I drew my arms away and stepped back—noticing that he was still raising his eyebrow at me, confused. I looked out into the silent crowd, blushing bright red as the women began whispering to one another.
“I’m...I’m so sorry...” I stammered. “I thought that if I...that if I...” I felt the tears falling. “I’m sorry...I...” I looked around at all the people on the stage, at the angry expression that was on Damien’s face.
I turned around to face Jonathan again and shook my head. “I’ll get out of your way now...I...I really am sorry and—”
“Don’t be.” He pulled me back into his arms and pressed his lips against mine, suffocating me with a long, appreciative kiss. I could feel his mouth upturned into a smile as he caressed my tongue with his, as he kissed me like there was no tomorrow.
“Mr. Statham...” Greg cleared his throat, but Jonathan held me even tighter and kept kissing me.
“Mr. Statham? Mr. Statham!” Greg’s voice was firmer, making Jonathan finally pull away.
“Yes, Greg?” He grinned at me.
“You have a list of other people to take pictures with and speak to tonight. If you would like, I can escort Miss—”
“No, I’ll take care of it.” He kissed me one more time and walked over to the people on the other side of the stage.
I could only hear fragments of what he was saying—“First thing tomorrow...” “I need to address this now...” “Yes, I’ll sign whatever you want tomorrow...” “I’ll donate double...” “Thank you so much...”
The orchestra began to play on the back stage—one of the organizers had frantically run back there once I kissed him, and the crowd slowly diverted their attention from us to the dance floor.
I saw him walk over to Stacy and say a few words, and then I felt Damien grabbing my hand.
“Is this some type of joke, Claire?” His eyes hardened. “I bring you here and you fuck my competition?”
“What?”
“Is that what you’ve been doing during the day while I’ve been at meetings? Sleeping with Jonathan Statham behind my back?” He sounded more angry than hurt. “Do you know how what you just did makes me look? Did you even think about that?”
“Damien, I’m sorry you had to find out this way but...I’m in love with Jonathan and I have been for a while now...I’m sorry for agreeing to date you when I wasn’t over him. I really do mean—”
“This is why I only date younger women. I should’ve known that someone like you with all your baggage—”
“Excuse me?” Jonathan wrapped his arm around my waist. “Is there a problem here, Damien?”
“No...” Damien seemed to wither a bit.
“Are you sure?” Jonathan’s tone was threatening. I’d never heard him this heated before. “Is there something you and I need to discuss outside? It can be arranged...”
“Fuck you, Jonathan.” Damien narrowed his eyes at me. “And fuck you too, Claire.” He said something else under his breath as he walked away.
“See? I wasn’t lying to you.” Jonathan said. “He wasn’t right for you at all...” He kissed my hair and led me off the stage and out of the ballroom. As we walked towards the elevators, he kept looking down and smiling at me.
I wanted to ask what he was smiling about, but I was happy simply seeing him smile again—for whatever reason it was.
We rode up to his floor in silence, staring at one another while we held hands, communicating with our eyes.
I wanted him to touch me again, to kiss me again, but it seemed like he was content simply holding back.
“Mr. Statham, Miss Gracen,” the bellman said once we arrived. “Have a great evening.”
“Thank you,” we said in unison.
I followed him to his suite and he pulled me inside, pushing me against the wall as soon as the door shut. “I can’t believe you did that...That was quite shocking...” He pulled a clip out of my hair and kissed my neck.
“And why is that?” I moaned as he grazed my skin with his teeth.
“The Claire Gracen I know would never run on stage and kiss me like that, especially not with everyone watching...”
“The Jonathan Statham I know wouldn’t be analyzing anything that Claire Gracen does.”
“That kiss doesn’t excuse you leaving me for three months.” He removed another clip. “I’m still very angry with you...”
“I love you too.”
He grinned as he looked into my eyes. “Say it again.”
“I don’t feel like it right now. I need to take off my dress first, and then I’ll need to think about repeating it.”
“Are you being difficult with me on purpose, Claire?” He reached behind me and brushed his fingers against the zipper of my dress. “Say. It. Again.”
“After I take my dress off.”
“Your dress isn’t coming off.” He unbuckled his pants and pressed his erection against my thigh.
“Why not?”
He reached underneath my dress and felt around for my panties, smiling when he didn’t find any. “Because I’m going to make love to you while you’re wearing it, and I’m not going to stop until it falls off.” He traced my jawline with fingertips. “And because it always takes you half an hour to get undressed, and I’ve waited long enough.” He picked me up and carried me into the bedroom, gently laying me on the bed.
He slid his shirt over his head and stepped out of his pants. Then he slowly moved on top of me. “Now, you know how I feel about repeating myself. That hasn’t changed since you left me, so I’m going to give you one last chance to—”
“I love you, Jonathan.”
