Perfection.
But nothing I saw even came close to being as stunning as the woman who had her manicured hand in the crook of my arm. When I first saw her exiting the limo I’d sent to pick her up, she’d taken my breath away. A glittering silver sequined gown clung to her every curve and highlighted the vibrancy of her natural coloring. I was dying to know what she had on underneath it. Hopefully, nothing. Maybe if I ever stopped receiving congratulatory hugs, handshakes, and well wishes from every passerby, I’d get the chance to ask her.
I’d exhaled so many sighs of relief over the success of The Cordoza that I almost didn’t notice Nolan Banks beaming with pride, strutting around in his Armani tux.
Lydia noticed him too. It was hard not to. Between the expensive formal wear, the charming good looks, and the exquisite Charlie hanging from his arm, the man was like a walking billboard for the good life.
“Your boss is something,” Lydia whispered.
“That’s one way of looking at it. When your father’s one of NYCs richest men, you can write your own ticket. But don’t hate him because he’s beautiful, Nolan works really hard. Harder than most people I know. He’s a good boss. Fair and smart.”
“That’s good. Since I’m used to being my own boss, I can’t even imagine having to answer to someone.”
“It’s not always easy,” I said, meandering through the revelers to get to the theater’s plush new seats. They’d blinked the lights to indicate the looming poetry reading, and I wanted to make sure Lydia and I had time to settle in before Lindsey and Tristan took the stage. After the short performance, dinner and dancing would begin. Anne had hired multiple live music acts, including a famous pop band and a full orchestra. The ensembles were strategically placed throughout the facility, each providing its own unique ambiance. Truly something for everyone.
During the poetry reading, the Cirque du Soleil performance would take place from the rafters above the seats, and the orchestra would play from the orchestra pit. I’d carefully chosen the songs to be used as the classical backdrop for each reading. Chopin would start it out, and Bach would bring it home.
Tristan had been surprisingly normal ever since he’d come out a few weeks ago. Hard to believe, but it seemed most or all of his irrational behavior and anger issues stemmed from keeping something so important locked deep inside for so many years. Amazing what could happen when the truth revealed itself, and the intense therapy he’d been receiving seemed to be helping as well. Either way, I had my brother’s back, and our tentative relationship had been growing slowly stronger ever since I’d selected him to close the show benefiting the suicide prevention hotline.
I glanced at Lydia looking so elegant and beautiful sitting beside me, so at home in a venue for the performing arts. She’d be the perfect partner to attend all of the Banks corporate events with. She’d never embarrass me or probably even put a foot down wrong. The ideal wife. And I intended to ask her to be mine. Tonight. It felt right. The past had been left behind, and my future belonged solely to Lydia.
“Callum, I’m so impressed with the interior. You managed to retain all of the history and natural beauty of the King James but bring in enough new life to make it The Cordoza. I’m so proud of you. What an accomplishment.”
Not as great as the lifetime of accomplishments we’ll complete together.
I opened my mouth to respond, but in that moment, the house lights went dim, so I just bussed a kiss to the top of her head. Her glorious hair had been styled into an elaborate updo. My fingers itched to rummage through it and force it to fall in a blanket of silk around her shoulders and down her back. I didn’t dare.
Lindsay’s reading carried such poignant emotion that Lydia held my hand during the entire thing in silent solidarity. But when Tristan took the stage and began to speak, my whole body tightened with such nostalgia that I started to see stars from holding my breath.
My love for him is so great,
my heart flutters and melts until the dusk of day.
The night carries when he’s away,
wise, soulful, my everything.
His strength is great,
in body and soul. My wondering mind until him sees,
loving is all I do, while waiting for the moment, that moment
When everything our eyes see will join us together as one.
Right after the word “strength,” I lost it. The poem was about me. I shook free from Lydia’s iron grip and hurried up the aisle. Air. I needed air. I tried gulping some through my tortured lungs, but I couldn’t stop the panic from rising. And I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I didn’t cry.
