as he lowered himself down on one knee.
“Stop!” I cried out.
He paused halfway, a panicked look on his face. “…you don’t want me to?”
“No, I do, I do – but are you sure you want to?” I asked, filled with both terror and joyous hope.
“A very wise man told me, ‘Once you’ve found the right one, stop looking.’ I’ve found the right one.”
Sebastian.
I broke down in tears again as Connor started to lower himself to the floor. “You don’t have to kneel – it’s hurting you, I can see it in your face – ”
He laughed as he eased down on one knee. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.”
I stood there, bawling, my hands covering my mouth, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He pulled out the ring, set the case aside, and held up the diamond as he gazed into my eyes. “Lily… the day I let you leave was the worst day of my life. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of our lives together. Will you marry me… and never leave my side again?”
I stood there, overcome, weeping, so much joy filling me that I couldn’t handle it.
Connor got a slightly worried look on his face. “…Lily?”
He couldn’t see it because of my hands in front of my mouth, but I was smiling bigger than I ever had in my life, almost laughing through my tears.
I nodded ‘yes’ silently through my tears and took my hands away so he could see my smile.
“IS THAT A YES OR WHAT?” a very gay, very muffled voice called out.
I looked up and saw Sebastian, Johnny, and Anh standing thirty feet away at the glass doors of the office, all of them beaming. Anh was almost jumping up and down she was so excited, and tears were rushing down her cheeks, too.
“Yes!” I cried out to them, laughing as I said it.
Connor reached out and took my hand and slipped the ring onto my finger. I sobbed with joy, and he slowly rose up and kissed me, taking me in his arms.
Johnny, Sebastian and Anh raced into the room, cheering, hugging us. I felt showered with love from the people I cared for more than anything.
“I love you,” Connor whispered in my ear amidst the tears and laughter. “And I promise you, I’ll never let you go again.”
I just pulled him to me and kissed him madly.
30
We moved in together almost immediately, and split our time between Connor’s Manhattan penthouse and an apartment we rented in Santa Monica.
Ross and Associates became bicoastal, with Anh taking over West Coast operations and me handling the East. I spend almost all my time with her whenever I’m in Los Angeles, and we Skype at least an hour every day for business, so it’s not as though I don’t see her… but I miss her. That’s the one slightly melancholy note to everything else wonderful happening in my life.
Connor asked if I wanted to give up the business, but it gives me something to do – something of my own. Something I can feel proud of building.
The shooter was finally identified as one Johann Wurtzel, a former special forces operative in the German military. Apparently he went to the dark side after he got out; the investigative team turned up numerous mercenary jobs he had done. They also found a week-old $100,000 deposit in a Swiss bank account. It came from a small company headquartered in the Cayman Islands, which was a shell corporation owned by another company in Singapore, which was another shell company owned by a subsidiary in Luxembourg, and so on. The trail stopped in Moscow when the shell corporations ran out, and the lawyer who had set up the paperwork had mysteriously disappeared.
Another $100,000 had been deposited into a Swiss bank account owned by Chad Harris, the Dubai employee who had been found dead in his apartment. A couple of the same shell corporations were in the money chain to both Harris and Wurtzel… but not a shred of evidence was ever found linking either one of them to Miranda.
As a result, Connor became super-paranoid. He has a new security detail of five men now – because he insisted that Johnny guard me 24/7.
“Because you’re more important to me than my own life, and Johnny’s the best there is,” Connor said when I protested.
Sebastian’s still where he was when I met him, making Connor’s life easier – in some ways. Now, besides endlessly reminding everyone of how essential he is, he loves to gloat about how he got us back together.
I have to admit, though, he makes a damn good wedding planner.
We haven’t set the date yet. I struggled for a long time with whether I wanted a giant wedding – what little girl doesn’t dream of marrying her prince in a fairytale cathedral? I mean, the story took a very ‘Cinderella’ turn at one point – why not see it through?
But, in a most un-Cinderella way, I’m reminded that if we have a giant ceremony, the media will invariably splash my Vegas photos right next to the wedding pictures. So I’m currently leaning towards smaller – nay, anonymous.
All that matters is I get to marry Connor.
Anh will be my bridesmaid, Johnny will be the best man, and Sebastian will officiate. What started out as a joke between me and Johnny in the corridor of the hospital became the best possible plan of all.
