There was just enough moonlight to bounce dully off the shiny door handle, and once she had slid inside the driver's seat she automatically relocked the door and fitted the key to the ignition. She took one last look in the direction of Caidwater. By craning her neck, she could see the rooflines of the second and third stories.
Steeling her heart, she shifted around and twisted the key.
Chug-chug-chug buzz.
The engine didn't immediately come to life.
Chug-chug-chug buzz.
Not the second time either.
Jilly swallowed a small bubble of panic. The darn thing just couldn't pick now to go kaput. She'd walk all the way home before she'd go back to Rory's party and his shattered dreams.
Chug-buzz. She cursed in an unladylike way.
Thump.
The loud noise on the driver's door startled her. Jilly swung around to stare at a figure outside her window. Recognizing him, she cursed.
It was Rory.
She didn't want to see him, hear him, know anything about what had transpired after she'd left him and her grandmother alone. She didn't want to see or hear his anger and disappointment.
"Jilly!" His voice was muffled. Thump. His palms slamming against her window were not. "Open up!"
In response, she turned the key. Chug-buzz-chug. More foul language.
"Jilly, I need to talk to you!" Thump, thump.
She twisted the key again, her heartbeat frantic. She was the star of one of those low-budget, teen horror movies where the one-armed hockey player tries to get at the incredibly stupid and incredibly underdressed ingenue with his hook.
Buzz.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Buzzzzzzzzzzz. Okay, so the car wasn't going to start. Breathing raggedly, Jilly forced herself to accept the idea. With a death grip on the steering wheel, she stared straight ahead. Maybe if she pretended Rory wasn't there, he would go away.
Instead, he leaned over the side of the car and his face loomed in front of her through the windshield. "Open up!"
Startled again, she squeezed the steering wheel and threw herself back against her seat. She also muttered several more bad words.
And then she rolled down her window. An inch. "Go away."
He braced his hands on the roof of the car. "Get the hell out of there," he ordered. "I want to talk to you."
She didn't like his commanding tone. Her head ached, her heart ached, her feet were jammed into a pair of satin high heels apparently made for a woman without toes. Her car wouldn't start, the jewel in her belly button was itching, and the man who had just destroyed his own dream on her behalf was looking at her like a serial killer with strangulation on his mind.
She hadn't asked for him to stand up for her, darn it, and she hadn't wanted him to. Suddenly all the emotions of the evening—of the past weeks!—sadness, anxiety, vulnerability, boiled into an unexpected and white-hot anger.
So he wanted to talk with her. Well, maybe the person who had a few things to say was she herself.
With a wild flick of her wrist, Jilly unlocked the door and threw it open, almost catching him in the belly. Then she stepped out of the car and shoved the door shut. Moving back, he stared at her, apparently surprised by her sudden capitulation.
She stalked him then, taking one long stride for each of his wary steps back. He retreated in a full circle until she finally had him backed up against the driver's side of her car. Her finger poked his chest. "Why?" she said. "Why did you mess it all up?"
That funny expression, half tender, half bemused, replaced the frustration on his face. "I don't think I messed it up. I think I finally got it right," he said mildly.
Jilly blinked. "But you ruined everything. My grandmother will—" She broke off, then brightened as a new thought occurred to her. "Did you placate her somehow? Did you come up with some story to cover…"
He was shaking his head. "I told her the truth."
That panic bubble rose in her throat again and she swallowed, hard, to bring it back down. "Maybe if I talk to Uncle Fitz…"
He was shaking his head some more. "No, Jilly. I don't want what the senator has to offer."
Jilly could feel herself trembling. "Well, of course you do. I'm sure you've always wanted to be—"
He put his hand over her mouth. "You were right before. I didn't really want to be a senator, or hold any kind of political office. Though I might not have been half bad at it, I realize now that the idea only appealed to me because the way the Blue Party wants to change Washington is just the way I wanted to change the Kincaid name. I wanted to be respected. I wanted people to hear 'Kincaid' and not automatically think of shocking scandals and tabloid headlines."