Callum Markham did – not – cry.
And yet…I was bawling. Great rivers of fat tears that spoke of all the love I’d had for Amelia. I grieved her loss. But more than that, I grieved her future. The one she should have been granted but hadn’t allowed herself. The one that had been taken away with such disregard for one of the most beautiful and talented souls I’d ever met.
“Callum?”
Lydia’s soft voice barely pierced my consciousness. I turned my back on her, ashamed for her to see me in this pathetic state. Seconds ticked by until I felt her warm palm burn through the fabric of my tuxedo jacket into my lower back. I blinked several times in a desperate attempt to hide my emotion from her.
But Lydia wouldn’t let me. She spun her body around to my front and stared into my red and wet eyes.
“I’m okay,” I lied.
Hers were filled with compassion and something else. Something deeper. “I know you’re okay because you’re strong. But being strong doesn’t mean it’s weak to feel something after Tristan’s performance. I know that poem was about you, Callum. It’s okay to love Amelia. It’s okay to grieve the fact that her light was extinguished far too soon.”
“Because of me. Amelia killed herself because of me. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself.”
Lydia’s hand ran up my arm to rest on my bicep. “Callum, do not ever say that again. When someone makes a choice that results in their own death, that decision is no one else’s fault. Amelia made a choice that stole her future based on the pain of the present. Emotions ebb and flow. She didn’t have the patience or the fortitude to wait it out.”
I flung off Lydia’s hand and raked a hand through my hair. People were starting to filter out of the theater, and the last thing I wanted was either Nolan or Chase to see me blubbering like some kind of nervous wreck. I had to get away. Away from The Cordoza. Away from Amelia. Most of all, away from the heart–wrenching pain that had infiltrated my entire body.
I glanced at Lydia, who now wore a stricken expression that added to my distress. Spinning on the heel of my polished black dress shoe, I took off at a trot toward the backstage area. If I could just reach the wings, I could hide and wait it out until I could compose myself.
“Callum?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I spun around at the sound of my brother’s voice. The last thing I needed was Tristan lording it over me at a time like this.
“Yeah?”
“I was hoping I’d run into you before you got swallowed up in the throng of people in the lobby. I just wanted to say thank you for letting me read Amelia’s poem tonight. Her words, well, they were…exquisite. I’m sure they were about you. I can’t imagine someone loving me that much that they’d ever create something so beautiful it would stand the test of time. I know you must miss her. But this is a fitting tribute.”
“You’re welcome. You did her work justice. If she were here, she’d be very happy with your interpretation.”
My brother reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, and I relaxed into it. We hadn’t hugged or touched each other in any way in years. Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet.
“I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts. But I saw Lydia searching for you. She deserves better. Let her help you through this,” he said as he turned and slipped into the shadows behind the heavy curtains.
Tr
istan’s last words pierced through my pain to sink into my heart. He was right. I’d let Lydia down at the very time I should have let her in. My feet moved of their own accord. I had to find her. I had to get to Lydia and explain before she’d had enough of me and it was too late.
I found her just outside the front door, standing on the cement steps leading to the entrance. Her spectacular dress glittered under the illumination of a million stars. But that was nothing compared to her internal light. I wanted my Lydia.
Forever started right now.
“Lydia?”
She turned at the sound of my voice, and her eyes searched mine. Probably worrying that I would reject her again when I should be begging for her forgiveness. Time to start supplicating at the toes of her Jimmy Choos.
“Callum? Where did you go? I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I…I…” I didn’t have any damn words that made sense even to myself. Everything I wanted to stay stuck in my throat like sawdust. I settled on something that couldn’t be disputed. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Callum,” she cried, “you’ve nothing to be sorry about. The thing is, we’re a couple now, and if we want to explore a future together, we have to be open and honest with each other even when we’re in pain. A relationship isn’t all sunshine and butterflies all the time. That’s not real life.”
