Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions, #3)

by Lexy Timms

  I smiled at him in our reflection in the mirror. “Thank you,” I told him. “You look nice as well.”

  Of course, we didn’t really need to dress up to go over to Matt and Leanne’s place. I knew that before the night was through, we would probably both end up on the living room floor, crawling around and playing with Zach and Layla. And I didn’t look nearly as nice as I had that Friday evening when Daniel and I had gone on that great date, when I’d worn the sexy red dress that Leanne had helped me pick out.

  But I liked the way that Daniel looked at me when I dressed like this. Of course, I could always see the tenderness in his gaze. And when we were having sex, I could see the raw desire reflected in his gaze as well. But this—this was something different. When he wanted me but knew that he couldn’t have me, at least not yet, not until the end of the night? Daniel’s gaze turned positively hungry.

  “Anyway, I’m excited to tell Leanne all about our trip,” I told Daniel as we headed down to the car.

  “I’m just excited to be on our trip already,” Daniel joked. “A little alone time with you, no other responsibilities on my plate for the time being. Just giving you pleasure.”

  I groaned. “Don’t make me think about that right now,” I begged him. “I don’t even think I could cum anymore right now, but the last thing I need is to spend the whole dinner thinking about the ways that you plan to pleasure me.”

  Daniel laughed, slinging an arm around my shoulders and holding me close. “All right, deal,” he told me.

  When we got to Matt and Leanne’s house, I headed for the kitchen to see if Leanne needed any help with anything. “Would you mind setting the table for me?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “No problem,” I said, smiling at her. Layla wandered into the kitchen to help me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much this was just like how I had been as a kid, helping out my mom with setting the table.

  Would I have that one day as well? A daughter of my own to help me set the table?

  I could hear Daniel and Zach in the other room, peals of laughter coming from both of them as they played whatever it was that they were playing at the moment.

  Would I have that one day as well? A son of my own that Daniel would play with, to keep him from getting underfoot in the kitchen while I worked to put the finishing touches on dinner?

  When I looked up, Leanne was smiling knowingly at me. I remembered our conversation from earlier in the week, about how I needed to talk to Daniel about the important things at some point. Children was definitely something for us to talk about. There were other things, too, of course, but that was a big one. Fortunately, I was pretty sure we were on the same page about it.

  Maybe this trip would give us the opportunity to talk about all of it. Not that I wanted to possibly spoil the trip with difficult conversations about our future, but we’d see if things would come up naturally, maybe.

  “I haven’t talked to him yet,” I told Leanne, and she laughed.

  “All right,” she said easily. “But I can tell exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “What, Mom?” Layla interrupted suddenly, looking back and forth between me and her mother. She was definitely getting to that age where it was more difficult to talk around her. Things didn’t go over her head quite as easily. Gosh, was she really already six? Where had the time gone? “What is Auntie Abby thinking?”

  I put a hand on Layla’s head. “I’m just thinking about how great you are at setting the table,” I said. “That’s all.”

  Layla puffed up with pride, and Leanne smiled over at me.

  If you had asked me, back before I met Daniel, I would have told you that I didn’t want kids. It wasn’t that I had never considered having kids before, because I definitely had. And it wasn’t that I didn’t like children.

  No, it was that I had never met a man before who I could treat like an equal. I had never met a man who would be my partner, someone to help me with raising the kids. And I couldn’t imagine raising kids on my own. I knew plenty of women did it every single day, but with my career hopes, it just had seemed out of the question.

  Now, though, things were different. In such a short time, Daniel had upended my worldview. Made me realize that maybe I could find that man who was the perfect match for me. The man who would be there by my side forever if I would let him. The man who would be worth any drama or heartache or anything else.

  There was no one else I would rather spend the rest of my life with.

  I thought back to the rest of the conversation I had had with Leanne. About how I was afraid to even think about the future, afraid to think of what I wanted in my life. That was all because of Daniel, because everything that I wanted came back to him eventually.

  But suddenly, I realized I wasn’t as afraid of it all as I had been before. Maybe it had something to do with this trip that Daniel was planning for us. Or maybe it just had something to do with how much time Daniel and I had been spending together lately. We had been practically inseparable ever since we had made up after our fight. Not codependent or anything, never that. We both had our lives. I had gone out to see Leanne for drinks on Tuesday, and we had gone out with Austin on Thursday night for drinks and a few rounds of darts.

  Things had been great between us, though, and I could only see them getting better in the future. A future that maybe I was ready to start planning now.

  I smiled to myself as the boys came into the kitchen.

  “What are you thinking about?” Daniel asked in an undertone as he sat down beside me.

  I grinned over at him. “Just about how lucky I am to have all of this,” I said, squeezing his thigh meaningfully so he would know that I wasn’t just talking about Matt and Leanne and their family. No, he was part of all this, and I was lucky to have him as well. Especially in light of everything that had happened between the two of us.

  Daniel smiled back at me, leaning in to quickly brush his lips against mine, as the kids both chorused noisy ewws. He laughed as he pulled away. “Sorry,” he said, looking entirely unrepentant. I couldn’t help but giggle as Leanne rolled her eyes fondly at us.

