Always & Forever: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection, Books 1 - 4)
Page 65
David gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze.
“Avery, child, I’ve loved you like you were my own since you were a tiny little thing, running around this island in nothing but a swimsuit, a rash of freckles across your cheeks. I’ve seen you at your best, and I’m rightly sure I’ve also seen you at your worst. Which means I can speak on good authority when I say that the man behind you? He brings out the very best version of you. I’ve seen that kind of love one time before, when your grandma fell so hard for your grandpa.” Melba smiled wide. “She’s proud of you, child. I’m sure of it.”
Avery crossed the sand and gave Melba a big hug. “Thanks, Melba.”
She turned back to David, heart-full and happy.
Their eyes met and he took a steadying breath. “Avery, if I say too much, I’ll probably screw something up. So I’ll just say this. I love you. Completely.” He dropped to one knee and looked to John, who tossed him a tiny, black jewelry box. He caught it smoothly with his long, capable fingers and opened it up. Looking at Avery, the firelight dancing across his face, he smiled wide. “Marry me?”
Avery dropped into the sand in front of him and kissed him, the cheers of all the people she loved erupting behind them. “Yes,” she said, tears flowing freely now. “Absolutely yes.”
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Chapter 1
No way.
NO WAY.
Tessa watched the tall guy coming through the lobby doors into the BBMJ Industries foyer—a space as bland as the company name.
It was Ethan Bedford. But Ethan 2.0. She ran a quick eye over him before he noticed her. She’d been expecting him, of course. She was the one who’d recruited Ethan to join her engineering team at BBMJ, which was why she was waiting in the lobby to welcome him to his first day on the job. But she hadn’t expected him to change so much in six years.
She hadn’t seen him since they graduated from the grueling Georgia Tech mechanical engineering program, and wow. Those six years had been very good to him.
He wasn’t any taller—thank goodness, because he was already a few inches over six feet—but his gawky frame had filled out, and he’d traded the college hoodie and mesh basketball shorts he’d practically lived in for a crisp blue-checked button-down shirt and gray work slacks. His perpetually shaggy dark hair had been tamed with a professional haircut, but his smile was exactly the same when his warm brown eyes finally found her.
“Tessa?”
Oops. She hoped her ogling hadn’t been too obvious. “Ethan!” She hurried forward to meet him with a hug, a short, friendly one like a dozen they’d shared before, but even that short contact was enough to tell her that his bony angles had been majorly upgraded with layers of hard muscle. Whoa. Talk about a system redesign.
“So good to see you.” She stepped back so she didn’t give the receptionist or security guard anything to wonder about. “You really should have called me when you got in last night. I could have treated you to dinner or helped you unload.”
“This morning,” he corrected her. “I got in close to 1:00, threw a sleeping bag down on the floor, and crashed.”
She winced. “I feel so bad for dragging you in without more time to settle, but we kind of don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t feel bad at all. Six hours of sleep is plenty for me. I’m ready to jump in.”
“Great.” She pivoted and led him to the receptionist desk. “Sign in here, let’s get you cleared, and I’ll bring you to meet the team.” The receptionist handed him his security badge, and Tessa immediately shepherded him through the first secure door.
“I can’t believe how efficient you are here. It took forever to onboard at my last job,” he said, hitching his nylon messenger bag over his shoulder and hurrying after her. She approved the choice. Canvas might look better, but it was so impractical.
She slowed slightly while he caught up. “You sound surprised.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have been after how quickly the office processed everything this week. But I got kind of nervous when I pulled in…”
She smiled as his voice trailed off, a mannerism that she remembered well. He’d often done that right when he was on the verge of saying something too blunt. In a graduating cohort of mostly male engineers, he was one of the few who seemed to sense that sometimes there were more diplomatic ways to say things.
“Let me guess. The flagship BBMJ campus doesn’t look like the headquarters of the leading manufacturing and design outfit in North America?”
“Well . . . no.”
Her smiled widened. To the uninitiated eye, the company site looked like a half dozen bland stucco-and-glass buildings like a thousand other business parks in Anytown, USA. “They save all the bells and whistles for the research and design facilities in the secure parts of the complex. Visualize the buildings you saw when you drove up, and then picture them going three times as deep underground. It’ll take you a little longer to get access to the more secure buildings, but trust me, BBMJ is far more impressive behind steel doors.”
