Tempted by Love

by Jennifer Ryan

  “Mine either,” he whispered into Alina’s ear. “You scared me again, sweetheart. You gotta stop doing that.”

  “Oh, I’m done. I’ll leave the bad guys to you from now on.” She finally extracted her face from his shoulder and looked up at him. “You saved me.”

  “We’re even. You saved me first.” He never knew how lost he’d been until she came into his life and made it brighter and better and so filled with happiness and love he didn’t know what to do with all of it. Except hold on to her forever.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Jay had been waiting for this moment for more than a month. That’s how long it took to conclude the internal investigation into Brian’s shooting and close the cases on the kidnapping, Noel and Brian’s drug operation, the home invasions and the two deaths that resulted from them, and to clear Alina of any involvement in all of it.

  Noel would spend the next ten to twenty years behind bars. With the help of her family, Lee sold their house and moved closer to her girls. She continued her treatment and was doing better with her daughters’ love and care. Somehow she found the strength to start over.

  Alina moved into his home and settled in like she’d always lived there. He came home each night to her smiling face, but he’d sensed her growing restlessness. She feared the business and her investment in the pharmacy were lost and she’d have to start all over.

  If anyone would hire her after what happened.

  Today, he got the best news and couldn’t wait to share it with her.

  Because of all that happened and their whirlwind relationship, he’d decided to take her on a much-needed vacation so they could spend some time alone together. He surprised her with the trip to Hawaii and the secluded house he rented on the beach.

  He stepped out the back door, walked across the patio and down the path to where she lay on the double lounge chair staring at the rolling tide, the moon just inches over the sea, and the brilliant stars overhead.

  Postcard perfect.

  And the beautiful woman waiting for him, AMAZING! In all caps with the exclamation point. She blew him away with her sweetness and warmth, the way she always thought of others, and especially the way she loved him.

  He’d nearly lost her twice. Now, he wanted her to promise forever.

  “I can’t believe this place, Jay. How did you find it?”

  He stood behind the double patio lounge and stared down at her. “One of Ashley’s friends owns it. He rents it out when he’s not using it, but only to people he knows, or friends of friends.”

  “One of Ashley’s famous friends?”

  “Danny Radford.”

  “Uh, wow. I can’t believe you did this.”

  “I wanted something special.” He leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder. “We deserve special.”

  Alina’s off-the-shoulder sundress gently fluttered at mid-thigh. Her hair blew back from her beautiful face. The stitches were long gone, the scar on her forehead nothing but a thin pink line that would fade even more over time. She’d regained most of her mobility in her left hand. What she lost was mostly unnoticeable.

  Alina stared out at the rolling ocean more at ease than he’d seen her these last weeks.

  He hoped to put whatever worries she still harbored to rest so they could both enjoy these next few island days finally at peace, the past behind them. “I have good news.”

  “We get to stay here more than a week.”

  “If you want, I can take a few more days off work, but that will also delay you reopening the pharmacy.”

  Her head whipped to the side. Shock widened her eyes a split second before they filled with hope. “What?”

  “Beck left me a message. The entire case is officially closed. You’re completely exonerated. Lee agreed to the payout you and I talked about—”

  “Wait, I can’t afford—”

  “I’ll put up the money.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “You want to buy into the pharmacy?”

  “No. Well, yes.” Jay took her hand and gently tugged her up with him to walk down to the water.

  “Jay, honey, I don’t understand what you mean.”

  He stopped a couple of feet from the water’s lapping edge and took a deep breath, letting his nerves settle. He’d been up against some scary dudes in his line of work, but one woman scared him more than all of them. She had the power to destroy him with one word: no.

  But she’d already said yes. She moved in with him. This was nothing but a formality.

  But it was everything.

  A lifetime of her smiling face and open arms when he got home and walked in the door. A friend to confide in and share his hopes, his dreams, his secrets, the good, the bad, the normal, everyday stuff.

  “Jay, are you okay? You seem nervous.”

  He took both her hands and stared down into her upturned face. “The worst is over. This past month, we’ve had a taste of the life I want with you.”

  Alina’s head tilted. “Jay, honey, you have to know how happy I am, how much I love you.”

  He touched her cheek and brushed his thumb over her soft skin. “I love you, too. More than I can say. We found each other unexpectedly, or maybe it was always meant to be and I just didn’t see it until I saw you laughing in the hotel lobby and you smiled at me at the bar. You were apprehensive about my job. For good reason.”

  “Mine turned out to be just as dangerous,” she pointed out, teasing, but not.

  “And I want you to go back to doing the job you love, which is why I’m happy to put up the money you need in order to keep the pharmacy. As your partner, and your husband.”

  She covered a gasp with her fingertips.

  He dropped to one knee, her other hand still in his. He pulled the ring he’d had far too long out of his pocket and held it up to her.

  Tears glistened in her eyes, her free hand went to her chest, and she gave him one of those sweet smiles he loved. “My present.”

  “A symbol of my promise to you. We share a house, a friendship I’ve never had with anyone else, a bond I feel every second of the day. My heart is yours. This ring is yours. And if you want it, my name.”