“I don’t want to explore a future together.”
She reeled back, shock and confusion laced with pain skittered across her face. Seems I’d be forever saying and doing the wrong thing.
“W–what?” she stuttered.
I closed the gap between us and pulled her into my embrace. “That’s not what I meant, Lydia. I’m just so frazzled tonight, like an emotional train wreck. It’s not manly at all. If you want to run, run now.”
She nuzzled into my neck. “I don’t want to run.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small velvet box I’d been holding for just the right moment. Now, I didn’t want to wait for the ideal moment. “Good. Because I don’t want to explore a relationship with you. I want you to be my wife. I want you by my side forever. I’m madly in love with you, Lydia. Please say you’ll agree to be my wife.”
She glanced up at me, and now her eyes were glazed over with unshed tears. “You do? You really love me?”
“With every beat of my heart and every breath in my body.”
She smiled then. That toe curling, spine–tingling smile that lit my world up like the fourth of July. “I love you too, Callum. I love you so much.”
“I’m waiting.”
Confusion spread across her gorgeous features. “What?”
“I’m waiting for your answer and for you to open the box. Don’t keep a guy in such suspense.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I’m ashamed to remember what I said then. My feelings are so different. In fact, they are quite the opposite.
– Elizabeth Bennet
Chapter 24
Lydia
I stared down at the five–carat cushion–cut diamond engagement ring that Callum had picked out for me all on his own. Okay, he hadn’t picked it out completely on his own. Poppy had swung by the jewelry store to give it her bestie stamp of approval.
I’d smiled so many smiles over the course of Charlie’s massive engagement party for Callum and me, my face felt frozen in the up position.
“Hey, my perfect girl,” a deep, sexy voice purred in my ear, causing shivers to crawl from the back of my neck straight up to the top of my head. “How’s it going? I’ve been missing you.”
“It’s going,” I replied, snuggling my back against his front. He looked especially handsome in a three–piece pinstriped suit and pink tie that matched my Michael Kors cocktail dress in a soft shade of magenta that set off the highlights in my hair. “I’ve met so many people today that not only their names but their faces have all run together in a jumbled mess. Thank God there won’t be a quiz later.”
Callum wrapped his arms around the indents of my waist and rubbed my flanks. Tingles crept up my body that set my heart to fluttering. “Oh, there will be a quiz, fiancée. A quiz on all the parts of my body that you haven’t touched lately. They’re feeling very lonely.”
I laughed and pressed back even harder to rub my ass on his groin, his sexy groan my reward. “I don’t think there is one single inch of your body I haven’t touched this week. How could any of them be lonely? You’re just crying foul when you’re not even in the game.”
“Want to play games later?”
Before I had a chance to respond, a voice boomed behind us. “Hey, get it up out of the gutter, you two. Even though you’re the guests of honor, there are children present. And siblings. And parents.” Nolan appeared with a bottle of champagne in one hand and toasting flutes in the other. “Come on, Charlie wants to make a toast.”
I looked around the opulent Banks penthouse. Charlie Banks was such a wonderful woman, and I’d really enjoyed the budding friendship between us. She was far more reserved than Poppy, but she still had a great sense of humor that made her fun to hang out with. I could see us going to lunch and sitting together at boring corporate functions where our husbands spent hours discussing real estate deals and contracts.
I saw Poppy’s red head bobbing across the room toward me. Of course, she’d been working the room.
“Lydia, you won’t believe who I just talked to,” she gushed, taking both my hands in hers. “Well, you won’t guess so I’ll just tell you. James Young, that’s who!”
My heart started hammering double–time. James Young was the director of publishing for Timeless books, the biggest romance publisher in the industry. I’d had so many manuscripts rejected by them I’d almost given up my goal of becoming an author. But then indie publishing had become the wave of the future, and my dreams had been saved from extinction.
