Everything I Hoped For

by Ann Christopher

  “I’ve already committed to Sandringham. We exchange gifts on Christmas Eve. There’s church and a luncheon on Christmas Day.”

  “Ah. What about your father?”

  Yeah, he’d been thinking about the old man. Wondering if he should reach out to him over the holidays.

  “Not sure about that yet.”

  “He’s your father,” she said gently.

  “I can see whose side you’re on.”

  “I’m on the side of happy families.”

  “Yes, well, anyway…I was wondering if you might want to go for a little holiday with me. Well, actually, I’ll be tacking the holiday onto the back end of a trip for my charity. You said you have the time off.”

  “A holiday?” With his hands on her hips and her legs still wrapped around him, he felt the sudden excitement vibrate through her. “What did you have in mind?”

  It was very hard to keep a straight face.

  “Have you been to Tanzania?”

  There was a pause, followed by a burst of startled laughter.

  “Tanzania?” she shrieked. “Yes, I go to Tanzania all the time. I was just there the other weekend. I was hoping you’d choose someplace more exotic.”

  “I take it that’s a yes?” he asked, laughing.

  “Yes! But I only have a week. Is that okay?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said wryly. “My office will make all the arrangements. Do you have your passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll need some shots.”

  “I work at a hospital! I know how to get shots! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! And we’re going to see some animals, right? I don’t want some spa vacation where you get mud baths and sit in hot springs. I want to explore and see everything.”

  Overcome by her enthusiasm and his own sudden hot emotion, he kissed her again and did his best to make it powerful enough to last through this week until he saw her again. To convey some of what he felt.

  It seemed to work.

  When he let her go, her face was flushed, her eyes glazed, her lips dewy and her breath raspy.

  “I believe…” Christ. He had to clear his throat. “I believe I’ve mentioned that I seem to be developing strong feelings for you.”

  “You have mentioned,” she said, her lids still at half-mast.

  “Spending time with you on vacation in one of my favorite places in the world will probably put me over the top. If I’m not already. Fair warning.”

  “I’m a big girl,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and tightening her legs around his waist, bringing his raging erection right up against the sweet spot between her thighs. “Your warnings don’t scare me.”

  “I was hoping you might say that,” he murmured, angling her head so he could kiss her again.

  Read EVERYTHING I NEED Now!

  Thank you for reading Everything I Hoped For! I hope you enjoyed watching Anthony and Melody fall in love as much as I enjoyed writing their story!

  QUESTION: Hang on! Their story isn’t over yet, is it? They haven’t even said I love you! Is there more?

  ANSWER: Yes! Anthony and Melody’s romantic saga concludes in EVERYTHING I NEED, which is now available!

  Here’s a teaser:

  Long-distance romances never lead to happily-ever-after. Or do they?

  The road to true love never runs smooth. Especially when an awkward British billionaire with family issues finds himself smitten with a workaholic pediatric surgeon from small-town Journey’s End.

  But Anthony Scott refuses to give up on his thrilling new relationship with beautiful but guarded Dr. Melody Harrison. Even when the frequent goodbyes and ongoing loneliness threaten to break both their hearts.

  Long-distance love affairs often crash and burn. But not always…

  If you love hot and emotional contemporary romance, pick up EVERYTHING I NEED, the steamy conclusion to this two-part romantic saga today!

  And if you like reading stories about rich and powerful men falling crazy in love, then don’t miss my Warner Family series. The first book, TENDER SECRETS, is available for FREE! Download now!

  Want to stay up to date on all my news about upcoming book releases and deals? Sign up for my newsletter and Facebook page.

  Finally, thank you in advance for helping me spread the word about my books, including telling friends, mentioning them on your social media and/or leaving reviews on the retailers. Word of mouth sells more books than anything else, and I appreciate your help.

  Turn the page for an excerpt from the conclusion to Anthony and Melody’s story, EVERYTHING I NEED…

  Chapter 1

  “That’s everything, I think.” Anthony Scott emerged from the bedroom, passed through the living room to deposit his overnight bag in the foyer by the front door and came back to sit on the sofa in front of the crackling fire. “All packed.”

  Melody Harrison watched the proceedings from her kitchen, where she poured herself a cup of tea, and tried not to freak out now that they’d reached Sunday evening and the end of their first weekend together as lovers. Easier said than done, especially with an unexpected mass of anxiety tightening her chest and creeping steadily higher. The moody silence, which had grown worse all afternoon after they finished decorating the Christmas tree they’d cut together and returned his rental car, also didn’t boost her flagging morale any.

  “How much longer until Baptiste picks you up for the airport?” she said.

  His best friend, Jean-Baptiste Mercier, a Parisian billionaire with his own plane, had recently begun dating her best friend, Samira Palmer, here in small-town Journey’s End in Upstate New York.

  Anthony checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, his upper-class British accent sounding more clipped than ever. Like a pissed-off Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes complaining that Mrs. Hudson had moved his violin.

  Her heart sank another couple notches.

  “You okay?” she asked brightly, stirring her tea.