  She didn’t speak, but her head bobbed up and down.

  “What we’ve been through these last months shows I can’t promise a carefree future, but I can promise that I will be by your side through the good times, bad times, every up and down.” He squeezed her hand. “I will never let go. I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Her head hadn’t stopped going up and down, but he’d wanted to get it all out and give her the proposal she deserved.

  “Say something,” he coaxed, anticipation making his heart flutter.

  “Yes!”

  He stood just in time to catch her in his arms as she launched herself into his chest and kissed him hard. He took over, slowed her down, and took the kiss deeper, then pressed his forehead to hers and stared into her bright, beautiful eyes. “You said yes.” The wonder of it filled him up.

  “It was yes the second you sat down beside me in the bar. I just didn’t know it, and then it was the one thing I knew for sure.”

  He kissed her again, long and deep. Remembering the ring, he stepped back and took her left hand. He slipped the diamond ring on her finger, stared at it there where it belonged, and his heart swelled. “You’re going to be my wife.” He couldn’t believe his luck and couldn’t wait to marry her. Soon. They’d do it at the lodge Caden and Beck got married at—where he and Alina found each other.

  A bright smile bloomed on her lips. She flipped her hand around to show him the ring and stomped her feet in the sand, smiling and laughing, excitement bubbling out of her in waves of joy. “I can’t wait to tell my parents and brothers. Everyone.”

  It dawned on him then. He wrapped his arm around her, pulled her to his side, and made her look back up toward the house. “Wave.” He did so toward the camera he’d set up with a live stream for their families. “They’re all watching.”

  Ali
na got over her initial shock and waved. “We’re getting married!” She held up her hand to show them his ring on her finger. Right where it would stay for the rest of their lives.

  He led her back up to the house, stopped for a second to wave one last time before he turned the camera off, and walked her into the house and straight to the rose-petal-strewn bed where he made love to his fiancée with the waves crashing outside and his heart overflowing with love for the woman in his arms, a woman he’d once told himself to walk away from, she wasn’t for him, but had been tempted by a love so strong it brought them together. Forever.

  Mandi flipped her purple hair over her shoulder and leaned into Robby. “Ah, sweet, I knew those two were destined for each other. Nothing will ever tear them apart.”

  Robby continued to battle in the Howling Abyss, her champion standing immobile while she watched Alina and Jay get engaged, but Robby took a moment to stare at her. “We’re Kog’Maw and Lulu.” The perfect League of Legends battle pair.

  Mandi melted, kissed him, then picked up her controller to fight alongside her man.

  Heather blew a kiss to her son, Jay, a split second before he cut the feed. “Of course she said yes, monkey. That girl is smart. I liked her from the beginning. You’ll do right by her. And soon I’ll have beautiful grandbabies.”

  Ashley lay beside Beck in their bed, watching the video, tears in her eyes. “I’ve never seen her that happy.”

  Beck clicked off the screen and set the tablet on the bedside table and held her close with his other arm. He turned to her and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb. “Me either. It’s why I backed off. I saw it in her eyes. She loves him. He’ll make her happy.”

  Ashley smiled. “How about you make your wife happy?”

  Beck nuzzled his nose against her soft skin. “My favorite thing to do.”

  Caden kissed Mia on the side of the head and rolled on top of her.

  “You’re happy for her.” Mia smiled up at him.

  “She always wanted a husband and family. I wanted her to be happy. With Jay, she’ll have it all.”

  “We have it all.”

  “How about we work on that baby some more?” He softly kissed her neck.

  “We don’t need to.”

  It took him a second to figure out what she meant. He rose up on his hands and stared down at her. “You’re pregnant?”

  She smiled and nodded. “I didn’t want anything to overshadow their engagement.”

  Caden slid down and kissed her belly with reverence and wonder. He stared back up at her. “We’ll tell everyone when they get back.” He kissed his way back up to her mouth and poured everything he felt into the kiss. They were going to have a baby. His chest couldn’t contain all the love bursting out of his heart. “Tonight, we celebrate.”

  “Can you believe this all started with a blind date between Caden and Mia? I knew they’d hit it off.” Aunt Taffy wiped a tear from her soft cheek, her lips tilted in a satisfied grin.

  Aunt Nancy snuggled closer. “They’ve all been through some rough times, but it only brought them closer together.”

  Aunt Taffy sighed and held Aunt Nancy close. “None of them believed there was someone out there for them. I’m so glad they found their soul mate, just like I did.”

  “Everyone deserves to be as happy and in love as we are.”

  An Excerpt from Dirty Little Secret

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at the first book in Jennifer Ryan’s Wild Rose Ranch series,

  DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

  Coming March 2019!

  Prologue

  Six years ago

  Clark County Fair and Rodeo, Nevada

  Roxy leapt off her horse, landed in the dirt, and tried to contain the smile that spread across her face for the man sitting in the stands staring right at her. His smile, the pride in his eyes, made her heart swell with joy and drown in sorrow all at the same time.