She was glad for the small talk. Maybe it would cover up the fact that she was still off-balance from Ethan’s reappearance. Or rather, just Ethan’s appearance. The hair, the clothes. Not that his clothes were unusual. Button-downs and work slacks were pretty much the uniform for everyone on her team. It was just his . . . everything, really. The way he held himself? His easy, direct gaze? He was so different than she remembered. Back then, he’d been as awkward and gangly as all the other guys in her program, but he’d grown up. Nicely.
Ethan was talking to her, she realized. She forced herself to focus on his words.
“So, do you?”
Shoot. She hadn’t focused fast enough. “Sorry, my mind was already jumping ahead to the . . . project. Do I what?”
“Like working for a conglomerate? I hadn’t realized you were working here until you offered me the consulting gig. It’s kind of off-brand for you, isn’t it?”
There was no judgment in his tone, just curiosity, and she understood his surprise. “Because I was on a crusade in college to change the world with alternative energy solutions?” She smiled, even more anxious now to pull back the curtain on the project she’d recruited him for. “Being here is less off-brand than you think, and now that you’re officially cleared, I can give you all the details that matter. But first, an elevator ride.”
She couldn’t wait to show him the lab. It was equipped with state-of-the-art machines from CNC routers to 3D printers. She’d nearly drooled when they’d been moved out of the applications workshop—the cramped workspace in their old building—and into their new digs.
“You’re going to flip when you see this place.” Ethan was the only person she knew who was as capable of falling in love with industrial manufacturing machines as she was. They’d been inseparable in the Georgia Tech machine shop, booking time to tinker far beyond their program requirements. “I can’t believe Standard Labs let you go.”
“They didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “They’ve been jerks ever since I got the nod for Klieber, and since I start that in six weeks anyway . . . .” He shrugged. “Besides, their breakroom coffee sucked.”
“Everyone complains about my coffee, but the rest of the facility will make up for it.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“I’m dying to show it to you. And full disclosure, I’m hoping you’ll be so wowed that you’ll decide to abandon Klieber and stay here permanently.” He laughed, and she joined him. The idea of anyone turning down Klieber was definitely a joke.
The European design firm was tiny in comparison to BBMJ, but they had been at the forefront of every major new energy solution in Europe for the last five years. Heck, if BBMJ pulled the funding on her protoype, she might even go banging on the Swiss firm’s door and beg to be hired.
But first, she realized as Ethan’s subtle woodsy-smelling shower gel or shampoo or something tickled her nose, she was going to have survive this reintroduction to him. She was staring at his shoulders. Again. She pretended to look for something in her work bag while she refocused.
They’d almost had a thing in college. Sort of. Maybe? She hadn’t had much experience dating, especially not after her one and only boyfriend, Dylan, turned out to be the lowest sort of rat before she’d transferred to Georgia Tech. But even then, she’d sensed interest from Ethan. Maybe it was the way he always sought her out in the lab, or the way she’d caught him looking at her sometimes, a mixture of hope and curiosity when he studied her, and then the red flush that would darken his ears when she caught him.
She’d been pulled in too, easy with him in a way that she hadn’t been with anyone. Ever. Then one night, he’d leaned toward her with a soft look in his eye, and . . .
Well. She bolted that night, and from that point on she created a space between them just in case, choosing other partners, hurrying out of class so he didn’t try to walk her to the next one. He’d backed off, and late in their final semester, she’d spotted him kissing a willowy brunette in front of the engineering building before class one day.
She glanced casually now at his ring finger, but it was bare. It didn’t necessarily mean he was single, but the only social media he maintained was his WorkLink profile, and those didn’t list personal details.
Not that it mattered. At all. He was leaving the country in six weeks. And even if he wasn’t, she’d worked too hard to get to this moment, standing on the verge of a revolutionary new technology, to risk a distraction like dating a co-worker. The only “ring” she needed to worry about was the elevator bell letting them know they’d reached the lab. She shifted her eyes to the front and kept them on the doors, waiting for them to slide open so she could introduce Ethan to her favorite space on the planet.
Finish Tessa and Ethan’s story, and enjoy
the next three novels in the ABCs of Love series
in Always You
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Falling for her Foe: A is for Author
Besting the Undercover Boss: B is for Billionaire
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Dreaming of the Next Door Doc: D is for Doctor
Embracing her Ever After: E is for Engineer
Falling for a Former Flame: F is for Firefighter
Gambling on a Gentleman: G is for Gentleman