  He frowned. Avoided eye contact. “’Course.”

  Melody worked hard to feel reassured. Unfortunately, she never quite managed it beyond about 30 percent. The thing was, he didn’t look okay. He didn’t look okay at all as he rested his elbows on his knees and absently rubbed his hands together, his grim and downturned profile something that you might see on a man walking the last several steps to the lethal injection chamber.

  Do not freak out, Mel, she told herself as she joined him in the living room, settled in the armchair and set her mug on the coffee table. Do not get clingy. So Anthony’s a little sour right now. So what? Do not make a mountain out of a molehill.

  Good advice, but she was pretty sure that the mountain was already there. The longer he didn’t look at her, the more she felt as though Kilimanjaro had been inserted into the middle of her living room.

  Suddenly he glanced up. They looked at each other long enough for her to feel a jolt of turbulence from his cornflower blue eyes. His jaw tightened. He quickly blinked and turned away, at the setting sun on the other side of her sliding glass doors, but the damage had been done.

  She felt profoundly unsettled. As vulnerable as a squealing and furless newborn panda.

  And this, sports fans, was why she should have stuck to her vow to focus on her status as both a spinster and a pediatric surgeon and to avoid romantic entanglements. Failing that, she should certainly have waited to get to know Anthony better before she leapt into the horizontal boogie with him, but she’d divested herself of both her panties and most of her good sense within a few short days of meeting him, hadn’t she?

  Yep. She was a regular genius.

  Now here she was. With her heart in her throat and no real idea what to expect next as he returned to London and they officially embarked on their committed long-distance relationship.

  Desperate for something to do with herself, she reached for her tea. Blew on it. Sipped it. Tried to figure out how she’d wound up here on this glum Sunday night, where the darkne
ss and chill inside far exceeded anything going on outside and this man’s moods were now, evidently, at the center of her existence.

  Well, actually, she knew exactly how she’d wound up here.

  She’d met Anthony several days ago, at a gala celebrating the merger of Baptiste’s French winery with one here in Journey’s End in the Hudson River Valley. After a rocky initial meeting, she and Anthony had discovered they shared some serious chemistry. They’d spent some time together while he was in town. At the end of last weekend, he’d gone back to his London home. He and Melody had talked and texted religiously while he was there. Then he’d surprised her back here in Journey’s End this past Friday. Emphasis on surprised because he’d caught her on a blind date with someone she’d met online.

  That had gone over well. Not.

  A blowup had ensued, followed by some spectacular sex.

  Then Anthony had filled Melody in on a pertinent detail or two from his past. Like the fact that his father was a Texas oilman and Anthony had a trust fund in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Oh, and Anthony’s grandmother on his mother’s side? The Queen of England. As in, the Queen of England. True, he was her youngest grandchild and about as likely to accede to the throne as Melody was, but he was still a prince of England.

  Had Melody seen any of that coming? No, she had not. Was she, as a black woman with her own life and career on this side of the pond, prepared for the possibility of press intrusion into their fledgling relationship? Was she prepared for the scrutiny (and public judgment) of her appearance, including the burn scars she bore on her face and neck, which dated from a childhood accident in the kitchen? Hell no. The thought made her cringe.

  And yet…

  Was she prepared to say good-bye to this man? To wish him a great life without her?

  She watched him absently crack his knuckles, her innards softening to caramel goo.

  Absolutely not.

  So she and Anthony had decided to be exclusive and continue seeing each other. See what happened.

  And what was happening at this particular moment was that Mr. Anthony Scott looked as cold and forbidding as he’d been when they first met. There was something about seeing him in a sweater, jeans and leather jacket, with his blond hair brushed and shot through with golden streaks, that made her heart ache. This morning, they’d been naked in bed together, her fingers running through that silky hair and his body thrusting deep inside hers. Now he sat over there, a million miles away on her sofa, and she couldn’t muster the courage to go sit beside him, much less reach for his hand.

  Yet they thought they could make a run at a successful long-distance relationship when they couldn’t breach the brick wall that had sprung up between them while they were in the same town and the same room?

  Yup. They were off to a baaaad start.

  She could almost laugh if it wasn’t all so doomed to failure.

  She and Anthony were going to crash and burn, and they were going to crash and burn big.

  Guaranteed.

  Don’t think like that, Mel, said a quiet little voice in the back of her head.

  Be brave. Take a chance.

  She took a deep breath and decided that she wasn’t going to let this whole thing go down in flames on account of her unmitigated cowardice. Hadn’t she survived a horrible childhood burn and all the corresponding surgeries, pain and negative attention from staring people? Hadn’t she gotten into and then clawed her way through Harvard Med, for God’s sake? Couldn’t she act like a mature adult and try to reach across their divide?

  You bet your ass she could.

  She cleared her throat. “You sure you’re okay? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped, staring down at his hands as he rubbed them.

  “Clearly,” she muttered, putting her mug back on the coffee table with a distinct thunk before moving over to sit beside him on the sofa.

  His head came up. He nailed her straight on with those unwavering blue eyes, frosty now.