Beneath his hand, Jilly grimaced. Then mumbled.
He took his hand away. "What did you say?"
"I said that what you did tonight won't help at all with changing the Kincaid image. Grandmother won't keep quiet about a fake engagement."
The corners of his mouth lifted in a little smile. "I don't know. It might not turn out as bad as you think."
Jilly was certain it was going to turn out exactly as bad as she thought. "Oh, Rory." Her shoulders slumped.
He smiled again. "Oh, Jilly," he echoed. "If I'd kept quiet and gone through with all of this, the respect of other people would have come at the price of my self-respect."
He draped his arms lightly over her shoulders. "I wasn't willing to do that. I couldn't let you compromise your spirit or your heart. The Blue Party isn't worth that to me. Especially when I realized that I want both of them, as is, to be mine."
She pretended she hadn't heard that last line, because surely, surely she was misinterpreting him. She also pretended not to notice the light embrace and hoped he would think the goose bumps rushing down her arms were from the night chill. "No. You could have had both. The candidacy, your self-respect. If you'd just kept your mouth shut around my grandmother."
"Nah, I told you I couldn't do that. Not once I heard you say you loved me."
Her mouth going dry, Jilly stiffened. "I didn't say that."
"Yeah, you did."
She shook her head frantically. "No. No. No." Deny, deny, deny. Never give him the chance to have the upper hand. Hadn't everything that happened with her grandmother tonight just reinforced that? "I didn't say it," she repeated.
He nodded. "Yeah. You did."
"No," she said firmly. "I did not name names."
He sighed, and that serial-murderer-considering-strangulation expression tightened the muscles of his face. "Who the hell else would you be in love with?"
She said the first name that popped into her head. "Greg."
He sighed once more. "My condolences, then."
"What?" Her brows came together. "Why?"
"Because that puts you at the bottom of a long list of women in his life."
"So?" she blustered.
He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "First, there's his wife."
"I—" Jilly stopped herself from saying "know" and replaced it with an innocent "Oh?"
"And then there's his daughter."
"Oh?" She blinked. "Oh?" She blinked again. "His daughter, you said?"
Rory nodded. "Iris." His hands found their way under her hair and stroked the nape of her neck. "It was the first right thing I did tonight. I made a promise to Greg and Kim that the three of them would be a family. Your grandmother gave me the chills, by the way. Thank God you and Greg made me see Iris not as a responsibility, but as a little girl to be loved."
Jilly stared. "Y-you gave up Iris?"
He grinned. "And the Blue Party candidacy, too."
"But you're smiling … no, grinning," she felt compelled to point out.
"I know," he said. "It's the damnedest thing, but the moment I told your grandmother about our sham, the moment I waved bye-bye to being senator, this black cloud that's been hovering over my head just … dissolved."
His hands slid to her shoulders and he gave her a tiny shake.
"So give me something else to smile about, Jilly. Tell me you love me."
Oh, no.
She took a step back, but his embrace tightened. She looked up at him, at that exotic handsomeness that had fueled a thousand fantasies and probably would for the rest of her life. But to say she loved him. To his face. To let him know he had that power over her. No, no, no.
She trembled.
He must have felt her fear. "Oh, Jilly." His voice hoarsened. "I didn't grow up with love. I didn't go looking for it either. But you infiltrated my life and brought so much brightness, sweetness, and yes, chaos, I know I'll never be the same. I don't want to be the same."
Staring at him, Jilly thought she'd fallen into a fantasy again. But there wasn't a white robe or a sand dune in sight. It couldn't be, it wasn't possible, that he truly wanted her? But there was a look in his eyes, a look all at once sweet and surprised and tender and bemused, and her heart seemed to know what it meant.
"I don't understand," she whispered, not quite sure she was ready to believe the goofy, mushy thing in her chest that was beating so hard Rory must be able to hear it.
