But it looked like the senator was content with making Cruz squirm. “I’m just sure I saw some ladies’ tea on the agenda Bits pushed under my nose this morning.”
“I’m running a quick errand. But I’m glad I’ve got both of you here.” She didn’t look glad. She didn’t look in Cruz’s direction at all. Just linked arms with Auggie and tried to smile up at him. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t have anything to do with Cinco’s performance the other night—and don’t play dumb; I know you’ve heard all about it by now. But it got me thinking…”
“Maggie.” Her name left his lips. A plea. A prayer. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.
“It got me thinking about the direction SD9 is moving, and where my talents may best be applied, and if there’s a position for me at Ramsey International, I’m interested.”
Chapter 8
It was almost showtime. Harps, cellos, flowers, sniffling in hand-embroidered handkerchiefs—all signs pointed to happily ever after. Which was why Maggie was shocked when Laurel pulled her back into the coat-closet-sized bridal suite in the chapel by the sea as they were filing out.
“Love is everything,” she gasped, then simply stared at Maggie.
“It is,” she agreed numbly, a little afraid Laurel was having some kind of episode. Dammit, Maggie didn’t have a pep talk in her. Not today. But she tried. “Yay. Let’s get you married.”
“We’ll get to that, but first, Maggie. Let’s get real. It’s killing me to see you this upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m excited—”
“Cut the crap and don’t let my asshole brother ruin something beautiful. Again.”
“Again?” Oh, again. And this was so not the time to talk about it, but Laurel’s designer dress was blocking the door and there was no way Maggie would make it out the tiny porthole of a window. “You know—”
“About you and Tom rescuing Hannah Kline that night? Of course. He told me all about it back in college.”
“Oh.” What more could she say?
“She’s in Savannah, Georgia, now, in case you’re wondering. Two kids. Husband is a banker.”
“She’s not…” Maggie couldn’t say it.
Laurel obviously had no problem. “Dead? No. She didn’t kill herself. She just disappeared and started over. Kind of like someone else we know.”
She knew Laurel’s words weren’t meant to shame her. And yet…
“That night”—the night—“she was so upset, and I was so scared. It was all so…”
“From what Tom told me, it was horrifying.”
Maggie just nodded. “I never wanted to be that girl. And it would have been so easy to throw my life over for some guy. I vowed then to never give up my dreams. My power.” She drew in a shaky breath. “It hit me hard, you know, to see her vulnerable and broken.”
“You’ve never been weak. And guess what, friend of mine? Being in love with a powerful man doesn’t make you weak either.”
No. No, she couldn’t hear this. Not now. Not when Maggie had to stand, smiling, in front of a room of strangers. And a team of photographers from glossy bridal-style magazines. “Laurel, I don’t want this shadow your special day.”
“It’s only a shadow if you let it be one. Don’t let him go without a fight, Maggie.”
But she’d been fighting. Every step of the way. And this morning…
Oh, no. No, no, no. “You don’t know what I said to him this morning.”
“Oh my God!” The door burst open and a manic Valkyrie with curly blond hair pointed at her with a peony-studded bouquet. “Enough. You are killing me and the timetable. The timetable!”
The ceremony was beautiful and over in the blink of an eye. Maggie could barely remember how she got out of the chapel and into the golden light of the dooryard, but the next thing she knew, she and Claire were posing for a picture together.
The photographer moved off, and, on impulse, Maggie hugged her. “You look beautiful today, Claire. And the ceremony was—”
“I, uh… Thank you.”
There were so many pictures. Inside the chapel. Outside the chapel. With the groomsmen. Some with just the girls. In the wedding party bus back to the Cove. Then in front of Virtue Cove itself.
All through it, Maggie had kept laughing. Smiling. Laurel’s words spinning round and round in her head, intertwined with his name. Being in love with Cruz could never make her weak.
As soon as she walked into the glittering tent with the rest of the wedding party, and executed her bridesmaid duties faithfully, Maggie caught Laurel’s eye and mouthed “thank you.”
Cruz was somewhere at Virtue Cove; she just had to find him. And once she did, she was never letting go.
It wasn’t hard to steal one of the golf carts parked at the back of the main house; she raced the poor failure of a security guard who ran after her back to her parents’ house. Lady Anne was in the kitchen, along with Bits’ other dogs—the pack she traveled with wherever she went—but Maggie didn’t stop to greet them.
By the way they were just hanging out on the furniture, she knew what she’d find upstairs, but she went anyway.
It was as she’d left it. Except the trundle had been pushed back under her bed, and she knew if she looked in the laundry hamper, those pink polka-dotted sheets would be neatly stuffed in there. His bags were gone. Her desk no longer his temporary workstation; it was clear, except for an annotated copy of the Business Journal.
She traced the lines of his handsome face staring up at her from the cover of the magazine, a rock resting over one of his eyes, making his grin piratical. It would be so easy to sit on her bed. To sit there and clutch a pillow to her chest. Throw a pity party for one.
But she’d fought for everything she’d wanted all her adult life. Why should she stop now? There’d just be a change of venue.
Time to strategize after the wedding.