He smiled as he bent down and gently traced my lips with his tongue. “I love you too, Claire.”
I opened my eyes and smiled at Jonathan. I was curled up against him in a huge Jacuzzi, relaxing as his hands lathered shampoo into my hair.
I was sure we’d broken the world record for the number of times we’d had sex tonight, and if we hadn’t, I was sure that we would break it tomorrow.
I sighed as he poured a wooden ladle over my head to rinse out my hair. He was careful not to let the suds fall anywhere near my eyes, scooping just enough water that the soap fell down my back.
“I need you to promise me something, Claire.” He kissed the back of my neck.
“What is it?”
“That you’ll never leave me again. Once was more than enough.”
“I promise.”
“Good...” He set the ladle on the ledge. “Because if you go back on your word and even attempt to leave me again, I guarantee I won’t let you stay away for three fucking months. You’ll be lucky if you get away for three minutes.”
“Have I ever told you how romantic you are?”
“It’s part of my appeal.”
I smiled. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“Are you and your mother okay now?”
He stilled. “We haven’t been with each other in forever and you care about the person who pulled us apart?”
I nodded.
“We’re okay,” he said, sighing. “I’m paying for her to get one on one counseling and we see each other once a week over lunch. Maybe with time we’ll do more, but that’s all I can handle right now. I don’t appreciate the way she treated you, and it’ll take me a while to get over that.”
My heart swelled. “I was just wondering...”
“I really would’ve believed you.” He gripped my hips and swiveled me around so I was facing him, straddling his lap. “You should’ve told me and all this never would’ve happened.”
“I know...”
“Don’t keep anything like that from me again. We’re not supposed to have boundaries, remember?” He kissed my lips and I nodded.
He picked up a loofah from the side of the tub and brushed it against my arms. He massaged my wrists and brought my right hand up to his face.
“How did this happen?” He circled a purple bruise with his thumb.
“I was running on the bridge one night and I slipped over some glass on the sidewalk. I used my wrist to brace the fall and nearly broke it on the way down. I had cuts everywhere.”
His jaw tensed. “When was this?”
“It was three or four weeks ago. Strangest thing though: As soon as I fell, these two guys came out of nowhere and bandaged all my cuts up. They even carried me back to my car...They said they were EMTs out on a late night jog and always carried their backpacks just in case something like that happened...Crazy coincidence, huh?”
“Extremely crazy.” The muscles in his face relaxed and he washed me until I was clean. “Your turn, sweetheart.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. I reached over to grab another loofah and saw a thick ring band on the ledge. It was silver and it had the engravings of all the same charms I had in the necklace he’d given me—even the white and red flags. The only difference was that the entwined “M” and “L” were repeated twice and our names were etched in tiny cursive within each letter.
“You had a ring made to match my charm necklace?”
He nodded. “I was going to show it to you the day you left me...I wanted us to open our boxes together.”
“Hmmm.” I ran the loofah against his chest. “What do the “M” and the “L” stand for?”
“I never said anything about that to you before?”
“No...” I shook my head.
“Well, guess.”
“My love?”
“No.” He kissed my shoulder.
“Mid-life?”
“No.”
“Mid-life love?”
“Mid-life love?” He raised his eyebrow. “You think I would honestly give you something that stood for that?”
“No, but...” I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything else. “Tell me what it means then...”
He sighed and took the loofah away from me. He pulled me against his chest and kissed my hair, running his fingertips against my lips. “My last.”
The End
BOOK TWO: MID LIFE LOVE, AT LAST
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Whitney Gracia Williams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.
Cover design by Najla Qambers of Najla Qambers Designs
Formatting by Erik Gevers
For the readers who wanted more..
Author’s Note:
About that ‘Mid Life Love’ Epilogue...
Before you begin to read this book, let me first say THANK YOU for reading the book that came before it: Mid Life Love. As I was editing that book with my beta team, there was a collective decision to leave out the epilogue.
I know a lot of you didn’t agree with the final decision, and for that reason I posted it on Two Crazy Girls with a Passion for Books blog shortly after publication.
I want you to know that I’ve included the polished, edited version of the epilogue at the beginning of this book for anyone who hasn’t read it, and I truly hope you enjoy Mid Life Love: At Last as much as you enjoyed Mid Life Love.
Thank you for being the best readers in the world,
Whit
Mid Life Love Epilogue
Eight months later...
Claire
“I need three hundred of those granite tiles here by tomorrow afternoon. Can you make sure that happens? Oh, and could you see if those doorknobs I designed for Mulholland were approved yet? Okay. Thank you very much.” I hung up the phone and swiveled around in my chair, smiling at the red and white entwined “C” letters that hung over my door.