He drew her close, but she remained stiff and afraid. "Yes, you do. God, Jilly, I've resisted long enough for both of us. Please say it."
And give up her independence? Give up her autonomy? Let another strong, autocratic person have sway over her?
But then the truth hit her. He was offering her something she'd longed for all her life. Love. And it was going to take letting go of the past to have both hands free to hold onto it. Did she have the courage?
After another moment, she leaned back in his arms, looking into his eyes. "You first."
Being brave didn't mean being stupid. His mouth twitched, but then he cupped her face in his hands. The moonlight gilded him, making him something real yet something magical all at once. "I love you, Jilly," Rory said. "I want you to be my wife. My one and only and forever Kincaid wife."
Her heart stuttered in utter, ecstatic Snoopy-dance happiness. It was true? It was true. Someone loved her. Rory loved her. He wanted her to be his wife. "You do?"
"I do." His lips twitched again. "Now out with it."
"Wait a minute." She pursed her lips, still trying to figure it all out. "If our sham engagement turns into a true engagement, does that mean—"
"That I run for senator? No. That you still have to fess up? Yes." He ran his thumb over her lower lip. "Now talk, woman."
"I—"
Boom. A deafening explosion sounded, and then a shower of red burst in the sky. Boom. Red. Boom. White.
Stunned, Jilly tilted her head back as more fireworks exploded. Boom boom boom. Man-made stars peppered the sky, then trailed white fire toward earth.
She glanced at Rory, but he was looking up, too, and the noise was so loud he wouldn't hear her questions over it.
Boom. Pop pop pop pop. Boom. Boom. Boom. Blue. Blue blue blue blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. The dark sky went bright with sparkly mushrooms and stars.
And just as the echoes from that died away, a loud hiss entered the air. Jilly gasped.
Then pointed over Rory's shoulder.
Without letting go of her, he turned his head to look back at the house. All along the rooflines of the second and third stories, sparklers burst into flame, sparklers in the shape of four huge letters. The letters of a name that crawled across the Caidwater mansion, over and over and over.
RORY RORY RORY RORY RORY RORY
He hung his head, then looked back up at her, sighing. "Ah, shit. The fireworks were supposed to happen after I announced my candidacy. Someone must have jumped the gun."
Oops. Jilly remembered the man she'd run into with the non-functioning cell phone. Well. Maybe she'd tell Rory about that another day. Because right now she had something much more important to talk about.
"I do love you," she said. He'd given up that RORY RORY RORY for her. And all she had to offer in return was her heart.
The light of a million RORYs was in his eyes as he gazed at her. "What did you say?"
"I love you." He bent toward her, but she held him away with a hand on his chest. "Are you sure, though? Are you sure you don't belong there, back at the house, with them?"
"I belong with you. You make me crazy. You make me laugh. And I think with your help I might be able to find a heart inside me after all."
Jilly grimaced. "Sorry about that."
"I'm not. You were right. I'm just sorry that I took so long to start looking for it." He bent his head and kissed her, tender and sweet, and then his tongue swept across her lips and she opened her mouth for a deeper kiss. They groaned together.
Jilly tightened her fingers on his solid, very real strength. It wasn't the sheik and the slave girl, Jilly mused, somewhat dizzy. The final, healing, make-her-whole truth was that they were equals in this state called love. They were the sheik and the sheik-ess. The sheik and the sheik-ster. The sheik and the sheik-wife.
Something like that.
She pressed her body closer to Rory's and wrapped her arms around his neck. She'd figure it out later. Right now there were fireworks of her own she wanted to dazzle him with.
And the certainty that she'd never be lonely again to savor.
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
The last lavish Kincaid party at the Caidwater estate took place on the first Saturday in June. Standing on the terrace between two massive arrangements of flowers, Rory breathed in the sweet scent of orange blossoms—Jilly shunned roses—and breathed out a deep sigh of satisfaction. The vows had been said, his ring was on her finger, the minister had pronounced them man and wife.
She was bound to him forever.