Wait, that rock. It was from her beach. There was absolutely no mistaking that when she picked it up and ran a thumb across its smooth surface.
And felt a small piece of paper taped to the bottom.
His writing was small, precise. A clear sign he’d taken some care with it:
I won’t be accused of not fulfilling my plus-one duties.
Checked with the band; Sam Cooke is on the set list.
—C.G.
Sam Cooke was on the set list!
Picking up her skirts, she raced down the stairs and out the front door. The golf cart wouldn’t start, but that wouldn’t stop her. Nothing would.
Maggie owed Cruz a dance.
The reception was in full swing. Happy faces. Happy people. Happy laughing, loving people.
Happy dogs? Oh, jeez. There was Bits in her de la Renta feeding two dogs Maggie had never seen filet and asparagus.
But no one she asked had seen Cruz.
Helen, Mom, even the DJ had been no help. After a search of the house—even the off-limits-to-guests parts—and the gardens, Maggie was desperate enough to listen to Cinco when she stumbled upon him sitting with a slightly disheveled girl.
For a moment, her heart threatened to lodge permanently in her throat. No, he wasn’t with a girl. She was a woman. A woman smiling up at Cinco like he was the last of the blueberry preserves on a winter morning, at that. Though Maggie would fault her taste in men, she determined nothing was amiss.
“We just saw him walking on the beach,” he volunteered before Maggie could even form the words to ask. Maybe they’d all changed since the days of Hannah Kline.
“Thank you, August.”
“Who was that?” Disheveled Girl asked in a nasal Midwestern accent as Maggie left.
“Her? Just the gardener’s daughter.”
Maybe they hadn’t all changed.
She left her heels lined up with the rest of the abandoned footwear by the stairs that led down to the shoreline, but bypassed the basket of flip-flops Laurel—or more likely Claire—had thought to leave out for guests wishing to escape one of
the decadent tents and head down to the water.
The sand was damp under her feet. Cold. But she resisted the urge to dig in, and started walking.
Despite the shoes she’d seen abandoned up top, the beach was empty—no hint of footprints, even. Maybe she’d misunderstood. What if he was up in the tent that served as the grand ballroom and she’d just missed him in the crush of bodies and flowers and flounce?
The hem of her gown was probably beyond repair, but when she saw a familiar silhouette under the light of a billion stars, she didn’t care if it disintegrated.
Cruz was sitting on the big, flat rock. A torch, strategically placed next to a sign warning guests to not walk further, lit up his profile.
He was in a tux, pants rolled up, an untied bow tie half hanging out of his collar, and much too handsome for his own good.
He’d been waiting for her.
She tossed the rock up at him. Which he caught. One-handed.
“Show-off.”
“I see you got my message.” He hopped off the rock but didn’t move to close the distance between them. Which was okay. For now.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t?”
He considered the rock then slipped it in his pocket. “Oh, Maggie, I can’t believe you’d ever underestimate your opponent.”
“Are we opponents?”
She didn’t know how long they stood like that, gentle waves rolling in around their ankles. Dogs barking somewhere in the distance. The stars probably even blinked a few extra thousand times there up in the Milky Way. What, like those stars didn’t already know?
“You once said that you gave up everything—”
“Cruz, no…” Oh, God. He’d remembered that? That frantic bit of nonsense she’d spouted in the midst of her fear and epic freak-out?
“No, let me, Maggie.” He stepped forward, but remembered he shouldn’t crowd her. Loom over her in order to press his cause.
The distance between them was a physical ache.
“You give me everything.” He took a deep breath and waded in deeper. “You are my everything. And I’d never ever want you to feel empty when being with you—loving you—makes me feel so damned full inside I think I’m going to explode from it.”
When she smiled, it really was everything; when she reached out for him, it broke his heart. Because he had to tell her. Had to lay it all out on the table—it was only fair.
“I want that for you, Maggie. And yeah, I’m a selfish asshole, and I want you to have that incredible fullness with me. But if you can’t”—dammit, this was harder than he thought it was going to be, and he’d thought of nothing else all day—“I want you to find someone who will give it to you. So if that means you need to leave me, and SD9, then you need to do it.”
She visibly smarted. “You…you want me to go? Take a job with creepy Cinco—”
“Well, if we are talking about what I want, I’d rather you not go at all. But yeah, if working for creepy Cinco would make you happy—”
“It would not.”
Relief washed through him.
Cruz broke all the rules and gathered her up in his arms. She smelled like moonlight and hope and every dream he didn’t know he’d wanted. “Then what would, Maggie? Because all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.”
“That’s good, because I think all I’ve ever wanted is you.”
“Who am I to second-guess that magnificent brain of yours?”
She laughed and more than met him halfway for a kiss. Something sweet and hot that made him forget they were standing on the edge of the world that used to be her home.
He wanted to be her home.
“You owe me a dance,” she whispered against his lips.
“I don’t hear Sam.”
Her hands slipped under his coat and music was the last thing on his mind.
“Mmm, you also owe me a sloppy make-out session. Plus One Rulebook. Section 3.6.”
“Oh?” He took her hand and walked to the other side of the rock. “Never let it be said I don’t pay my debts.”