  Chapter 25

  Daniel

  I WAS STILL SURPRISED by how much at home I felt around Matt and Leanne and their family. Especially since I had never really had much of a family life of my own, and since I had been living on my own since Austin moved out, I just felt like it shouldn’t be this easy to slip into this new role. But they all made it easy for me.

  I felt at home here, in a way that still shocked me. But then again, I supposed it was no surprise, really, with the way that Abby could somehow, with just her presence, make my own house feel so much more like a home.

  That wasn’t the only thing I liked about Abby, of course, but that was definitely part of it. The fact that we already felt like family, the fact that she and her family had so easily opened up to me and let me become a part of their lives. I felt whole in a way I had never felt before. Like nothing was missing from my life, like I wasn’t yearning for some other deeper purpose or something else in my life.

  “Leanne, wonderful dinner as always,” I said when I was a few bites into my food.

  Leanne laughed. “You don’t have to say that every time you’re here,” she said to me. “This is just pasta. A pretty simple pasta, at that.”

  “Still,” I said, shrugging at her. I glanced over at Abby, grinning sheepishly. “As Abby can tell you, I don’t do a lot of cooking for myself. Breakfasts a lot of days, but by the time I get home from work, I just don’t have the will or the energy to get too fancy with dinner. A good, warm, home-cooked meal is still special for me.”

  “You two should come over more for family dinners,” Leanne said, laughing. “And Abby, I think that’s a request from your man for you to do a little more cooking at home.”

  Abby laughed, but I shook my head. “That wouldn’t be fair,” I said. “Abby stays at the office as long as I do every day. I keep trying to shoo her out early
, but she won’t go.”

  Leanne grinned at Abby, who shrugged. “I’m not going to let him be the last person in the office,” she said. “Especially not every day.”

  “Sounds like you’re both too competitive for your own good,” Matt joked. “There’s this thing called relaxation, you know.”

  Abby smiled broadly. “We’ll be getting plenty of that soon enough,” she assured her brother. She looked excitedly back and forth between the two of them. “Daniel’s decided to push back our meetings for a little while so that he and I can go traveling. We’re leaving on the twenty-first for Bangkok!”

  “That’s amazing!” Leanne said in surprise. “The twenty-first, though? Of this month? That’s so soon! Why didn’t you tell me sooner than that? We’ll have to have a going away party and everything. How long are you going to be gone for?”

  Abby laughed at all the questions. “We just planned it,” she said. “It’s kind of a spontaneous trip,” she added.

  “I’ll say,” Leanne said. “I mean, I knew that you always wanted to go traveling, but I didn’t realize you were able to take the time off from work right now. Especially not both of you.”

  “We’ll probably have to do a little bit of work while we’re on the road,” I explained. “Erin, my assistant, is going to be looking after things around the office, keeping us informed of the most important bits, the stuff that Abby and I can’t delegate. We might even do a few remote video conference calls and that sort of thing while we’re over there.”

  Initially when I had talked to Erin about leaving for this trip, I had tried to arrange things so that we wouldn’t need to do any of the work while we were on the road. But modern technology being what it was these days, I was quickly starting to realize that there was no reason why the business had to stagnate while we traveled around the globe. And if we were able to strike some sort of balance between our travel and the business side of things, then it could only prolong our trip.

  Besides, I kind of liked the idea of Abby and I curled up in our bungalow in Thailand, working away at our computers, before we tumbled back in bed together, unable to deny the chemistry between us any longer.

  “We don’t know how long we’ll be gone for either,” Abby added, looking almost nervous. She glanced toward the kids and then back to her brother and Leanne. I knew she wouldn’t want to be gone for too long. She wouldn’t want to miss anything in their lives. But at the same time, I wanted to show her everything I could during our trip. Maybe a few scheduled breaks, come back home for a bit and get some real work done in the office. We could always leave again.

  I filed that idea away to think about later.

  “For now, we’re just trying to plan as little as possible,” I told them.

  Matt looked wary. “You do at least have someplace to stay when you arrive in Thailand, don’t you?” he asked, bringing home to me the fact that Abby was his little sister. I no longer worried that Matt wouldn’t accept me as a suitable match for his sister. We were beyond that point. But he would always be protective of her. He would always do his best to look out for her. And he wasn’t quite to the point, yet, of realizing that I would sooner cut off one of my limbs than let anything happen to Abby.

  Abby was laughing, though. “Yeah, we have a place to stay,” she said. “We’ve actually only have one night in Bangkok, and then we’re headed down south to the islands. We’re staying at this amazing resort there, bungalows out over the water, a really special place. It’s going to be five whole days of luxury and massages.”

  “You’re making me jealous,” Leanne said, laughing.

  “You’re making me jealous,” Matt echoed, “and I can’t even remember the last time I had a massage!”

  “But then after that, we don’t know where we’re going. And we also don’t know how long the trip will end up being,” Abby continued. She smiled over at me. “We’re just going with how we feel. I’d really like to get to Australia at some point, but we’ll see.”

