‘That might be a happy ending for the “I Love You Girl”,’ I went on right over the top of him. ‘But I’m not the “I Love You Girl” any more, and that’s not the happy ending I want for me.’ A helpless tear slid down my cheek, ruining my make-up, but I didn’t care. I didn’t wipe it away. ‘Not when my happy ending has you in it.’
Gold flared in his eyes, bright and sharp.
Then it died.
‘That’s the one thing I can’t give you, Vita. And you know why. It’s a chemical reaction, that’s what you told me and you’re right. That’s all it is.’
My heart squeezed tight in anguish. I’d thought I was so smart to tell him that, being the scientist and taking emotion out of it, reducing everything to a simple chemical reaction.
But it was so much more than that.
Suddenly I was angry—angrier than I’d ever been in my entire life. ‘And I was wrong. You know what else I know? I know you’re letting your past stop you from having what you really want. I know you think you don’t deserve it. And I know you didn’t listen when I told you that you do, that you deserve everything.’ My knuckles were white where they clutched my bouquet and my chest was full of hot stones. ‘I know you’re nothing but a bloody coward.’
‘Vita—’
But I’d had enough.
I leaned forward, looking him in the eye. ‘I’m sick of men choosing my story for me. So today I’m choosing for myself. I’m not going home. I’m getting out of this car and I’m walking up that damn aisle. And if you decide not to be there too then that’s fine. That’s your choice. But if you don’t come, you’re not the man I thought you were.’
There were tears on my cheeks but I didn’t care.
I turned and pushed open the door.
Then I got out and went up the church steps without looking back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Leon
I WATCHED VITA walk up the steps to the church in her ivory gown with her hair full of flowers, feeling like she’d gouged a great hole in my chest.
She wasn’t wrong. It was all chemicals and soon those would burn out and what would she be left with?
A coward. A weak, useless piece of shit.
I was lead, not gold, didn’t she know that? Didn’t she understand?
A few days earlier, the night I’d taken her so hard on the seat of the limo, I’d been certain that ending our affair would be the right thing to do. She was getting under my guard, becoming a weakness I couldn’t afford, a crack in my already badly patched armour.
Then, to make matters worse, she’d told me that she wanted me. That she needed me. Only me, no one else. And I hadn’t been able to refuse her. Even though every damn threat sense I had was going haywire, telling me I had to protect myself because she was stealing my control, sapping my power.
Xander had been right that night in the nightclub. Women were dangerous and Vita Hamilton was the most dangerous one of all.
But no one had needed me before. My brothers all had their own problems and my mother had died long ago. And Dad, well, he’d left me to Thompson, which showed you how much he cared.
So I’d given her those last few days before the wedding, but that was all.
I had nothing else to give her.
You’re just protecting yourself.
Yeah, because who else would do it? The only person I could trust to look after myself was me. And if that made me a coward then, fuck, I’d be a coward.
I leaned back against the seat, ignoring the pain, knowing I was right and yet for some reason not feeling it.
I couldn’t marry her because I knew myself too well. Once I put that ring on her finger I’d never let her go. And how could I do that when she hadn’t wanted to marry me in the first place?
So I’d come up with an alternative, a way to get her everything she wanted. The perfect way for the ‘I Love You Girl’ to get her happy ending—her jilting me. Wasn’t that the best revenge?
Except she hadn’t wanted that after all.
‘My happy ending has you in it.’
My jaw ached, every muscle in my body pulled tight.
How could that be true? How could a man who’d blackmailed her into marrying him then seduced her, then made her care only to shut her out, ever deserve a woman like her? A man whose own father hadn’t thought him worth rescuing from torture?
No, she deserved better than that.
It felt like someone was standing on my chest and I had to open the window to get some goddamn air.
My phone buzzed and I fumbled in my pocket for it, looking down to see what it was. A text from Ajax.
Where the fuck are you?
I hadn’t told my brothers that I wouldn’t be at the wedding or that I’d be leaving. I hadn’t told them anything at all.