“What did you talk about?” I tried to swallow the huge lump down my parched throat as I waited for her to reveal the 411.
“You, silly. I pitched him your latest novel. The one interwoven with Amelia’s poetry.” As she spoke, she patted her giant tote bag. “I just so happened to have a copy of the rough draft right in here. And guess what, Lydia Singleton, he wants to publish your book! Isn’t that the bee’s knees? The Cordoza has been such a smashing success, and Amelia’s story is all over NYC. He just knows he can make you a traditional best seller.”
I stood there with Callum still holding onto me. My knees buckled, my lungs lacked oxygen. I couldn’t even believe it. How could a woman get everything she ever wanted in life? I had the man, I had the career I loved. Now, I’d have a lucrative publishing deal and the possibility of making a huge list. Giddy with happiness, I flung myself into Poppy’s waiting arms.
“I love you, Poppy Montgomery. Best. Editor. Ever.”
She squeezed me tight. “Not even. You wrote it. I just had to sell it. And your work is so darn good it makes the selling part easy. Of course, I did make it even better by waving my magic wand over it.”
Callum stepped forward. “What’s this about Amelia’s poetry in your book?”
I reached out an arm and drew him inside the circle of our joy. “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure it would be something that might be published. I talked to Diana at the gala that night because I had an idea on how I could weave Amelia’s beautiful prose into my latest novel. Amelia’s mom was gracious enough to send me a book of poetry from Amelia’s college days. I used the verses as chapter headings, and then I used some more as letters from the heroine to the hero. I think it turned out really unique, if I do say so myself.”
Callum pulled me right off my feet and locked our lips together in a searing kiss in spite of Nolan’s annoyed hiss. “Have I told you lately how much I love you? I’ve never heard of anything so awesome.”
“I was happy to do it. I know how much she meant to you,” I whispered. “And since you mean the world to me, it just felt right. Now, Amelia and her work can li
ve on in the theater and inside the pages of my novel.”
“You’re amazing,” Callum said as I slid down his hard body to land on my stiletto–clad feet.
“Hey, lovebirds, can we get on with the toasting part now?” Nolan interrupted from his place at the bar.
Everyone raised their glasses and toasted our engagement and our bright and happy future together. As I glanced across the room, I noticed Poppy, Charlie, my parents, and Callum’s beaming most of all. I felt enveloped in a cocoon of love and support like I never had before. My life had come full circle. Complete. Nothing left to do but enjoy every last moment.
I tasted my champagne, allowing the floral bouquet to tickle my tongue and nostrils. The canapes looked delicious, so I snagged one from a passing caterer. A stuffed mushroom. My favorite.
“Mmm…this is scrumptious.”
“You’re really lucky, you know,” Charlie’s voice broke into my appetizer induced daydream. “Callum’s a great guy. One of the best.”
Callum had explained to me about how he’d tried to date Charlie when she and Nolan were apart. Although she’d been gracious, she’d made it clear to him and every other man that Nolan held her heart in the palm of his hand and always would. She’d been taken from their first kiss.
“Yes, he sure is. I’m very grateful. Not a moment goes by that I don’t realize my good fortune.”
Charlie reached out and laid her hand on my forearm. “Promise me you’ll take very good care of him. He deserves it. When we first met, I had no idea about Amelia. About the extreme heartbreak he endured over her untimely death and then the resulting guilt and shame. But he’s free now. Free to love you with his whole heart. I hope you let him.”
I placed my free palm on top of hers. “That is a promise I can make. And I do.”
Charlie nodded and walked back to where Nolan and Chase stood chatting by the window. Arguing more like it. Their heads were bowed as they partook in some heated discourse. Probably about their latest real estate deal. It seemed that Nolan never stopped working. That was just one more thing I loved about Callum. Once he returned home from the office, he unwound and focused completely on me and our life together, not wanting to take the job with him.
Line: Alpha Billionaire Romance Page 21
