Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  He had to smile. It was going to be all right. “You could kiss me.”

  “Oh!” She laughed, joyous as the sun coming up over the mountains, put her arms around his waist, and did it. He held her—gently, because it had only been three weeks since she’d cracked those ribs—and kissed her back, and got that same dizzying sensation he’d felt on the first day he’d seen her, on the beach with her sparkly surfboard. Rainbows and unicorns, and all the light in the world.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he told her. “I missed you, that’s all. Can I come in?”

  “Oh,” she said again, then smiled. Hugely. “Yeah, mate. You can. But . . . I might have some explaining to do.”

  “That’s perfect,” he said, “because so do I.”

  He didn’t get too far. Her apartment was a war zone, full of cardboard cartons and stacks of possessions. No more bird photos on the wall. Half-packed boxes of dishes, of pots and pans, a coffeemaker, a blender, a stand mixer, books and clothes, all on the floor. He looked around him and asked, “Are you moving? Did Azra find another place, then, now that her work visa came through?” She was still in New Zealand, but coming home within days.

  “Yeah, I am. And no, about Azra. Do you want to sit down?”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” She laughed again, nervously this time, looked past him, and tugged at her hair, loosening the knot. “I was going to work on this speech on my way across the ocean. Twenty hours. That might’ve been long enough.”

  His body was filling up like that balloon. In another minute, he was going to float away. “Don’t worry about the speech. Tell me now.”

  “I’m having a wee . . . sale. Of my things. Because I missed you too much.” She looked at him at last. “I thought . . . maybe I could stop making you do all the running. Maybe I could tell you that I love you, and I miss you, and I want to . . . be with you.” She heaved a ragged breath in, then let it out in something he’d swear was a sob.

  She’d never cried. Not on her way to the hospital after she’d fallen from a balloon, not when she’d thought her business might go under, not when she’d told him about her parents. But she was crying now. Her nose was turning pink, and her cheeks were blotchy. She put the back of her hand up, wiped away the tears, and tried to laugh. “If you love somebody, and you’ve both waited too long for it, you should be together, shouldn’t you? You should get some bloody guts, show some faith, and try.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You should.” He wasn’t sure he could say the rest of this. On the other hand, if she could do it, so could he. “This wasn’t what I planned. None of it leading up to today, and not what I’d planned for today, either.” He laughed. “You’re confused. Right. I’m starting over. I researched romantic locations, but all the ideas were terrible. Beach at sunset. Nope. Helicopter ride. Bad idea right now. Kayaking out to a beautiful island, landing on a deserted beach. No, thanks. Going dancing, asking the DJ to play your favorite song, then stopping it in the middle, when we’re out there on the dance floor. That was all right, except that you have cracked ribs. Hot-air balloon ride. That one was the worst.” He started to laugh for real, and she stopped crying. He thought she might have stopped breathing. “So, anyway, I thought . . .” He pulled the box out of his pocket. “I thought—I’d just go for it. Shoot the moon. I was going to have Dave take us for a drive, out to the house. I bought it. I thought—go with what you’re good at.”

  “And you’re good at buying houses. But—mate. I just sold my best roasting pan.”

  “I’ll buy you a new one. Besides, the house is going to appreciate. There’s even a guest house for Azra, so you’ll always have company.” Fortunately, she laughed. “And more importantly—you love it there, and you love it here, and all I want to do is give you what you love. I’ll commute for a while. As long as you’ll give me what I love. Which would be you.” Not the most elegant phrasing he’d ever heard, but maybe she’d take it. Maybe so.

  He took her hand.

  This part, he’d practiced.

  Willow wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, so she did neither, just stood there like a great lump, sweaty in the singlet and shorts she’d worn to sort her earthly possessions. The ones she was selling, and the chef’s tools she had to ship, because it had taken her a decade to accumulate them, and they were perfect. The knives and the sharpening stone, the cast-iron pans seasoned to a deep black, France’s best copper bowl for whipping egg whites, and more.