  “Meaning?” he asked aggressively.

  That tone made her hackles rise.

  She nailed him with her own unyielding stare. Screw it. This relationship had nothing if they didn’t master basic honesty and Communication 101.

  “Meaning you’re starting to remind me of the night we met. When you were being a jackass.”

  He looked startled.

  “And since I’m sure that’s not your intent, and I’m pretty sure something’s on your mind, why don’t we talk about it? Give you a chance to practice talking about your feelings.”

  Whoa. She hadn’t meant to be quite that forceful.

  Neither of them spoke for several beats. The silence turned brittle.

  “You probably wouldn’t want to hear every thought that’s popped into my head this afternoon.” His wry smile never came within a mile of his eyes. “I believe you’ve complained about my being too blunt with my words at times?”

  Fair point, not that she wanted to concede it just now.

  “Well, it turns out that I prefer your bluntness to your cold shoulder. Imagine my surprise.”

  “I’m not giving you the cold shoulder,” he said, incredulous. “If anything, I’m lost in my thoughts. Is that illegal in the States now?”

  “Spill, Anthony.”

  He hesitated. Heaved a rough sigh.

  “Have it your way. If you must know, I’m wondering if we’ll be able to make a go of it after all, because this is all shaping up to be much more difficult than I’d expected.”

  Melody absorbed this information like a punch to the solar plexus.

  He what? Was this the end already? Was he about to dump her now that he’d screwed her?

  “I’ve also been wondering if you’ll be on another blind date with some other bloke as soon as my plane goes wheels up tonight—”

  “I will not—” she began, outraged.

  “—but I’ve dismissed that possibility because we’ve given each other our word and I believe we trust each other reasonably well.” His gaze, filled with sudden sensual appreciation, skimmed her up and down, making her skin sizzle. “Besides that, we quite enjoy each other in bed, don’t we, darling? We’ve given each other a lot to think about and a lot to remember each other by until we meet again on Friday, haven’t we?”

  Melody opened her mouth, feeling a little breathless—

  Anthony’s lips twisted with unmistakable bitterness.

  “I’m wondering why the bloody hell I’ll have to spend the week in exile across the ocean, going to meetings most of the time and alone in my drafty cottage the rest of the time while, meantime, you’re out having fun with Baptiste and Samira or here in your cozy little apartment with your Christmas decorations, a blazing fire, river views and your amazingly comfortable bed that has the added bonus of having your incredible body in it.”

  She gaped at him, her head spinning.

  “I’m wondering if I could possibly skive off my meetings and just stay here, but my grandmother would have my head. And then she’d never let me hear the end of it. My life wouldn’t be worth living.”

  “Anthony…” she said when he paused to catch his breath.

  “I’m wondering what you’ve done to me to turn me into this complete nutter in such a short period of time, because I don’t lose my head—about anything—nor am I a clingy person.” He paused thoughtfully. “Now, of course, I’m wondering if it was a mistake to confess my looming nuttery and if you’ll use that as an excuse to run in the other direction.”

  “Anthony—”

  “I’m wondering what I’ve ever done to get lucky enough for a woman like you to cross my path, much less give me a chance, and I want to kiss your feet that you haven’t written me off now that you know all about both sides of my family. The fact that you’ve actually met my father and are still even speaking to me qualifies you for sainthood in my book.”

  She had to laugh.

  He watched her, his avid gaze crisscrossing
her features. Then he cursed, took her face in his hands and kissed her hard. He eased back to end the kiss, leaving her stunned and hopelessly aroused as he rested his forehead against hers.

  “Mainly I’m wondering if it’s physically possible for me to survive without seeing your smile or kissing you between now and Friday,” he said gruffly. “Aren’t you glad you asked?”

  Melody paused to smooth his hair and rein in her answering confession, which would include gems like I want to stow away on your plane and I am literally now incapable of thinking about anything but you.

  He wasn’t the only one up on a ledge about the future of their relationship outside of the four walls of her apartment this weekend. That was for damn sure.

  She let out a shaky laugh.

  “You have all that up there?” she asked, tapping his temple. “No wonder you look so pained all the time. There’s no room for any fun thoughts.”

  Crooked smile from Anthony. “You’ve no idea.”

  He let her go and sat back, idly twisting her one of her corkscrew curls and setting off frissons of pleasure every time he brushed the side of her neck.

  They stared at each other.

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked quietly.

  His expression softened, as did his voice.

  “You can tell me anything, darling.”

  As always, his use of the endearment made her feel as though her skin glowed.

  She stole another quick kiss, lingering over his tender lips because they were so delicious. When they broke apart, she noted, with great satisfaction, that his eyes were glazed.

  “I work at the hospital,” she said. “All the time. I eat. Sometimes I sleep. When I can’t sleep, I read my medical journals.” She pointed to where they were piled high in a basket. “Sometimes I have a glass of wine. Sometimes I meet up with Samira, but not so much now that she’s with Baptiste. And that’s it. That’s all there is to me.”

  One corner of his mouth curled.