I reach the spot where the psychic’s tent had been that day, the spot where all this craziness began. Still no sign. Concern clouds my mind. I was so certain she was going to be here, I hadn’t stopped to consider any other options.
I stand, my hands on my hips, thinking, trying to work out where she could be.
And then I see her.
She’s leaning against a railing, still wearing her dress from the wedding, a yellow top wrapped around her shoulders. She’s looking down like she’s defeated. I watch as she tucks her hair behind her ears. She raises her head and looks over to my right, biting her lip, her brows knitted together.
She looks so small, so lost. I want to pull her into my arms, to hold her tight and not ever let go. I want to tell her I love her, tell her everything will be all right.
Her eyes focus on me, almost as though she can sense I’m here, waiting for her.
In less than ten strides, I’m at her side, enveloping her petite frame in my arms, lifting her up off the ground to face me, holding her cool body close against mine.
“What are you doing here, Jake?” she breathes.
I don’t answer with words. Instead, I press my lips against hers, the depth of my feelings for her rushing through me. She kisses me back as she wraps her hands around my neck.
It’s Taylor who pulls away, who asks me to let her go. I do so, reluctantly, placing her back on her feet. She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself once more. I rub my hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her up. “You’re so cold.”
“No, I’m fine,” she protests, shivering again.
I pull my jacket off and drape it over her shoulders.
She looks up at me, tears welling in her eyes.
“Hey,” I whisper, taking her hands in mine. “Why the tears?”
She presses her lips together then looks down.
“Taylor?”
She raises her eyes to mine again, and the look on her face makes my guts twist. The tears have now made tracks down her face.
I lean down and kiss them gently away.
She shoots me a weak smile. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Would you believe it was a lucky guess?”
“She’s not here, you know. I thought she would be, but she’s not.”
I know exactly who she’s talking about. The psychic. The one who put the crazy notion she’d find “the one,” some guy in an orange shirt with green eyes. “Yeah, I know.”
“I thought I needed to talk to her.”
I squeeze her hands. “Taylor, you don’t need a psychic to tell you how you feel about someone.” I place my palm across her heart. “You know it here.”
“I kinda worked that out for myself when I realized I’d fallen for the wrong guy.” There’s a small smile on her face, and her eyes sparkle.
Warmth spreads across my chest, through my body, and down my limbs. Even though I know she’s talking about me, I know I’m not the wrong guy. I know with absolute certainty what she’s only just come to know: we belong together.
I lean down and kiss her on her lips. It’s soft, full of the love I feel for her, full of the promise of what’s to come. I pull her to me and murmur into her ear. “Taylor Jennings, do you know how much I love you?”
She pulls back to look at me once more, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Tell me.”
“I’ve loved you since the day you kissed me on my parents’ swing. Crazy, madly, deeply.”
“I think I have, too.” She can no longer hold her smile at bay, and it lights up her entire face, rendering her more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. A smile that makes my heart expand to twice its size. “You’ve always been there for me. I thought you were like a big brother, but you were so much more than that. I just didn’t allow myself to think of you in that way.” She places both her cold hands on my face. “I love you with all my heart, Jake Harrison.”
My happiness threatens to burst out of me. I pick her up in my arms and spin her around as the gorgeous sound of her laughter fills my ears.
“There is one thing, though,” she says.
“What’s that?”
“No second chances. We do this a hundred percent or not at all. All in.”
“All in.”
As we walk through the growing crowd, back toward my car, my arm slung around her shoulders, she lets out a contented sigh and rests her head against my chest. My heart contracts with love for this woman in my arms, a love I’d been carrying for so long, a love I can now barely believe is mine.
“One question,” she says.
“Anything.”
“Do you have a blood-red orange shirt?”
I let out a laugh, thinking of the Giant’s top Tim gave me the last day we were here at the wharf together, before any of this happened between us. “Would it make a difference if I did?”
Her face breaks into a fresh grin, those beautiful eyes of hers dancing. “No. I guess it wouldn’t.”
EPILOGUE
Taylor
“Try it. I think you’ll like this one.”
Jake flashes that handsome smile of his as I hand him my latest creation. “Thanks, love.”
I take a seat next to him on the soft cushion and lean back in the chair swing we hung up on the large tree in our new back yard only last week. It’s comfortable and old fashioned, just like the one Jake’s parents had all those years ago.
And we’ve done a lot of kissing on it. And maybe even some other stuff, but I’m not one to kiss and tell. Let’s just say we’re both glad our new back yard is nice and private.
I point at the layers in the glass with a couple of spoons. “It’s vanilla ice cream at the bottom, then chopped banana drizzled in chocolate sauce—”
“Drizzled?” He cocks a smile. “Taylor Harrison, I’ll make a chef of you yet.”
“Say that again.”
“I’ll make a chef of you yet?” His eyes are dancing.
“No, the other thing.”
“Taylor Harrison, my wonderful, delectable, oh-so-hot new wife of two weeks and about a day.”