Of course, Jilly being Jilly, that didn't mean he could keep perfect track of her. For some reason he couldn't fathom, he was standing alone at his own wedding reception while Kim was tasked with tracking down his bride so the wedding photographer could have at them for one final round.
But it wasn't so unpleasant to wait under the warm afternoon sun. Dove calls, mockingbird whistles, and the chatter of the wedding guests harmonized with the endless splash of the eight Caidwater fountains. The estate would be someone else's soon. Rory suspected its legends would live on, though, even with Kincaids living elsewhere. But they wouldn't be far.
Not when Jilly's business continued to thrive and they both wanted to be near Greg, Kim, and Iris. Rory even found himself with an appreciation of L.A. these days. Like Jilly, it was warm, bright, and free-spirited. A combination pretty damn hard to dislike, especially when he'd uncovered its loyal, generous heart.
Another few minutes passed, and he entertained himself by playing mental matchmaker with the eclectic and eccentric mix of wedding guests. Politico Charlie Jax with Aura, naturally. At this moment she had him by the champagne fountain and was studying his hand again. The experienced campaigner had yet to figure out she was snookering him with her palm-reading prowess.
The FreeWest Pilates instructor, Ina, he paired with Senator Fitzpatrick. The long-widowered man needed a woman in particularly good shape to keep up with him. Rory hadn't been the least surprised when the senator had decided to run on the Blue Party ticket himself. The pollsters were predicting a landslide win. Jilly said that Uncle Fitz had confessed to her he was relieved not to find himself facing retirement.
As for Rory, after some reflection, he realized he did actually like the idea of public service. But he was finding ways to make a difference through the private sector. He was armpit-deep in details as the new head of an organization that would create technology centers in low-income housing areas. He had contacts, favors to call in, and money, and he was determined to do something worthwhile with all of these assets. But he no longer needed the respect of anyone but his family and himself.
His gaze moving over the crowd again, he smiled as a group of FreeWesters broke into laughter. Jilly's friends were his now, too, and their exuberant, offbeat views of life kept him amused and on his toes. He liked them al
l. Well, to be honest, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with the gender-unspecific, American-flag-toothed salesclerk at French Letters, but everyone needed something to improve upon.
A stealthy movement nearby caught his attention, and he glanced down to catch Iris trying to sneak behind him. She'd played flower girl at the wedding, and in her old-fashioned lacy dress, button shoes, and straw boater, she looked the picture of innocence. Which was why he narrowed his eyes and snagged the wrist she was hiding behind her back.
Without a word, he pried her clenched fingers open to free a bright green grasshopper that, recognizing liberation when he saw it, immediately hopped away. Rory raised one brow. "Were you going to do something with that?"
She tried pouting, but then broke into a grin. "It was going down your pants."
He made his expression fierce. "Is that any way to treat your uncle?"
"You're my nephew."
"Your father is my brother. You're my niece."
Iris shook her head. "Nephew."
He nodded his. "Niece."
"Aunt," she corrected.
"Uncle."
"You're giving up?" she crowed.
"No! What I meant was, I'm your—" Then he did give up as she cackled at him again and danced away.
"Brat!" he called out. She went right on laughing. And probably went right back to looking for another grasshopper to torture him with.
He shook his head, thanking God that all that troublemaking was his brother's headache for the next fourteen years and not his. Jilly had been right—Iris had terrified him at first—but they'd reached a truce months ago. They continued to act out these little skirmishes purely for their own amusement. Rory could even see himself as a pretty good father one day.
But there was a lot of honeymooning to do first. Speaking of which—ah. Jilly was finally coming toward him through the crowd. His heart lurched—actually lurched in his chest—at the sight of her.
God, he loved her. When he'd overheard her tell her grandmother her feelings for him, when he'd realized that her spirit and her joy could be his, the world had righted itself. And even though it had been night time, the sun had come out in the light of the fireworks that were supposed to punctuate an ambition, but instead celebrated love.
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