  She had no idea what she’d do in the States. She’d have to be back and forth until Amanda was on her feet again, but this was important, too. This was more important.

  She’d start a new company, if she could, one that didn’t require her to be gone all hours, or to be tied to one location. Maybe Brett wanted an investment. Diversification was good, he always said. She could start with ice blocks, Aussie style, and promote them using images of herself surfing, or tramping in the Outback or the rainforest. She’d be a brand. She could do that. Maybe even do a cookbook. She’d start there, take the leap, and try.

  Sometimes, you were pushed out of the balloon. Other times, you had the guts to jump. She wanted to be somebody who had the guts to jump. Which meant running her business, whatever it turned out to be, from Sinful, because that was the place Brett loved best, and where she had family. And Australia sometimes, she hoped. She’d talk to him about it, and they’d work it out.

  She put a hand on his chest, looked up at him, thought about her ugly-cry face and tossed the idea aside, and said, “It’s never too late to become what you always wanted to be in the first place. That’s what somebody told me. That bloke was right.”

  He was nothing like the smooth, polished man in the suit. When he got down on one knee, he was the man he’d grown to become, the one she’d seen only in flashes. It was his left knee, though. She said, “Brett,” and tried to pull him back up. “No. Your leg.”

  “Quit ruining my moment,” he said, and she had to laugh. Then he took a deep breath, flipped open the box, and said, slowly and carefully, in Arabic, “How can I live, if I touch the air and do not feel your presence? How can I exist without the hand that supports my hand?”

  She couldn’t breathe. She had to breathe, though, because she had to answer him.

  The answer came from a dream. From a warm North African night, black as velvet, and two chairs on a terrace, with hands clasping across them. From the spatter of white stars in the darkness, and the fluid cadence of a voice reading the words she loved best. “My hand will support your hand,” she said in the same language. “It is my prayer that your hand will support mine until the stars dim and the world fades from my eyes.”

  “Uh . . .” he said. “That was the only part I memorized. I hope that was a yes. It was too long to be a no. I hope.”

  She put a hand on the side of his face, then, and looked into his eyes. Gray and honest, his soul there to see. “In English, then,” she said. “My hand will support your hand. Oh, Brett. I do love you.” She was crying some more, or she was laughing, or both. “I want to love you forever. And I don’t want to live here without you. Of course I don’t. What I said was . . . I want the last thing I see to be your face. I want to leave the world with my hand still in yours, because it’ll be safe there, and I’ll know it.”

  “No,” he said.

  Her mouth opened, but nothing came out for a minute. “N-no?”

  He was sliding something onto her finger. A ring with absolutely no tiny diamonds around the edge of the solitaire to make it look bigger, because it didn’t need any. Which, maybe, she shouldn’t have noticed, but she did anyway. The stone was round and perfect, and it sparkled with white light, shining like one of those stars. Like Sirius, radiating the kind of love and loyalty that would last forever. Two pear-shaped stones nestled on either side of it like, just maybe, more people in your life to love. Little people who belonged to both of you, people Brett could hold and guide and love with all his strength and solidity.

 
They’d have to talk about that, too. Later.

  “I think . . .” he said, and she waited for it. “I think we should plan to come here as often as you need to do it, and as often as you need to surf. I can be flexible, but one thing’s for sure. I need someplace to be home, and I need you there with me. I also think,” he said with a smile that lit up his eyes, “that we should plan for me to go first, in the end. That sounds a whole lot better.”

  She tugged him upright again, ignoring her ribs. What were ribs? Bones that would heal, with enough attention and enough love. “It doesn’t sound better to me, though,” she said. “But I reckon we’ll negotiate.”

  Brett stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby of the Portland building, for once pulling a suitcase behind him.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have any suits in the house in Byron Bay. It was just that he didn’t have the right suit. The new one, in deep navy, and the tie, in blue as well but with touches of gold, because Willow had gone with gold in her colors. With Azra’s help, of course. Brett knew that, although he didn’t know everything. She’d wanted to surprise him.