  John came, but he wouldn’t speak to her. Not here where others could see them together and possibly connect the dots that she was his daughter. A child no one knew about. A child he’d never expected and didn’t want.

  Her mother made sure of that.

  Roxy had been doomed to be an outcast before she was ever born.

  John came today to watch her barrel race on one of the horses he secretly sent to her. It’s why she practiced every day and rode so hard in competition. The little girl inside her wanted to make him proud. She wanted him to like and admire her.

  She wanted him to stand up and say, “That’s my girl!”

  But in eighteen years, he’d never even come close to admitting that to anyone.

  These little glimpses of him and what could have been lashed at her heart and made it bleed. As much as Roxy wanted her father to love her enough to keep her, she wanted him to stay away.

  “You won!” Sonya wrapped her in a hug.

  “Again!” Juliana scrunched her mouth into a pretty pout. As much as she wanted Roxy to win, she wanted to beat her, too. Little sisters were like that.

  Adria hugged her, then held her at arm’s length. “He came.” She glanced over at John. “And so did your sexy stepbrother.”

  “He’s not my brother.” But still John raised him as his own.

  The son he always wanted.

  Noah, the man sitting beside him, who got to call him Dad, who knew John as a good and decent man, knew nothing about her. Noah and Annabelle, his adopted children, got his love and devotion every day. They grew up with the life she could have had if only John had fought for her and revealed his dirty little secret.

  “Noah’s got the best ass in denim in this whole damn place.”

  “Don’t swear,” Roxy scolded Juliana, though she couldn’t disagree with the statement.

  The girl was growing up way too fast. At fifteen, she looked twenty-one. And men noticed.

  Here, everyone stared at the notorious Wild Rose girls. If they hadn’t entered their first rodeo in Nevada and won in spectacular fashion, maybe no one would have linked them to the infamous Wild Rose Ranch brothel located in a little town outside of Las Vegas—where prostitution was legal and their mothers worked.

  It didn’t matter that Roxy and her sisters didn’t work there.

  When Roxy and her sisters showed up at a rodeo, every eye in the place turned to them. The buzz of whispers spread, letting everyone know the girls from the Wild Rose Ranch had arrived to ride.

  Many a cowboy had mistaken what they came to ride.

  When they went to a rodeo, it was for the competition and winning.

  It didn’t seem to matter that they were in their teens. Their Wild Rose Ranch—We Ride Hard T-shirts sparked all kinds of cowboy fantasies.

  Yes, they used the provocative name. They wanted to make it their own and be proud of it. They wanted where they came from to mean something more.

  They wanted their little legitimate piece of the Ranch.

  They were the best. She and her sisters had proven that again today. After all, Roxy may have just won the grand prize, but her sisters were in second, third, and fourth place right behind her.

  They dominated.

  A man whistled out to them. No matter how many wins, they were still perceived as those girls from the Wild Rose Ranch.

  Which is why her father remained in the stands, a safe distance from her and any chance of rumors.

  “Why don’t you just walk up to Noah and tell him who you are?” Juliana nudged her with her elbow.

  “He stares at you just like your father,” Adria pointed out.

  “Noah stares because he thinks we’re prostitutes.”

  Sonya laid her hand on Roxy’s shoulder. “Introduce yourself. Not as John’s daughter, but just you.”

  “Why? What will that change? ‘Hi, I’m Roxy.’ Then what?”

  “See what happens.” Adria smiled. “Ask about him. You know you want to know what his life is like living with your father.”

  “I kno
w what his life is like with John. Everything my life wasn’t.” John always sent the checks, but when she was really young her mother used the money to support her habit before she remembered to take care of Roxy.

  She bet Noah was never ridiculed for being on the free lunch program at school. She bet he never had to root through trash in the cafeteria to scrounge up extra food for the weekend because there was no food in the house. He didn’t grow up with cocaine dusting the table where he did his homework, or have to step over trash and used needles to get to the couch that smelled of stale cigarette smoke and pot. He probably never had to wear shoes a size too small and pants three inches too short because there wasn’t any money for new clothes.

  Noah didn’t know what it was like to hide in a cupboard or closet when strange men came over. He didn’t know how creepy and scary it was to have a strange man grab you and make you sit on his lap, his hold too tight, his face too close.

  No, he didn’t know that kind of fear.

  He didn’t know how it felt to have a mother named Candy, who had a body made for sin and used it to make a living. Only Roxy’s sisters knew how it felt for people to look at you and think the worst because of who and what your mother was, because their mothers worked there, too.

  Noah didn’t know anything. He lived his perfect life free of scandal and of being ostracized.

  And that’s how John wanted to keep it.

  “It’s time to go. Let’s collect our prize money, load up the horses, and get the hell out of here.”

  Roxy led her horse away and kept her back to her father and Noah. She didn’t want to think about what might have been anymore. She’d spent countless hours and sleepless nights doing that.

  Her life hadn’t been all that bad the last ten years. Not since Candy had moved them out of the last grungy apartment to the Wild Rose Ranch.

  Roxy liked the cozy house away from the big mansion.