‘I know you’re nothing but a bloody coward.’
She saw me. She saw right the fuck through me. Even from the first moment we’d met, she’d known what I’d always been.
I was a coward. I’d been terrified of the life I’d been born into and my father knew it. That was why he hadn’t come for me. Because he’d always hated cowards.
Not bothering to reply to Ajax’s text, I reflexively opened the video app to watch yet again the video she’d entrusted to me and that I hadn’t deleted, because I was a prick.
The video of her on her knees in front of me, ready to blow me.
I’d watched it obsessively all morning without knowing why, because it wasn’t that it got me hard, though it did.
It was because of the way she was looking at me. As if I was the only thing worth looking at in her entire world.
It had been that look in her eyes that had caught me the first time I’d watched her Internet video and it caught me now. And she was still looking at some prick who didn’t deserve her.
Except now that prick was me.
‘You’re not the man I thought you were.’
I wasn’t. I never had been.
But you could be.
The thought hit me like a bullet to the chest, an explosion of force and then a shattering pain. I couldn’t be that man. Could I?
Depends on how much she matters to you, doesn’t it?
I felt like I was balanced on the edge of a cliff and any movement would send me over into a chasm.
What kind of man did she think I was? She’d told me once that my father should have come for me, should have protected me and I’d ignored that. Then she’d said that I deserved to have what I wanted and I’d discounted that.
I hadn’t listened to her. I hadn’t believed her.
But she believed. She was inside that church, in front of all those people, waiting because she believed. Putting herself at risk of public shame and humiliation for the second time in her life. For me.
She was doing that for me.
For some insane reason, despite the betrayals she’d endured in her past, she believed in me.
It was her choice and one she hadn’t been forced into. A choice she’d made for the woman she was now, the brave, passionate chemist. A choice for the future.
‘I know you’re letting your past stop you from having what you really want. I know you think you don’t deserve it...’
She was right—I didn’t deserve it. But she believed I was something more than my past and who was I to prove her wrong?
How could I let her stand up in front of that crowded church and face all those people alone?
It flooded through me then, through the hole in my armour, bursting that badly patched crack wide open, washing all my careful defences away.
She mattered. She mattered so fucking much it hurt.
No, I didn’t deserve her. But I could try, couldn’t I?
All I’d wanted was a fresh start. Well, maybe that fresh start was waiting in t
he church for me all dressed in white.
Maybe my fresh start was Vita.
My heart was beating like a drum, my palms sweaty, every danger sense I had telling me that this was a risk I couldn’t afford to take.
I ignored it.
I put my phone away and I got out of the car.
I walked up those steps and into the church.
The whisper of restless people hit me immediately, shifting in their seats and murmuring to each other.
But it wasn’t them I looked at. It was Vita, standing at the altar with her head high, clutching her bouquet.
Alone.
As I walked in she saw me and then she went very, very still.
I began to walk down the aisle, a shocked silence following in my wake and by the time I reached the altar you could have heard a pin drop.
Not that I was listening. There was only one person I was aware of.
She stared at me, her dark eyes liquid, stars glittering deep in them. ‘You’re here,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’ I reached for her and pulled her into my arms. ‘Because, Vita Hamilton, I love you.’
I kissed her then, in front of the crowd, in front of everyone, and afterwards she whispered into my ear, ‘I thought you didn’t care.’
‘I was wrong,’ I whispered back. ‘And you were right. I was a coward. I was afraid I couldn’t be who you wanted me to be. But I’m here to try, Vita. You believed in me and I want to be the man you believe in.’
She turned her head, brushing my jaw with her mouth. ‘You don’t need to try, idiot. You already are that man.’
My heart slammed hard against my breastbone and I wanted to be alone with her. No clothes. No defences. Just us. Together.
But we were in front of a whole crowd of people and there was a marriage ceremony to get through.
She pulled back and looked up at me. ‘Is it real, Leon?’ she asked quietly. ‘Or is this all for the “I Love You Girl”?’