  That was fine. He wanted to surprise her, too.

  The security guard sprang for the door, exposing himself to the blowing October rain as Brett headed across the limestone-tiled lobby. The man’s brown hair was neat, and so was his blue uniform. Brett told him, “I’m headed out again, Jim,” even though it was obvious. “You could keep an eye on the place for the next few weeks, if you don’t mind. I’m off to Australia to get married.”

  Did he sound like a kid who couldn’t wait for Christmas? You bet he did. Too bad.

  Jim’s face split into a grin. “Well, hell. Congratulations, man.” He stuck out a hand, and Brett shook it.

  “At least I know you approve of my choice,” Brett said. “Though you probably still think she can do better, and you’re right. But I’ll do my best not to be an asshole.”

  Jim snorted, which made Brett laugh again. “I think I knew your choice a while ago. Where’s the honeymoon?”

  “Morocco. Land of history and legend.”

  “Oh.” Jim considered that, his expression defining “dubious,” then said, “I guess so, man. I spent some time in the desert myself. I didn’t enjoy it.”

  Brett laughed. He was doing a lot of laughing lately. “You sound like my future almost-father-in-law. Also various other future in-laws. Never mind. What the lady wants.”

  “You got that right,” Jim said, and Brett headed out into the storm, climbed into the back of a car, and headed to the airport to meet the plane that had picked up most of his family and half of Willow’s, ready to start the next leg of the journey. Which, yes, was in a chartered jet this time. He had a lot of people to bring with him. His, hers, and theirs.

  He’d told Willow, back in April, “I don’t want to wait to do this. Do you want to wait? Tell me this isn’t one of those eighteen-month deals. I’ve waited long enough for you.”

  She laughed. “It’s been about two months.”

  “Like I said. Long enough.”

  “October, then,” she said. “If we do it on a Thursday, we can get the date. Nobody gets married on a Thursday. Meanwhile, I’ll do my best to help Amanda transition while I work out my next steps. I’ll come back and do my surfer beach-party wedding in October, though, because I want to, and I promised. That way, Amanda can have the credit and the push. It can be my last hurrah. After that?” She kissed him. Easy to do, since she was in his lap at the time. “I’ll take a week off to get bloody nervous about the whole thing, and to have whatever mad beauty rituals done to me that Azra will tell me are critical, unless I want you to leave me at the altar in disgust. And then I’ll marry you.”

  “A whole week?” he said. “Wow. We’re living large. I think women usually devote more time to this deal.”

  “You forget that I know something about weddings. You make a plan, you find your venue and your vendors and somebody to manage the whole thing, and then you get out of the bloody way until it’s time to turn up. Besides, how much time are you taking off?”

  “Uh . . .” He grinned. “Three days? If you’re working? Three days. And then three weeks, while we start this thing for real. Why take time off unless I’m spending it with you? Other than going hunting. How’s this? I’ll go hunting with Steve and his dad, and then they can both come watch me get married. Yeah. That’s a plan.”

  Now, looking out at the rain-streaked, gray streets of Portland, he wished he’d taken a little more time. Never mind. You could always start again.

  He’d told Willow, months ago, “You can have whatever you want. I just want three things. Don’t wear a veil, and put your hair up, because I have a vision. And I want the first dance.”

  The Customs House glowed a rich cream against the blue Brisbane sky, its green copper dome shining in the spring sunlight, as Willow stepped from the Batmobile with Azra beside her and Dave holding the door.

  “Thanks for the lift,” she told Dave. “See you in there.”

  “No worries,” he said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  She touched her hair lightly, and Azra slapped her hand away and said, “Don’t fuss with it. I just got it perfect. Come on,” then led the way to the side door where Aunt Fiona was standing, looking like a queen in a burgundy silk sheath.

  “You’re lovely, darling,” Aunt Fiona said, taking her shoulders. “Oh, my. What’s that hairpiece?”

