Beauty and the Billionaire

by Jessica Clare

  “I don’t care about presents. You’re the only thing I want today.” He kissed her again. “And you can’t keep things like this from me, love.”

  She gasped and pulled back. “You want to talk about keeping things from people? You’re the one with the big secret that’s stressing me out!”

  His brows furrowed. “My secret?”

  “Oh my god, don’t even pretend that you have no idea! I know that woman’s blackmailing you.”

  Hunter’s look grew more puzzled. “Blackmailing me? Who?”

  “The one that showed up at your office earlier this week and brought photos.” She studied him. He really did seem confused at her accusation. “I . . . guess it’s not blackmail after all?”

  He looked angry, of all things. “You really think I’m being blackmailed? Why would you keep something like that to yourself? Why wouldn’t you come talk to me?”

  “Because I wanted to marry you,” she whispered. “For better or for worse, I wanted you to be mine.”

  The hard line of his mouth softened. “Gretchen—”

  “I know, I know. I’m crazy and now you don’t want to marry me, right?”

  “I love you and I can’t believe you’ve made yourself so much to worry about over the last few months.” He gave her an exasperated look and took her hand in his, then kissed the palm. “I’d throw you down on this sofa and demonstrate just how much I want you to be my wife, but I need to show you something first.”

  “Aw, that’s kind of disappointing,” Gretchen said, getting to her feet. “I wouldn’t mind you throwing me down on the sofa and demonstrating, either.”

  The look he gave her was heated, but he took her hand and tugged her forward. “This is important. Come on.”

  She took a few steps and then paused. Her dress wasn’t hanging right, the waist un-cinched. “I can’t. My dress won’t close. It’s just another thing I’ve failed at.”

  Hunter shrugged off his tuxedo jacket.

  “No, baby, that’s your tux—” The look he gave her silenced her protests, and she let him put his jacket around her shoulders and tuck it against her. Truth be told, she liked that he was taking care of her. She always had. Normally she was so caught up in her own storms that she forgot how nice it was to sit back and let Hunter take control for a bit. So she was silent as she slid her arms through the oversized sleeves. When he offered his hand, she took it.

  They emerged from the room hand in hand, and Gretchen cringed as they went down the hall, half expecting to see a flurry of worried bridesmaids. It was only Daphne waiting, though, her phone in hand. “The others are scattering for a bit,” she explained as they passed. “If anyone asks, you two are having a few moments to yourselves and can’t be disturbed.” And she winked at Gretchen like everything was under control.

  Heck, maybe it was. Gretchen nodded slowly and let Hunter tug her along.

  It wasn’t until they got to the second floor, where his office was, that she got curious. The door next to his—normally his personal gym—was covered with plastic, thanks to the repairs. “Is there more wrong with the house?” she asked as he reached for the plastic and began to pull it back. “Is the water damage worse than you said? What—”

  He tore the plastic sheeting back and gestured inside.

  She went in, releasing his hand. The lights were off and she fumbled for the light switch, and then flicked it on. As the lights fluttered into existence, she gasped.

  It was her dream kitchen. Ina Garten’s white, chic kitchen from her TV show had been lovingly re-created. Tall cabinets sat empty of the decorative kitchenware that Ina had on her show, and the black-topped white bar didn’t have the stools in front of it yet. The stove was missing, but the twin refrigerator cabinets were perfection. As she walked into the kitchen, she saw the twin dishwashers under the island. Her hand moved over the countertop, skimming the cool stone. “What . . . what is this?”

  “It’s supposed to be the kitchen on that TV show you like so much, but the contractors have been dragging their damned feet for so long that it’s only half-done. The one here, that is,” he added. “The one in Cata Bay is fully completed.”

  She pulled open one of the refrigerator cabinets and sighed with pleasure. A subzero fridge. How lovely. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” She turned back to Hunter, his words registering. “What’s Cata Bay?”

  “Cata Bay is my private island that I bought.”