I sit on his lap and reward him with a kiss. “Two, days, actually.”
“The most perfect two weeks and two days of our lives.”
“Now, husband, concentrate, please. This is a work of art.”
“Oh, I love it when you’re bossy.”
I ignore his comment and point at the next layer instead. “As I was trying to say, it’s also got crumbled bits of that leftover brownie you made last night, so strictly speaking I didn’t make that part.” Or the chocolate sauce or the ice cream, but who’s keeping tally? “Oh, and here at the top is whipped cream.”
“You have always gotta remember the whipped cream.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively at me.
Yes, we might have done a bit of experimentation with some cream recently, too, but as I said, I’m not one to tell.
“Plenty of time for that later.” I hand him his spoon. “Dig in.”
He takes a bite. “Now that’s better than the ones we had in Cabo.”
I smile to myself as I remember how resistant I was to sharing a dessert with Jake, how it’d seemed like a step too far, simply too intimate.
Well, to be fair, I was trying to keep a lid on my feelings for him at the time. That’s all been forgotten now, and I’ve been sharing pretty much everything with him since then.
And it’s been freaking fantastic.
He plunges his spoon back into the sundae, collecting up several of the layers in one bite. “It’s a sundae masterpiece,” he says, although with a full mouth, it comes out more like “Ibth a thundae mathderpeef.”
I grin at him—my sexy, handsome, all-around perfect husband, the famous chef and new owner of his very own restaurant. That’s right, Jake opened his own place a couple of months after we got together. Well, I say his place, but it’s more ours. You see, I had some inheritance from Nana I’d never spent, instead saving it for a rainy day. I had
to talk him into taking it, of course, but we had it all legally squared away, and he made me a full partner.
The restaurant is called The Hungry Antelope, and it’s already doing amazingly well, booked up well into next month. And there may have been some celebrities at the opening, but I’m not impressed by them in the slightest, of course, so I couldn’t tell you. (But just between you and me, Jessica Chastain is as sweet as she seems, and Chris Hemsworth is even better looking in person than he is on screen if that is even humanly possible.)
Jake’s mom and dad, my surrogate parents, came to the opening. I was as nervous as all heck, not knowing what they would think of me being with their son. It turns out Jeanette had been hoping we would “finally work out we were made for each other,” which had me grinning from ear to ear.
And you know what? I have a feeling Nana’s happy with the way I’ve chosen to live my life now. The way I’ve chosen love. I like to think of her looking down on us, smiling, knowing I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Oh, and that Fluffy gets the grooming he so needs.
“Did I tell you I framed up my new photos? They look great. Simple black frames are so classic.”
“They’ll look amazing at The Hungry Antelope. The last ones sold out in three days. Think you can top that?”
“I’m aiming for two days this time.” The thought of making money from my passion for photography has me grinning. Not that I need the money. Thanks to my successful placement of Jorge Dvorak in the Trikal Head of Marketing position, Julia made me a senior recruitment consultant, responsible for headhunting at the top end of the pay scale. It’s my dream job, and I love it, just like Jorge loves his new role. How do I know? He and Lacey have been a thing since Ashley and Tim’s wedding, and we see them all the time. Which is a lot more than Jake would like, but, as I tell him, he’s the one who captured my heart, even though secretly I still get a thrill from his little sparks of jealousy.
I dig my own spoon into the sundae and take a bite. I close my eyes and let out a contented sigh.
“You’re not going to tell me it’s better than sex, are you?” Jake’s hand snakes around my middle.
“Come on! Chocolate, ice cream, brownie? It’s gotta be better than sex.”
“Is that so?” He leans over me and gives me a long, chocolatey kiss, and I almost forget about the sundae I’d spent far too long preparing. I leave the cooking up to Jake, for good reason.
“That feels like a challenge.” I tease.
“Oh, yeah. Bring it on.” His grin is broad and sexy as heck—just the way I like it.
As I brush my lips teasingly against his, my fingers in his messy hair, my phone in the back pocket of my jeans rings. We both know it’ll be Ash. She’s been getting herself into a total flap about her pregnancy. Yup, Ash and Tim are expecting their first child, due in about five months’ time. We could not be happier for them, despite the constant phone calls and demands. But then, it wouldn’t be Ash if she were any other way.
“Tell me you’re not going to answer that,” Jake says as he trails kisses up my neck, tingles shooting down my spine.
There’s no way I’m answering that call.
“I’ll get to it . . . later,” I mutter, my neck tingling, my body responding to his touch as it always has—right from that incredible, knock-your-socks-off kiss we shared outside the church in Cabo all that time ago.
I can’t imagine ever getting tired of this man.
It’s been eight and a half months since that morning on the wharf when I’d gone to find the psychic. Jake had told me he knew I’d be there, demanding some answers from Kosmic Kandi about men in orange shirts.
But that wasn’t why I went.
I wanted to tell her she was wrong. I wanted to tell her the man I had fallen for may have had eyes the color of a tropical ocean, but he wasn’t in a blood-red orange shirt the day our eyes locked.