  “Brett,” Willow said. She couldn’t stop smiling. “Of course.”

  It had happened the night before. He’d knocked at the door of her room in her aunt and uncle’s house in Brisbane a half hour before dinner, then come in and sat on the bed beside her, where he took a flat velvet box, black this time, out of a lavender bag. She eyed it and said, “Graff, hey. I don’t know this one. Never tell me you’re cheating on Harry Winston.” It came out a little breathless, because she was a little breathless.

  He smiled, but it looked hard-won to her, like this mattered too much. What, he was worried? Why? She needed to fix that, and she could. She put a hand on the side of his face and said, “Don’t you know that I love getting pretty things, but I love you more? You can’t disappoint me. It’s not possible, because you’ll always give me your best.”

  His face worked, then steadied, and he said, “Open it, then. The groom’s gift to the bride.”

  She did. And gasped. It was a headband of diamonds, with a bow made of diamonds placed to one side. An extravagant bow that was so fluid, it looked real. Except that it was diamonds. And, on either side of the headband’s curve, shining bright against the black velvet, two earrings that were the same bows. Made of dozens of diamonds.

  It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  He said, “It’s not a tiara. I didn’t think you’d wear a tiara. But it looks a little like one, and maybe it’ll make you feel like a princess.” He smiled, though it looked shaky to her. “A mermaid princess, who’s come to live on land instead of staying in the place she knows, because that’s how hard she loves. I looked it up, you see. Princess Ariel.”

  She touched the bows again now, headband and earrings, one-two-three, like a talisman. No matter what Azra said, she was going to touch them. They were solid, and you could believe in them.

  Last night, she’d set the velvet box on her desk. Carefully. She didn’t close it, though. She wanted to look at her almost-tiara. She said, “I may sleep with it. I’m nervous, mate.”

  He took her hand. “So am I. I guess we can be nervous together.”

  “The bride’s gift to the groom isn’t quite as flash.” She got up and retrieved the card from her desk, then sat beside him and waited. She’d meant to give it to him after dinner, but now would do. Now would be perfect. “I hope you like it. I hope it’s what you want.”

  He was smiling when he opened the envelope and drew out the card, and then he wasn’t.

  The front of it was the lighthouse at sunset, a shot she’d taken. Not the sea
, but the promise of safe harbor. Of arms that would always open to take him in, and a heart that would always have room for him.

  It wasn’t the card, though. It was what was inside. A flimsy piece of photo paper, printed in black and white. A black cavity shaped like an aubergine, and a gray-and-white blob inside it. An almost-circular thing that was a head, a smaller oval that was a torso, and some tiny appendages with buds on the ends. And in the center, a brighter dot of white. A heart.

  “That’s your baby,” she said. “Congrats, Dad.” And held her breath.

  “Willow.” He sat dead still, holding the picture. One second. Two.

  “You knew I was getting the IUD out. Do it early, we said, to be sure we were all good.” She was rushing into speech, because she had to do something. “You’re too good, though. It must’ve happened in about a week, because they say I’m eight weeks gone. That’s really six, but I wanted to . . . to . . . surprise you. Though I realize now I should have told you, in case you want to . . . to change your mind. I hope you don’t, though. I know you feel like you fell down before, but we can try again. This will work. I know it. I feel it. Nia had a healthy baby. A beautiful baby. So can we.”

  He put a gentle hand over her mouth. “Could you just . . . stop talking? Just for a minute? I’m . . . I can’t . . .” His shoulders were shaking, his face was twisting, and he had absolutely no smoothness left. He had no words at all. Stripped bare.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want this, she realized. It was that he wanted it too much. That if you reached for the moon, if you dared to try, and you couldn’t hold on to it after all? It would hurt so badly, you’d never get over it. She got her arms around him, pulled him into her so he could feel her heart, and told him, “Mate. We can do this. You and me. I know it. You can believe it.”