  Leanne sighed wistfully. “That sounds amazing,” she said. “Even if you do have to work along the way.”

  “Right?” Abby said. “Like, I don’t even care if I have to bring my laptop with me; I’m going to Thailand.” She turned to her niece and nephew, smiling at them. “That’s in Asia,” she explained to them. “And guess what? When we’re done with the beaches in the south, we’ll probably head north and get to feed elephants and give them baths and everything.”

  “And ride them?” Layla asked, her eyes shining.

  “Probably not ride one,” Abby said, shaking her head, “but we will be close enough to pet them. How cool is that?”

  “Can I come with you?” Zach asked. “I can fit in your suitcase.”

  Abby laughed. “I don’t think it would be a very comfortable flight like that,” she said. “And it’s a long flight, too. Like, hours and hours and hours. Longer than when you guys flew to California.”

  Zach wrinkled his nose. “Yuck,” he said.

  “Yuck,” Layla agreed, but I could tell she was still thinking about elephants. I made a mental note to try to find her a souvenir from Thailand with elephants on it.

  “Well, it definitely sounds like quite the trip,” Matt said, smiling at the two of us. “Try and let me know where you’re staying if you can. I know that you’re probably sharing all that information with the office anyway, but I would just hate it if something were to happen to you and we didn’t know it.”

  “Of course,” Abby said, nodding emphatically.

  “I’ve already given your contact information to Erin as well,” I promised him. “So if anything comes up, she’ll be able to get in touch.”

  “And I’ll give you Erin’s number, too,” Abby added. “So if you need to get in touch with us, you can do it that way.”

  “Perfect,” Matt said, nodding approvingly.

  Leanne sighed. “I wish we could do a trip like that,” she said. “But it’s so hard with the kids in school for most of the year. And when they’re not in school, that’s always peak travel times, either summer or the holidays, which makes it hard to book anything.”

  I grinned at her. “Maybe next time I’ll take you all on vacation,” I said, only half-joking. We probably wouldn’t go anywhere as exotic as Thailand with the kids, and of course we would want to plan everything in advance. But I could see it already. Maybe a trip to Disney, or a big camping trip. The kind of trip I had always wanted to take as a kid but never got to. My own family hadn’t been anything like this.

  Matt shook his head. “You don’t have to—” he started to say.

  “I know,” I interrupted. “And I’m not making any promises.” I glanced over at Abby, seeing the way she was smiling at me. I squeezed her knee lightly. “But I think it would be a lot of fun. So we should think about this in the future.”

  “But for now, one trip at a time,” Abby said, saving me from the hole I was surely digging for myself.

  “One trip at a time,” Leanne echoed, but I could see the happiness in her eyes.

  “You know, I regret ever telling you not to date this guy,” Matt joked. Everyone laughed. His face turned serious. “The biggest benefit I see is the light in my sister’s eyes. She practically glows with happiness and that’s something worth celebrating.” He cleared his throat. “And may your relationship last forever so we can all reap the benefits.” More laughter erupted around the table.

  I smiled around at them, listening to Leanne and Abby chat about all the things we should make sure to do while we were in Thailand. Whatever we ended up doing on the trip, I realized, I was the happiest I had ever been. Blood relations or not, these people sitting around the table here were my family, and I loved each and every one of them. I never wanted to imagine a life without them.

  Chapter 26

  Abby

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE how soon it was before Daniel’s and my trip. In terms of the trip itself, things were going swimmingly. It helped that we didn’t want to plan t
oo much of it in advance. I had done a little bit of research to see what other things I might want to do in Thailand, but we weren’t worrying about booking transportation or accommodations just yet.

  I wasn’t even too worried about packing. I had read that it would be cheap and easy to buy clothing once we arrived there, and anyway, the clothing I could find there would probably be more suitable to the hot and humid climate than anything I could bring with me. I was looking forward to doing a little shopping, too. Maybe I could find something pretty to bring back for Leanne.

  But the tricky part was getting the office ready for Daniel’s and my departure. Daniel hadn’t made up huge mounds of printouts and notes for Erin like he had for me. First of all, she wouldn’t be stepping into the role of interim CEO. But second of all, Erin informed me that the only reason she had agreed to take on more of a role at the office at all was because Daniel had promised he wouldn’t leave her all those notes to go through.

  Smart girl, I thought. But then again, she also knew more about the company than I did, since she had been there for longer and had worked closely with Daniel for all of her time there with McGregor Enterprises.

  Of course, I was definitely starting to catch up to her. Daniel had ramped up his CEO training plans, which surprised me to be honest. I figured that since we were going to be taking time away from the office, we would quit the training now and pick up with it when we got back. After all, it wasn’t like Daniel and I didn’t have plenty of other things to get in order before we left.

  But the way he had sped up the learning process made me wonder. Just what kind of business relationship did he see for us when we returned from this trip? Would I still be welcome back to work for his company? Or was he hoping that this time away would strengthen our relationship and weaken our work ties? Did he want me to go to work for a different company when I returned?