The day I should have known.
I never got the chance. We’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf a handful of times since, of course. Although I no longer feel the need to show her she was wrong, I admit I’ve had a look for her tent a couple of times. But Kosmic Kandi has remained a mystery, not once returning to the scene of the crime.
Have I regained my title of “cynic princess?” Can I hold my head high among normal, rational people who don’t fall for this wishy-washy kinda stuff?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Whatever I am, I’m forever grateful to Kosmic Kandi for giving me the vital push I needed, for helping me see what was staring right at me all along.
Jake Harrison.
The right guy for me.
THE END
Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you loved reading Taylor and Jake’s story as much as I did writing it.
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Read on for a sneak peek at my newest rom com, Manhattan Cinderella
It’s on preorder, releasing on April 11, and it’s only 99 cents right now! Here’s the blurb:
A lost shoe. An heir to a music kingdom. A chance for a fairy tale ending.
New Yorker Gabriella Davis dreams of being a pop star. She won’t let anything get in her way, and that includes her narcissistic stepmother, who has her working her butt off as band assistant to the Pop Princesses. Gabby knows she can’t rely on anyone but herself. It’s pop star or bust, and she’s got to make it—her kid sister is relying on her.
Singer Cole Grant comes to New York to meet pop icon Rex Randall. It’s a chance of a lifetime, that means so much more than what it can do for his music career. He’s got his own motivations for leaving his native Tennessee—reasons he won’t be sharing with anyone else.
When Cole returns Gabby’s lost shoe on her way to the recording studio, the attraction is instant. But with other things on their minds, neither one is in the market for love.
Can two people open their hearts to one another to get their happily ever after? Or will the secrets they hold push them apart?
Here’s that sneak peek…
Sneak Peek at Manhattan Cinderella
Once upon a time in Manhattan, I lived in a huge mansion with my hideous stepmother and her two frightful daughters.
Queue the violins, please.
Abandoned by my father, my stepmother makes me work my fingers to the bone. While I sit alone, I pray my prince will come and rescue me.
And you know the rest. We all do. But seriously, this is twenty-first century Manhattan. No one is buying this.
So, okay, here’s the deal. Yes, my dad took off a few months ago, and yes, thanks to a sticky trust fund situation I’m forced to live with my stepmom and her daughters.
But that part about waiting around for a “prince” to come and rescue me?
No.
Freaking.
Way.
I don’t need to be rescued, and I sure as heck don’t need some “prince.” I’m going to make it happen on my own. Me, Gabriella Jane Davis. Besides, I’m a New Yorker, and while my life might not exactly be a fairy tale right now, I’m sure as heck working on it.
“Cece, if you don’t hurry up you’ll be late for school. Again.” I stuff a collection of books into my kid sister’s backpack and zip it up.
Cece rolls her eyes at me as she clips her navy-blue necktie in place. The formality and femininity of her private school uniform contrasts with my practical Levis, sneakers, and T-shirt combo. I know that being dressed like this I look like the undervalued, overworked pop band dogs-body I am. But I’ve learned the hard way it’s so much better to fly under the radar around here.
“Gabby, what does it matter if I’m late? It’s not like I learn anything useful there, anyway.”
�
��Don’t say that. You’re only fourteen, and you need a good education.”
Yup. I hear it. I sound like I’m her mother. Which, even though I’m only twenty-two, I guess I have been since our own dear mom lost her battle with cancer four years ago. And, thanks to Cece’s “pleasant surprise” status when our parents were told they couldn’t have any more children, I guess I slotted into the role well enough.
But I don’t want to think about all that right now.
Cece throws me a look as she buckles her black patent leather shoes. “You’re telling me I need a good education? This is the advice from Gabby Davis, College Drop-Out?”
The label stings and we both know she has a point. Dropping out of NYU to pursue a career in music doesn’t exactly feel like the best decision I’ve made right now. But today I have high hopes that decision is about to pay off.
“That’s an entirely different situation, Cece, and you know it.”
“That’s not what Dad said, Gabby. He said you were throwing your life away and that—”
I put my hand up to stop her. I don’t need a lecture from a fourteen-year-old. “Yup, I remember. But you’re being late isn’t about me.” I land on the perfect tool of persuasion. “And anyway, if you don’t try hard at school you’ll get stuck here with them.”
Cece sneers. “Fate worse than death.”
“Exactly.”
She takes a step closer to me. “It won’t be long now, will it? I mean, when Dad comes home things will go back to how they were, right?”
The hurt in her eyes has my chest tightening. I want to wipe her pain away, to protect her however I can. “Of course they will. Everything will be fine.” My nod is too enthusiastic, my tummy twisted in a knot.
I know the truth. Things will never be the same again. We said goodbye to the life we once had when Mom died. Losing her, losing her love, her laughter, well, it destroyed our little family unit. It destroyed Dad, too. Leaving us at the mercy of his new wife is simply the last in a long list of the ways he’s abandoned Cece and me.
The Right Guy Page 17