  “You bought a private island?”

  “For us.” He moved forward and pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbing through a few things before he found what he was searching for, and handed the phone to her.

  He’d opened a series of photos, and as she flicked through them, she saw the house he’d designed, the sandy beach and the private dock, the opulent, tropical bedroom, and even the deluxe kitchen that was a completed mirror to the one she was standing in right now. “You . . . bought an island,” she said faintly. “And made a third kitchen in the house. Why?”

  “This kitchen,” he said, pointing at the counter, “is because I miss you when you’re downstairs and not near me. Maybe I’m fucking clingy or needy, but I don’t care. I like having you nearby. I like hearing you cuss at the bread when it doesn’t rise like you want it to. I like hearing you tinker around. I like knowing that you’re only a few feet away for me to come and touch you.” He moved to her side, his hand sliding to her neck and caressing her nape. “I’m addicted to you and I don’t give a crap if that makes me needy.”

  “It makes you awesome,” she said softly, smoothing a hand down the front of his shirt. “God, I love you. So this is the big secret? This kitchen and a private island?” At his nod, she gave an incredulous little laugh. “Why a private island?”

  “Because you need a vacation from all of this. The wedding, the cookbook—everything has stressed you out so much that I worry about you. So when I saw the island come up for sale, I thought it’d be perfect for us to have our own private getaway.”

  “But the house is private—”

  “Ah, but if I sweep you off to a tropical island, you’ll have no choice but to relax and lounge about in skimpy clothing.”

  Gretchen laughed again. “That is the most ridiculous and most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard.” She put her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts against his chest. “I can’t believe you kept all this from me and made me think the house had water damage. Do you know how long I’ve been freaking out over the drilling and hammering they’ve been doing?”

  “I know. And you’ve been making yourself utterly crazy. You didn’t need more on your plate to worry about, and I know you. You’d have worried about the contractors hitting their deadlines and making everything the way you wanted it, so I decided to handle it.” His hands rubbed up and down her arms. “Besides, I worried me putting a kitchen up here would make you think I’m a stalker.”

  “Not a stalker if I marry you,” Gretchen teased. “I don’t care if you’re needy. I love you and I need you, too.”

  “You can’t keep making yourself insane with all this stuff, Gretchen. I’m a billionaire. I can buy my woman a kitchen if I want. I can buy her an island if I want. What’s the point of all this money if we can’t enjoy ourselves?”

  The lump in her throat grew. He was really the best man ever. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Always.”

  “We need to be good, you and I. I don’t know what I’ll do if something happened to tear us apart.”

  His scarred brow moved in a quasi-arch. “You mean like blackmail?”

  Her hand rubbed up and down his front again. Heaven help her, she was a mess right now and she was getting all turned on. “I was going to marry you even if some bitch was trying to get between us. I said for better or for worse and I meant it. No matter what she had to say, I still wanted to be Mrs. Buchanan. There’s not
hing so awful that would drive me away from you.”

  “Gretchen,” he murmured, voice hoarse with emotion. “You’re everything to me. Do you understand that?”

  She nodded. “I think I just got too caught up in the wedding and trying to make it amazing. I . . . might have let things get to my head.”

  He caressed her neck and pulled her close for a quick kiss. Then said, “We could elope. Forget all this and bail out. Head to a JP and then to our island.”

  “I’m going to forget you said any of that,” she whispered against his mouth. “Because I might have to kill you for thinking about abandoning the wedding we’ve set up at your house.”

  “Fuck the wedding,” he murmured, and kissed her again. His tongue flicked against her lips, sending skitters of lust through her body. “Fuck the guests. Fuck the house. I’ll burn the thing to the damn ground if it’ll make you happy.”

  Oh my god, when did arson become so damn sexy? “Can we put that in the wedding vows?”

  “Absolutely.” He kissed her again, then bit down gently on her plump lower lip. “Go back to being my impulsive, heedless Gretchen. Let me be the planner, the worrier. You just be you. You’re perfect as you are.”