“With compound interest?”
“I love it when you talk nerdy to me, Maggie.”
Acknowledgments
The list is long. The love is real. Thank you to everyone who supports me in this wild, magical vocation of mine. It’s a dream come true—even when I’m sitting at Starbucks five minutes before closing madly trying to back up my words and everything is a disaster.
I especially appreciate those whose names appear with mine on the cover. Lindsay and Ophelia, thank you for giving me an excuse to eat a cookie the size of my face with delicious frequency, to sit on the back row at DARA, and to laugh until strangers in coffee shops and cafes look at me like I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t (yet). I’m just reading a string of completely awesome texts. It’s an LLL thing. <3
Thanks to Victoria Austin, whose generous spirit and warm heart make me proud to be a part of Romancelandia. And speaking of, Shari Slade, Megan Mulry, Julia Broadbooks, Edie Harris, Jodie Griffin, Katie Dunneback, Olivia Dade, Julia Kelly, Laura von Holt, and oh heck I should just cut and paste my entire Tweetstream in here because I’m going to be at this all day, otherwise. Y’all are the best.
And to you who’s still reading this. Thank you for believing that love stories matter.
About the Author
Alexandra Haughton lives and writes in a cozy urban cottage. Contrary to popular belief, it is not wall-to-wall pink and glitter. Yet. She makes a mean chicken-fried steak and has a weakness for Italian cream cake (no nuts). When Alexandra isn’t writing contemporary romance, you can find her out and about in Dallas. Just look for the woman in a cardigan. Even if it is 103.
If you want to know more, sign up for her newsletter or find her on social media--she has no secrets.
@WriterAHaughton
alexandrahaughton.com
Always On My Mind
Ophelia London
Also by Ophelia London
Wife for the Weekend
Kissing Her Crush
Chalk Lines & Lipstick
Aimee and the Heartthrob
Definitely, Maybe in Love
Someday Maybe
Playing at Love
Speaking of Love
Falling for her Soldier
Making Waves
Abby Road
Crossing Abby Road
Love Bites
Dedicated to Kevin, my future forever Plus One.
Chapter 1
“Lady Anne! Get your fluffy tail back here! Oooh, do not wag your tongue at me, missy.”
Hearing the voice, Ashton James wheeled around, wobbling on one high heel as she caught sight of a middle-aged woman in hunter-green wellies and knee-length cashmere cardigan charging straight toward her.
Chasing a dog.
The brown Irish Setter was maybe a million years old, half blind, and used to the twilight years of her life being carried up and down stairs like a sacred cat. It didn’t take much effort for Ashton to take a gentle hold of the dragging leash, stopping the wannabe runaway from trotting into the meadow-like side yard of the house.
No, not a house. Ashton had finally resigned herself to refer to Virtue Cove as a mansion. Country estate or even compound were more accurate descriptions.
“Come here, sweetie.” She leaned over to scratch behind the pooch’s ears, savoring the silky fur. “Hi, baby. What a good girl you are.”
“She’s an old bat, but I can’t live without her. Thank you…Ashton, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” With some regret, Ashton passed over the leash. “And you’re welcome, Mrs. Ramsey.”
“Please, call me Bits. Everyone does.” The woman picked up the dog, depositing head kisses along the way. Then she turned to Ashton, the corners of her kind eyes crinkling as she smiled. “We’re family now, or about to be.”
“Four more days.”
“How is Tyler doing with all of this?”
“Fine. Maybe a little overwhelm
ed at times, but happy.”
Bits shifted Lady Anne in her arms. “We simply adore your brother. He fits right in.”
Ashton didn’t know about that. And with nothing else to say, she stroked the aging dog’s back, while stealing quick glimpses of Bits. Usually the queen of small talk, Ashton’s standard go-to subject seemed pointless, considering her companion.
When deliberating on asking Bits to rank the satisfaction of her sex life, she could only imagine the blank stare she’d get in return. Even though she had the heart of an avid researcher, Ashton didn’t make it a habit of putting people on the spot if she knew they couldn’t take it.
Therefore, besides her future sister-in-law, Laurel, the entire family of August Ramsey IV was off limits. Fine. Amnesty was just another perk of having an obscene amount of money and prestige.
Okay, her own family had money, but hello, nothing compared to the Ramseys’ gazillions. Sweet old Auggie Ramsey—Ty’s soon-to-be father-in-law—was a senior senator, and his father was the former vice president of the United States. Oh, yes, not to forget the little fact that the Ramseys owned half of Arizona, not to mention this “summer house” that took up a pretty decent chunk of Maine’s coast.
Though, honestly, you’d never know it by looking at Bits in her muddy boots and flyaway hair, chasing her gang of rescued dogs all over Bar Harbor. When it came down to it, the Ramseys were considerably chilled-out millionaires—which was why her brother and Laurel Ramsey had fallen in love so easily.
Even though the couple had been dating since the end of college, Ashton never referred to them as a perfect match, or soul mates, simply because she didn’t believe in it—she couldn’t, thanks to her professors, research studies, budding career…and personal experiences.
The Last Plus One Page 13