Javier’s coming, of course, and Abby’s invited, too. Actually, she’s doing my bridal makeup.
My family will be there, but I couldn’t convince Connor to reconcile with his. He still won’t forgive them for what they did to me. I’m working on getting him to let bygones be bygones – not because I want them in our daily lives (I so do NOT), but I don’t want the absence of them to poison it, either.
All I can think of is his father staring out that window, and the lights reflected in his tears.
They’ve done enough damage. I figure it’s
time to start healing it.
When that will be, only God knows.
The only person who won’t be invited is Miranda, for obvious reasons. Hopefully she’ll be behind bars before the big day. That’s the best possible wedding gift I could get.
We also don’t know where we’re getting married yet. With the possibility of something smaller comes a tiny ceremony on a beach in the Caribbean… or maybe a vineyard in Tuscany… but no matter what we decide, I’m sure there will be hot sex during the honeymoon. Lots and lots of it. (Connor keeps threatening to put that in the vows.)
But wherever it happens, whenever it happens… I know my wedding day will be with the man of my dreams.
…and you’re all invited.
The End
Thank you so much for reading the Billionaire’s Seduction series!
As you probably guessed, I’m leaving open the possibility of another adventure with Lily, Connor, Sebastian, and Johnny (and, of course, Miranda and the Templetons). I just couldn’t bear to say goodbye to them forever.
I don’t have a plot yet – heck, I haven’t even 100% decided to do it. If I do end up writing The Billionaire’s Wedding, it probably won’t be for another year or more. If you want to be notified when I publish new books, sign up for my email list at www.OliviaThorneBooks.com.
In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from my newest series, ROCK ME HARD (The Rock Star’s Seduction Part 1), now available!
ROCK ME HARD
The Rock Star’s Seduction
Part 1
1
I once heard a question that both unnerved me and made things startlingly clear: is it more important to love someone with all your heart…
…or to be loved by someone with all of theirs?
We all want to fall head-over-heels in love, and we all want the other person to love us back exactly the same. But that’s not usually the way it turns out.
In fact, I think that’s rarely the way it turns out. Both people may be in love, but it always seems one person is more in love than the other.
So… if you had to choose, which would it be?
Love someone else passionately and completely, even if they don’t feel as powerfully as you?
Or be loved passionately and completely, even if you don’t feel exactly the same towards them?
I thought I knew the answer when I heard the question.
Then I found out years later that no… I didn’t know the answer at all.
Present Day
I sat across from the Rolling Stone editor in his office overlooking midtown Manhattan.
I’d arrived 15 minutes early for my meeting. I thought I was there to interview for some lowly staff position. Layout grunt… gofer… toilet scrubber.
Actually, I hoped and dreamed it was a staff position. As desperate as I was, I would have taken an unpaid internship.
I mean, come on. It was Rolling Stone.
Glen the editor sat across the desk from me, hands folded, serene. He was bald on top with curly hair around the sides, and he wore black, plastic-frame hipster glasses. His personal sense of style was somewhere between 70’s Rocker and College Professor.
“Kaitlyn Reynolds. Finally we meet. Good to put a face with the voice over the phone.”
“Same here. Nice to meet you, too.”
“Journalism degree from Syracuse, right?”
“Yes.”
“When did you graduate?”
“A year ago.” I put on a polite smile. “Almost to the day.”
“I read the pieces you emailed me. Not bad. Not great… but not bad.”
Not great… but not bad.
My temper spiked a little bit. I’m a bit of a hothead sometimes.
But I calmed myself down by thinking, When an editor at Rolling Stone says your stuff isn’t bad, ignore the ‘not great’ part.
“Well, I’m still working on building up my portfolio – ”
Glen interrupted me, ignoring what I was saying. “There was something I especially liked, a short story you wrote for the Syracuse literary magazine.”
I frowned. “I… didn’t include that in the email.”
“I know. I went and tracked it down on the internet. I liked it. Had a distinctive voice I don’t really see in your articles.”
My jaw set a little. “Um… thank you?”
Glen smiled. “I’m just saying I think you’ve got it in you to be a very good writer. It hasn’t come out yet, but you have a lot of potential. But you’re going to need to bring it out quick if this is going to work.”
My heart raced.