I met her gaze and let her see the truth. ‘This is real. You can have your happy ending if you want it.’
That crease between her brows appeared. ‘But...do you want it?’
I gave her the honesty I should have weeks ago. And it wasn’t spurious this time. ‘I’ve never wanted anything more in all my life. You have my heart, vixen. Can I trust you with it?’
Her smile set me on fire. Then she took my hand and turned to the vicar, who was still waiting, and gave me my answer.
‘You can marry us now,’ she said.
And he did.
EPILOGUE
Leon
I BARELY GOT through the ceremony, let alone the reception, and I only lasted until we cut the cake then I dragged my new wife off to my Darling Point mansion and I didn’t let her leave.
Two days later I left the country, taking her with me.
But not for good. We had a last-minute honeymoon to get to in Greece and I didn’t want to miss a second.
‘Some chemical reaction,’ she said, holding my hand as we took off. ‘I should have known that theory wouldn’t stand up to any scientific testing.’
‘There’s more to life than chemicals, my little scientist.’ I kissed her hand. ‘For example, have you joined the mile-high club yet? I’d be happy to help you with your admission.’
Her smile was the private kind, the one that was mine and mine alone.
There was more to life than chemicals. There was love.
There was her.
Vita. It was Latin for life. And that too was appropriate because that was what she was. My beautiful new life.
* * *
If you loved Leon King, look out for Xander and Ajax’s stories, King’s Rule and King’s Ransom in Jackie Ashenden’s The Kings of Sydney miniseries, coming soon from Harlequin Dare.
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Look at Me
by Cara Lockwood
CHAPTER ONE
CHLOE PARK STARED at her laptop as she sat at her kitchen table in her roomy north Chicago condo. She fanned her face, desperately trying to get a breeze from her open window. Outside, the June heat pushed the temperature up beyond eighty-five degrees and the noon sun beat mercilessly down on her brick building. Soon, she’d have to break down and call someone to repair her AC, but not yet. Not with her bank account hovering near zero until the end of the week when she expected the arrival of her next freelance check. Chloe tried once more to focus on a work email, but the high-pitched squeal of a truck’s old brakes drifting in through her open window broke
her concentration. She tried to ignore it, focusing on her screen and the last few sentences she’d need to write before she could hit Send. Then came the sound of metal clanging against metal.
“Really?” she asked her apartment, feeling as though everyone were conspiring against her to get no work done. She had at least five client social media accounts to update and a proposal to send out to a new corporate client who needed freelance social media updates now. But she couldn’t focus on any of that. Chloe abandoned the email, frustrated, as she swiped a bit of sweat from her brow. This heat! Ugh. She hated it. And the noise outside didn’t help, but she also knew if she closed that window her condo would turn into a brick oven. The clanging was replaced by the voices of men, made louder by the echo effect of the small alley.
She lived in a small building of just five units, each stacked on top of the other in an old factory renovated for condos but originally built in the 1920s. She lived at the top of their building, on floor four, in between an office building to the south and to the north a condo building that was being gutted and repurposed.
Unable to resist any longer, she grabbed the can of Coke from her table and went to her window, glancing out to see a small white moving truck in the alley beneath it, and one mover who struggled to slide a heavy metal ramp out from the open back.
New neighbor? she wondered, and immediately knew which one. Had to be the building across the street, the one she’d seen construction crews head in and out of as they gutted it and redesigned the three-flat. The building was made of solid brick with a faint Herron and Co. logo on the side. No windows faced her, except three on the top floor and a single lone window on the second. Those had been the old offices of the executives running the company. She heard it had once been a cold storage facility back in the early 1900s. This explained the garage doors below narrow enough to fit the horse-drawn carriages that came to pick up deliveries, and the first floor, which was entirely bricked in. Someone told her a condo owner decided to renovate the fourth floor back in the 1980s, adding in windows that looked out on the alley between them. Still, the old icehouse was one of many reasons she loved Chicago, where new lived beside old, modern beside antique and old buildings like this one found new life.
King's Price Page 17