  “All right,” she said shyly, feeling loved and special and so stupidly happy all at once.

  “And if you try to plan anything of this magnitude again, I’m going to kidnap you to our island.”

  Gretchen giggled. “Deal.”

  ***

  “Okay, I think we’re good,” Daphne said as she moved away from Gretchen’s back. “Let me know what you think.”

  Gretchen twisted, trying to get a look at her back in the mirror. An hour ago, the dress had been unable to close, the zipper and clasps unwilling to move over her mid-back. Now, as she peered in the mirror at the deep vee of the back of the dress, it looked perfect. “You’re a genius, Daph. What did you do?”

  “I ripped open the dress and hot-glued an extra stretchy panel under each armpit to give you a bit more room.”

  Audrey gasped. “You did what?”

  “You wanted it to fit, right? It fucking fits.” Daphne smoothed a hand down Gretchen’s back. “No gaps in the zipper. It’s a trick I learned on the road. My costumes are always getting screwed up and they’re always making last-minute modifications with a glue gun. That’s how it works. And it’s not like she’s going to wear the dress again.”

  “But still—”

  “Nope, she’s right, Audrey. It looks great.” Gretchen admired her reflection again. “You even got the wrinkles out of the skirts. How’d you manage that?”

  “Flat iron,” Daphne said proudly.

  “It does look good,” Audrey admitted. “And you look gorgeous, Gretchen.”

  She . . . felt gorgeous, too. Gretchen gazed at her reflection again. This morning’s nervous breakdown didn’t show. While Daphne had fixed her dress, she’d sat with Audrey and pressed chilled cucumber slices to her eyes to reduce the swelling. Hunter’s friend Cade Archer had shown up for the wedding at that point, and Brontë had remembered that his wife, Kylie, was a makeup artist. She’d even worked for Daphne in the past. Kylie had been happy to help fix Gretchen’s makeup, though she’d tsked at some of the products Gretchen had on hand. By the time Kylie was done, Gretchen had a laundry list of new products to buy to “help her skin” in the future.

  But she looked good. Her eyes had been heavily shadowed, since Kylie said that heavy eye makeup showed up best in photos. She had false lashes on, her eyes were lined to perfection, her brows transformed, and the delicate pop of pink on her lips was a thing of beauty. Her hair had been wrangled into a low bun, her hair smoothed by Daphne and Kylie’s combined efforts. The off-the-shoulder bodice now fit snugly, the small cap sleeves looking like delicate embellishments rather than as if they were struggling to hold up the yards of her dress. The waist dipped into a deep vee, the edges beaded, and then splashed out into her massive skirt of layered tulle and taffeta. It was princessy and probably the wrong look for a woman her size, but she didn’t care. She loved it and now that it fit again and Hunter loved her and everything she’d been worrying about was no big deal after all? All was right in the world.

  Well, her cake was crap and the croquembouches were more like croquem-avalanches but she didn’t care. She was getting married to Hunter today and everything else that tried to stop her could go suck a dick. She loved that man. He’d even offered to let her keep wearing his jacket and they could get married just like that, but the photographer had made his way there despite the driving snow and she wanted pictures of them looking their best, not her looking like a train wreck.

  And Daphne had been wonderful today. Gretchen hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her sister, but Daphne had been at her side throughout this long, distressing day. She turned and took Daphne’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “I love that you’re here today, and I’m so glad you’re back in my life.”

  Daphne’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Me too,” Audrey said, and moved forward to put her hand over their joined ones. “I know I’ve been reluctant to let you back in, but I’m very proud of how you’re doing and I’m glad that you reached out.”

  Daphne sniffed. “Thanks, guys. I know I burned a lot of bridges in the past but I’m doing my best to make you proud.” Then she shook her head. “No, I take that back. I’m doing my best to make me proud.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you,” Audrey said.

