Lexie pushed herself up, using the hard planes of his chest to balance. “Do you have any ice cream in your freezer?”
“Nope.” He stroked his fingers down her back.
“Let’s go get some.” She leaned over him, smiling when he finally looked at her instead of the ocean. “Please?”
Jason grinned at her and kissed her. Lexie wondered how on earth she’d thought she could live without him. Because what she’d been doing for the past two weeks certainly hadn’t been living.
He held her face in his hands, slowing their kiss until he finally broke their connection. “Lex, how are you feeling about kids? We talked about it so long ago, and I’m just…wondering.”
Lexi put her legs over the side of the hammock and watched the waves Jason seemed so enamored with. “I am forty,” she said. “So if we wanted kids, we’d probably need to get started on that right away.”
“I don’t have a problem with that.” He sat up next to her and took her hand in his. “Means you’re going to want to get married like, tomorrow, right?”
Panic filled Lexie and she whipped her attention to him. “Tomorrow?” She laughed, sure he was kidding. But he didn’t even smile. A playful glint twinkled in his eye.
“So next week,” he said.
Lexie searched his gaze, trying to decide if he really wanted to get married next week. “Don’t you want to invite your parents?”
His jaw clenched, and he focused back on the water. Steve looked up at him as if the dog could sense Jason’s anxiety. Lexie certainly could. The animal whined, and Jason reached down and gave him a little pat.
“You know what, Lex? I don’t want to invite them.” He faced her, his expression softening. “I just want you and me, and our friends. The people who love us and have been involved in our lives. My parents don’t fit into any of those categories.”
Lexie accepted his answer and nodded. “What about Luke?”
“Luke is welcome,” Jason said coolly. “It was never me that had the problem, Lex. He’s so much like your father, though. He won’t approve.”
Lexie already knew that and she didn’t care. “My brother doesn’t have the power to take things from me I’ve worked my whole life to have.”
“So two weeks?”
She giggled and nudged him with her elbow. “I still want to invite my brothers. I should probably call them and see what the company schedule is like.”
Jason didn’t respond, and Lexie asked, “What?”
“It’s our wedding,” he said. “I don’t want Luke to dictate when we’ll celebrate our anniversary for the next fifty years.”
Fifty years. The words rang in Lexie’s ears, in Jason’s deep voice, and she sure liked the sound of them. She stood up and stretched, feeling hot and sweaty and yet downright wonderful.
“Okay, let me get my calendar open.” She plucked her phone from her purse and swiped open an app. “Sasha only schedules me two weeks out, so—”
“Are we going to go on a honeymoon?” Jason stood too and stretched. “I’d like to go on an Alaskan cruise.”
“You want to go from Hawaii to Alaska?”
Jason caught her around the waist. “Yes, ma’am. The two states not everyone has visited. We’d be like world travelers.”
“Hate to break it to you, but Hawaii is one of the most popular vacation destinations.” She laughed as he grinned down at her.
“I can’t pay for it,” he said. “But maybe you’d need a bodyguard to accompany you on a dangerous, deadly Alaskan cruise?”
Lexie laughed and kissed him, happier than she’d ever been.
“Three weeks?” Jason murmured, his lips skating across her jaw to her ear.
Five weeks later, Lexie stood in Stacey’s private suite, fiddling with the hem of her veil. It curled strangely and steaming hadn’t been able to straighten it.
“It’s fine,” Sasha said, swatting Lexie’s hand away. “I can’t believe you’re getting married today.” She hugged Lexie for about the tenth time that day and beamed at her. “Now Esther’s ready to put the flowers in, so you won’t be able to play around with it anymore.”
“I’m not playing around with it.” She brushed her fingers against it. She wore an orange T-shirt and a pair of cutoffs with the veil, which was a little strange. But the dress would be the last thing she put on, only a few moments before she walked from Aloha Hideaway to the altar in the gardens, where she’d be married.
After she and Jason had picked a date, she’d called Luke and Bruce, told them when it would be and that she’d love to have them there while she tied the knot. They’d both come, and though her brother had barely looked away from his phone, he was here.
No one from Jason’s family had come, and he’d insisted that he was fine, that he’d done exactly what he wanted to do—and all he wanted was to marry Lexie.
Lexie had then gone to her Women’s Beach Club and freaked out about planning a wedding in five weeks. Her friends had rallied around her, as four of them had actually exchanged nuptials quite recently.
Dividing up the list, the five women had managed to get the venue, hire someone to do the cake, and go dress shopping. Lexie and Jason got pictures taken, and announcements sent, and everything was going without a hitch.