This sounded like it might be something better than a toilet-scrubbing position.
I swallowed. “Are you… are you offering me a job?”
“Not a ‘job,’ per se. But we want to give you a shot at a feature article. Shanna didn’t tell you?”
Shanna was my college roommate from freshman year at the University of Georgia. We lost touch when I went to Syracuse, but we stayed Facebook friends – which basically means I just read what she posted on her wall. She moved to New York City a couple of years before I did. When I announced on Facebook I was moving, too, she told me to look her up. That’s how we rekindled the friendship. We occasionally had dinner when I had the extra money (which wasn’t often) and when she wasn’t seeing three different guys at once (which was practically all the time).
I was starting to get dizzy. A shot at a feature article. “No, she was pretty vague about the whole thing.”
Glen grimaced. “Yeah… she said you might not be that happy with the assignment.”
Two minutes ago, I would have scrubbed toilets for free.
Now he was talking ‘feature article.’
‘Might not be happy with the assignment’?
HA.
I was fighting to get pieces published in crappy independent newspapers. You know, the kind mostly devoted to club ads listing what bands were playing, with dubious ‘massage’ ads in the back.
As for my online endeavors, the Huffington Post had turned me down three times in the last month.
I couldn’t even give my writing away.
And now I was talking with an editor at Rolling Stone about a feature article.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for a break like this. Undercover hooker? ‘Day in the life of a sewage worker’? Pro bono proctology exams? I was there.
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” I laughed, a little too giddily. “I mean – what exactly do you want me to do?”
He settled back in his seat.
“Shanna told me you once dated Derek Kane.”
My face froze. I could feel every individual muscle straining to keep my smile in place.
Shit.
Please God, not this.
Anything but this.
3
Derek Kane was currently the hottest thing going in rock. And not just because his band had three singles currently in the top 20, with ‘If There’s A Next Time’ poised to hit number one in the next week or two.
No. He was also the most gorgeous guy to front a rock band since Jim Morrison.
Six feet tall… black hair… chiseled face… cheekbones to die for.
Most rockers outside of Death Metal are scrawny little dudes with pasty bird chests and no muscles. Not Derek. He looked more like an underwear model, with a muscled chest, incredibly strong arms, and abs you could scrub laundry on. Broad shoulders, muscular legs, and an ass that made you want to tear off his pants. Some women at his concerts occasionally did.
He also had the most intense, gorgeous green eyes you’ve ever seen. Like emerald ocean water warmed by the sun.
Of course, not many people knew that, because he never let himself be photographed without sunglasses on. Never performed without them. Every candid shot in every gossip rag always had him with his trademark Maui Jims wrapped around his face, his beautiful eyes hidden from the world.
I only knew what they looked like because I had met hi
m four years ago. Back before he was a Rock God.
I had known him for exactly two weeks.
The last time I saw him, we’d spent the night together. I’d told him I loved him… and then I got in my car and drove away, tears streaming down my face.
I never saw or heard from him again.
But it’s not what you think.
However, walking away from him that day was probably the single worst mistake of my life.
Now I was afraid I was going to make an even bigger one.
4
I stared at the editor. My smile was still in place, but it was more like a waxworks expression, it was so fake.
“Um… what is it that you want, exactly? Because I’m not doing some kiss-and-tell piece.”
Glen waved his hands as though to ward off bad mojo. “Oh, no no no no no. Nothing like that.”
“…what, then?”
“Well, as you know, Kane is notoriously averse to the press.”
Actually, I did know that. Just because I hadn’t talked to him since our final day together didn’t mean I hadn’t been keeping tabs on him.
‘Notoriously averse to the press’ was kind of like saying ‘The Pope isn’t tremendously fond of gay marriage.’
Derek hated the press. Hated them. With a vengeance bordering on lunacy. He’d go on shows to perform, no problem – Letterman, Conan, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel. He’d go on Ellen and banter with her.
But what he would not do was talk to the press. Not Rolling Stone, not Spin, not The New York Times, not the Anytown USA Herald. He hadn’t for years.
Which had the curious effect of making them slobber over him all the more. Like semi-popular girls spurned by the Prom Queen, they gossiped and backstabbed and gushed over him – sometimes in the same article – hoping that they, maybe, just maybe, might get to be BFFs with him in his first print interview in two years.
All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction) Page 35