I was sitting in my office at C & C’s Charming Designs, my own interior design company. I’d quit my job at Signature weeks after Jonathan and I got back together, after he demanded that I accept his money and start my own company.
Business was extremely slow at first—especially since he kept showing up in the middle of the day and preventing me from getting anything done. But after four months, I started to pick up more clients, and word of my services spread like wildfire.
I now had a six month waiting list for design projects, and I was in the process of expanding my store to include small home furnishings.
I adjusted the picture frames that were standing proudly on my desk: Jonathan and me smiling on his favorite yacht. He and my daughters jumping into the ocean. And the most recent one—him kissing me onstage after receiving another prestigious award.
“Miss Gracen?” My secretary buzzed my office. “I’m off to lunch, and your twelve o’clock is upfront waiting.”
“Tell the client I’ll be right there.” I slipped into my jacket and headed down the hallway. Since I’d picked up so many clients, I was never able to get more than five minutes alone.
“Caroline?” I walked around the front desk. “I told you that you and Ashley don’t need to make appointments to see me. You could’ve just called.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “You practically live here.”
I shook my head. “What do you want?”
“I need thirty dollars.”
“Excuse me?”
“Actually, I need fifty dollars. Ashley does too, but thirty each will do.”
“Did the airport stop giving out paychecks all of a sudden? Where is your money?”
“What’s going on?” Ashley walked into the store and stood next to her sister, not even glancing my way. “Did she give you the money yet?”
“No.” Caroline sighed. “She still thinks we save money from our jobs...”
“How do the two of you expect to go to college this fall without knowing how to save money?” I was tired of going over this with them. “Do you think it grows on trees? Do you think it falls out of the sky whenever you need it?”
“So, she’s not going to give us the money?” “I think that’s what she’s saying.” “Did you tell her it was for summer-senior-night and everyone who’s anyone is going to be there?” “No, I just asked for the money. I didn’t think I needed to explain why.”
I sighed and prepared to re-start my lecture, but Jonathan walked in with a large bouquet of bright pink roses. “Good afternoon, ladies.” He looked at me and then he looked back and forth between Ashley and Caroline.
“Good afternoon,” they said in unison.
“Can we have fifty dollars—each?” Ashley smiled at him.
“Of course.” He pulled out his wallet and handed them both a hundred dollar bill. Just like that.
“Why don’t we just do that every time?” “I don’t know...Maybe we like the challenge?” They laughed and rushed outside.
I watched as they climbed into two separate white Range Rovers—Jonathan’s ridiculously over-the-top birthday gift to them.
“You have to stop doing that.” I took the flowers from him.
“Doing what?”
“Giving them money whenever they ask for it.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t need it. And they’ll never learn how to save their own.”
“They make nine dollars an hour and they work fifteen hours a week. How much do you honestly expect them to save?”
“I give up.” I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for the flowers—and for the ones you sent this morning. You know, we’ve been together for a while now...You don’t have to keep sending me flowers every day. I’m sure the cost has to be adding up and I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that.”
“Shhh.” He kissed me, making me forget whatever I was going to say. “How’s your day going?”
“It’s okay. It’s been a bit busy.”
&nbs
p; “It doesn’t look busy...” He looked around the empty store.
“It is.”
“Where’s your secretary?”
“On break. Why?”
He smiled and pulled me closer. “No reason.”
I saw the familiar ‘I’m-about-to-pull-you-down-to-the-ground’ look in his eyes and immediately stepped back, rushing behind the counter.
He laughed and moved close to the counter’s edge—ready to join me, but I hit a button that made a clear panel drop down from the ceiling, completely blocking his way.
He raised his eyebrow. “What the hell is this?”
“This is what I had the engineer build for me last week, after you interrupted a very important meeting with your distracting sex and cost me two hours’ worth of design time.”
“You think I’m a distraction?”
“You are a distraction. And you have your own company to run—one worth billions last time I checked, so I would appreciate it if—”
“You had this built to keep me from coming behind the counter?” He pressed his hand against the glass. “To keep me out of your office?”
“Clearly. And it seems to be working.”
“It’s very cute,” he said. “You always amaze me with your sense of creativity.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a key. Then he slid that key into the panel’s hole and pushed the door open.
What the...
“You are aware that I run a background check on any man that comes near you, right?”
I blinked.
“The second you told me you were having more construction done,” he said as he pushed the door shut and walked over to me. “I made sure the company and the engineer knew exactly who they were dealing with. And I demanded to have extra keys to any locks you might attempt to install.”
“Why do you always do this?”
“How long is your secretary’s break?” He pushed me against the wall.
“Jonathan...” I tried to ignore the look in his eyes. “I really need to get some work done. You can’t show up every day...”
Mid Life Love: Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 & 2 ) Page 41