Esther pinned hibiscus flowers in her hair, along with white lilies, until she was wearing the most beautiful flower crown, her veil flowing out of it as if the two pieces were really one.
“Almost done,” Esther said at the same time Sasha said, “Hurry up, Esther. The ceremony begins in fifteen minutes, and we still have to do the dress.”
The dress was quite complicated, but it was absolutely perfect and everything Lexie had pictured herself getting married in.
“Done.” Esther stood and moved back a few steps, studying her handiwork. Her face bloomed into a smile. “Beautiful.”
“Dress, dress, dress,” Sasha said, latching onto Lexie like she couldn’t walk on her own now that the flowers were in her hair.
Lexie stepped out of her clothes and let Sasha shimmy the dress up and over her hips. Lexie held the dress in place over her chest as Esther and Sasha started to button her into it.
The door opened, and Stacey came in. “Almost ready?”
“Almost,” Sasha said over her shoulder.
“Can Lexie have a guest?”
Lexie turned from the window, wondering who would be coming to see her now. “Who is it?”
Stacey stepped further into the room, pressing the door open a bit more and leaving room for a tall, beautiful woman to enter. She wore love in her expression, but Lexie had no idea who she was.
“Oh, you must be Jason’s Lexie.” She opened her arms wide like Lexie would step into her embrace and soak up her warmth. Instead, she looked at Stacey, and then Esther.
“I’m Lyndsey Brown,” she said as if that would solve everything.
Stacey beamed and nodded like she knew who Lyndsey Brown was.
“I’m sorry….” Lexie said, trying to communicate telepathically with Stacey.
Sasha stepped in front of Lexie, her buttoning abandoned. “Lyndsey Brown? Oh, you’re the woman from the accident.” She spun back to Lexie. “She was the mom in Jason’s car accident.” Sasha looked so earnest, so alive, and like this woman’s appearance at Lexie’s wedding was a godsend.
But Lexie was still confused. Lyndsey came closer, the wisdom in her eyes so much like Lexie’s mom that she barely flinched when the woman took over Sasha’s job and started buttoning. “What a beautiful dress. No wonder Jason’s been in love with you for so long.” She looked perfectly at ease behind Lexie, and she kept trying to catch the woman’s eye in the mirror.
“We’ve kept in touch over the years,” Lyndsey said, finally looking up. “You’re exactly the kind of woman I always pictured him with.”
Lexie was still having a hard time processing the situation. But she managed to ask, “Did he invite you to the wedding?”
“Yes.” Lyndsey
smiled and finished the buttons before running her fingers down the tiny loops that had already been done. “Jason’s like family to us.”
Lexie turned toward her. “Family?”
Lyndsey beamed at her, tears shining in her eyes. “My daughter can’t wait to meet you.” She gave Lexie’s shoulders a hug, and added, “I can tell I’m slowing things down. I just wanted to introduce myself and say how happy we are for you and Jason.”
She nodded to the other women in the bride’s room on her way out, and Stacey went with her saying, “Four minutes, Lex,” before she closed the door.
Lexie stared at the wood and then switched her gaze to Sasha, who shrugged.
“Jason didn’t tell you?” Esther asked.
“He said he’d invited a few important people.” Lexie faced herself, glad he had someone here who obviously loved him.
“Well, you’re the most important person now.” Sasha swept the shoes out of the box and said, “Step in. Then we’ll go.”
Lexie slipped into her shoes, accepted the bouquet from Esther, and started toward the garden to get married. It was a small affair, with exactly who Jason wanted in attendance—their friends, family, and people they loved.
Stacey had designed the garden to host weddings, and the wedding march piped through the speakers somewhere in the trees overhead. Her father wasn’t there to walk her down the aisle, but she laced her arm through Jasper’s and waited while the rest of the wedding party went down the aisle ahead of her.
Finally everyone was in position and Jasper said, “You ready for this, Lex?”
Her eyes locked onto Jason, down at the altar. “So ready.”
When Jasper passed her to Jason, he swept his arm around her and said, “You’re stunning,” before facing the minister. His weathered face smiled back at them, and Lexie tried to pay attention to what he said, she honestly did.
But she really just wanted to be pronounced Jason’s wife, so she could kiss him and be his forever.
Finally, the minister said, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” and “You may kiss your bride.”
Jason looked at her with love, desire, and just enough tease that Lexie said, “Jason,” in a warning voice.
He wrapped both arms around her and dipped her back, pausing just before kissing her to the whoops and applause of their guests. When they straightened, Jason turned toward everyone and lifted their joined hands.
