“Saylor?”
“Hm?”
“I want you to know that the arrangement I made with you was the best arrangement of my life,” he muttered, a smile of satisfaction decorating his face, and a cloud of happiness engulfed me.
“I agree. Who would have thought such a proposal could lead us to this?”
His eyes closed, and his smile grew larger. “True. And it’s only the beginning, baby. It’s only the beginning.”
I leaned in to kiss him, finally feeling like I had found what I searched for my whole life—what I actually needed. I finally felt complete.
A few seconds later, he fell asleep, and I was captured by his beauty. I held his hand as I studied each line of his beautiful face, feeling lucky to have a man like him. I couldn’t wait to see what the future held for us.
Speaking of the future…
I hoped Kaelyn and Amelia were going to be alright, especially these next few days or weeks until Edvard and his accomplices were caught and dealt with.
I slid out of the room quietly so I could call Kaelyn, however, she didn’t answer. I tried calling her once again, but there was no response.
With a sigh, I returned to Stone’s bedroom and sat down next to him. The exhaustion from this day was starting to get to me. Making sure I didn’t wake up Stone, I slipped underneath the covers and lay next to him, winding my arm around his waist.
Kaelyn didn’t answer, but I believed Stone and his brother, Alexei, would keep my sister and niece safe.
I closed my eyes, and felt like I was going to fall asleep any second…
Yes. Everything was going to be alright.
Also by Henley Maverick
Stuck with the Mountain Man
Always
Royally Addicted
Seduction
Forbidden Lessons
About the Author
Henley Maverick lives in Northern California with her husband and fur baby, and when she's not writing, she's reading, shoe shopping, or at the beach. Feel free to reach out to her at [email protected]
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Sneak Peek
Expose, a sports romance, releases on December 16!
CHAPTER ONE
LUCAS
Lucas shoved the whole banana into his mouth and chomped on it like he had shovels for teeth. His best friend and team member, who was seated beside him, looked over at him, disgust written on his face.
“What?” Lucas asked with a shrug. His friend rolled his eyes and Lucas gave him the middle finger. He stood up and walked over to the balcony, looking over and down at the shimmering blue water of the Olympic sized pool. He grinned as he watched the girls lounging by the pool and those swimming, dressed in bikinis, some one-pieces and some two-pieces. His eyes lingered on one of the girls who was just stepping out of the pool, running a hand through her wet and dripping hair. There was something about a wet girl in a bikini that turned him on.
“Ooh man, there is plenty of action going on here,” he called to Colin.
He could hear the sigh in Colin’s voice as he said, “How can you see anything from up here? We’re on the what? Twentieth story? And that pool is like what? Eight stories below us?”
“It’s not my fault that you have terrible eyesight, and can’t have a taste of what I’m getting right now,” Lucas replied to his friend, mockingly. He got an empty beer can to the back of his head for it. He turned around, glaring at his friend, “Ouch! That hurt.”
Colin shrugged and said, “It’s not my fault that you don’t have reflexes that were quick enough to help you dodge.”
“Touché,” Lucas managed to say. He rubbed the back of his head as he headed back to the lounge he had been sitting on. As the sun raised higher above them, he groaned and reached out for his dark shades which he shoved on his face.
“You will be breaking some hearts by that action, man,” Colin said absentmindedly.
Lucas’ brow furrowed as he looked at his friend. He was thumbing through his tablet and he could not help but wonder what he had been focused on since morning. What his friend just uttered clicked in his head and he said, “What?”
“Your shades. You know how much the girls go gaga over your ‘striking blue eyes’, as they call them. They could die at the realization that you’ve covered those eyes,” Colin said, smirking.
Lucas groaned and threw a punch at his friend’s shoulder, one he barely managed to avoid. While his friend was distracted, trying to avoid the blow, Lucas grabbed the tablet from his hold and swiped across the screen.
“What have you had that head of yours buried in all this while?” he asked as he thumbed through. Finding his answer on the screen, he looked up at his friend, a puzzled look on his face. All Colin did was shrug. “Wait a minute. Are you thinking of quitting the game, Colin? For crying out loud, we are what? Twenty-four years old? You still have a long career ahead of you. What is going through your head, man? Are you on something?!”
Lucas puffed out a breath slowly and shook his head, saying, “I have no plans of leaving the game or the team, man.”
“Well, it kind of looks like it, Luke. The evidence is all over this screen. What are you doing browsing about careers and opportunities in real estate when you are a football player? There is no correlation, except when you want to buy a house and this is certainly no house buying issue. I’m not stupid, you know,” Colin glowered at his friend.
Lucas raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. “It’s simply about having options, Col.”
“I don’t understand,” Colin said. To further prove his point, he scratched his head of shaggy blond hair.
Lucas stood up and paced. He turned around and looked at his friend, “It’s like this, man. Whether we like it or not, we are not going to be stars forever. Right now, we are the shining stars of the game. Heck, I am the quarterback, the face of the Winton Warriors, but it is not going to be like that forever. You, we, are not always going to play at topnotch level no matter how much we train because age catches up. We will not always be in demand because a new generation of stars will rise.”
“I get what you’re trying to say but…” Colin started to say but Lucas raised his hand to silence him.
“And, another thing, we have no clue where we are going to be in the next year, even in the next six months. Events beyond our control can take place. What if there is an accident? What if you can’t ever play again? What if you decide that you don’t want to play again, or what if you realize that you need to spend less time in the game and more time doing something else?”
“That is never going to happen,” Colin said, without thinking about the last part of his friend’s statement. “Nothing, and no one is ever going to make me want to leave the game or spend less time playing. So, to say I won’t ever leave the game of my own volition. I can’t ever decide to spend more time outside football voluntarily. It would have to be involuntarily. Football is my life. I will never make that choice.”
“You know what they say, never say never,” Colin said in a knowing tone.
Love Affair with the Billionaire Page 10