  “Well this isn’t all I want,” Gretchen declared before the moment got too sappy and she wept all over her excellent makeup. “I want you to be in the wedding. We can squeeze another bridesmaid in, I’m sure. It’ll throw shit off but who cares?”

  Daphne shook her head. “There’s a reason I’m not in the wedding, Gretchen. I haven’t been part of your story for the last few years.”

  “Then I want you to be part of it for the future.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Gretchen flung her arms out. “Group hug!”

  ***

  It was going to be a lovely wedding, Daphne decided. She was feeling fine after she’d left Gretchen’s side and changed into her simple beige sheath dress and slipped into her seat next to Wesley. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. Holding hands? After her recent confession? She figured it was because he thought she’d need the moral support. Which was funny, because she was feeling pretty good overall. It hurt that she didn’t have Wesley, but she’d survive. She was strong, like he’d said. Strong, healthy, and happy for her sister.

  One of Hunter’s friends—Jonathan—had become ordained in his extensive travels and was filling in for the absent minister. The greenhouse had been decorated with roses of varying delicate colors, but the pale, delicate, bluish-purple roses lined the aisle and matched the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses. There wasn’t much Christmas decor in the greenhouse except for the occasional white poinsettia at the end of each row and artful ribbons reserving chairs up front for special friends.

  Then the music started. And Daphne’s composure crumbled the moment Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” began to play. Wesley pressed a soft cloth handkerchief into her hand and she took it, swiping at her eyes. Hunter stood at the front of the redecorated greenhouse, a rather ardent expression on his scarred face as he stared down the aisle, waiting for his bride. The look he wore wasn’t stoic, Daphne thought. It wasn’t nervous, either. It was . . . burning with intensity, like he couldn’t wait for his bride to arrive into his arms. That was sweet.

  Greer was the first bridesmaid to come down the aisle. Each one wore a lovely pale blue-purple dress in a different cut and carried a bouquet of white roses. Greer was heavily pregnant but glowing with happiness, and sneaking peeks at the man on her arm, Asher Sutton. Next came Sebastian and Chelsea, both tall and gorgeous, then Taylor a
nd Loch. Taylor tripped on the carpet, but Loch’s strong arm caught her and she erupted in embarrassed giggles before taking her place next to the other bridesmaids at the front. Then came Magnus and Edie, the latter’s steps slow and deliberate to minimize her limp. Their fingers lingered together for a moment after they separated, and Daphne wondered if something was going on there.

  Then came Brontë, on the arm of Reese, Audrey’s husband. After that, it was the maid of honor and the best man. Audrey—Daphne’s glowing, radiantly happy twin—walked slowly down the aisle on the arm of Logan Hawkings, Hunter’s best friend and Brontë’s husband. Time seemed to inch past as the bridal party moved into place, and the intense look in Hunter’s eyes intensified.

  Then the music changed.

  Etta James’s “At Last” poured from the speakers. Gretchen appeared at the end of the aisle, the waterfall bouquet of pale blue-purple roses cascading down from her hands. Her veil shielded her features, but even from her seat, Daphne could see the radiant smile on her face.

  The tears pretty much fell like rain at that point.

  She cried when Gretchen walked down the aisle and arrived in front of her groom, who, for the first time since she’d met him, was wearing a wide smile. She cried when Hunter lifted Gretchen’s veil and his fingers caressed her cheek as he did. She cried when they joined hands and said their vows, and Gretchen promised to “smack that ass as often as possible” and Hunter’s ears turned red. She wept when they exchanged rings and vowed to love each other forever. And she cried a little more when they kissed, and then Gretchen and Hunter were married.

  And she might have cried a little more when the party moved to the reception hall—a big banquet area set up in one of Buchanan Manor’s many many rooms, because Gretchen immediately made a beeline to Daphne and hugged her. She managed to keep her composure when the sad, collapsed wedding cake was brought out and the bride and groom fed each other. It didn’t matter that the cake was ugly—everyone declared it was utterly delicious.