The people in the front row came forward to give hugs, and it was Lyndsey and her family, and Lexie took one look at Jason and saw that yes, these people were his family.
And Lexie felt warm from head to toe. She accepted hugs from the Brown family, her brothers, her billionaire friends, and her Women’s Beach Club before she and Jason escaped the festivities.
“We have to go back out in a few minutes,” he said. “Dinner. Dancing.” But he looked at her with all the desire a man should look at his new wife.
“Don’t mess up my hair,” she said. “Esther will be so mad.” She squealed as Jason growled and swept her into his arms.
“I love you,” he said, his hands hot along her waist as his fingers played with one of the buttons on the back of her dress.
“And I love you.” She traced her fingertips down the side of his face. “I can’t wait to get to know the Browns the way you do.”
“You’ll love them.”
“They love you.”
“Thank you for taking a third chance on me,” he whispered just before kissing her, and Lexie felt like she was the one who had been given everything in the world, including the love of this good man.
Jason and Lexie’s romance was so sweet, wasn’t it? Please leave a review for it now.
Join Elana’s Romance List and never miss a new release or a great sale!
Read on for a sneak peek of the first chapter of THE BILLIONAIRE’S BOYFRIEND, available now in Kindle Unlimited!
Sneak Peek! The Billionaire’s Boyfriend Chapter One
Gina Jackson whistled while she worked in the corner of the suite, her measuring tape making a metallic crinkling sound as she tried to get it all the way against the wall.
She and Owen Church, the general manager here at Sweet Breeze, had talked about taking these boring, blah closets into something spectacular for the longer-stay guests at the premier hotel and resort in Getaway Bay.
Gina Jackson could still taste the dill cream cheese she’d eaten on her bagel over an hour ago. She really needed a mint—and for her blasted tape measure to stop acting all wonky.
The metallic crinkling sound grated against her nerves as she shook the end of it into the corner. The closets at Sweet Breeze Resort and Hotel were nothing like any she’d worked on before. They were almost like rooms of their own, and while Gina had taken closet organization into a billion-dollar business, her nerves squirmed at the thought of messing up this job.
Thus, her bagel breakfast with the boss over this project at Sweet Breeze, Owen Church. Boss ran through her mind. She and Owen were definitely working together, though he wasn’t really her boss. He was the general manager at the hotel, and his opinion was all that mattered. Gina had noticed that the owner of the hotel—Fisher DuPont—didn’t call nearly as many shots as Owen did.
She’d marveled at that for a while, as she finished a couple of other jobs on the island and contemplated not returning to the mainland at all.
She’d seen Owen and Fisher together, felt their energy, and envied the complete trust between them. She used to have a partner like that, but the lure of money and power had been too great, and the betrayal coursing through Gina definitely still stung.
The tape measure simply wouldn’t cooperate today, and she wasn’t sure the ideas she’d discussed with Owen while he smeared strawberry cream cheese over a cinnamon raisin bagel would even work.
She’d never understand his weird food combinations, and they’d been sharing a lot of meals together lately. Most in his office, or here at the hotel after their morning run.
Gina couldn’t seem to get Owen out of her mind, not even long enough to measure a simple space, something she could normally do with just the naked eye.
She sighed, determined not to let the handsome man distract her from the job, and not to let the job—a huge, multi-million dollar job that could establish her in the hotel industry— consume her very existence.
With her foot, she stomped the end of the measuring device into the carpet and finally pulled the tape taught. “Seventeen feet, two inches,” she muttered to herself. And that was just the depth of this closet. The width had to be easily twice that.
Fisher had designed the hotel to be the best of its kind, but he hadn’t truly thought of those who might want a long-term stay. As more and more businessmen and women came to Getaway Bay, he’d realized a need for such a suite.
Well, Gina suspected it was Owen who’d noticed the need, run it all by Fisher, and then started remodeling their nicer suites into long-term stay apartments.
Gina had been contracted to take some of the existing space and make it into a closet. With the smell of fresh paint from the new kitchen area just around the corner, she once again pushed against the anxiety that she couldn’t do this job. That it was too big for her. That her normal master bedroom closet in a single-family home in Dallas simply hadn’t provided her the experience she needed for a job of this magnitude, on this scale.
Sure, she’d done the five rooms at the bed and breakfast down the beach. The owner had been thrilled, but they were basically bedrooms with normal sized closets Gina had simply taken up a notch.
But Fisher’s wife had been so complimentary that this job at Sweet Breeze had basically fallen into Gina’s lap. She couldn’t say no, even if she felt leagues out of her, well, league.
She took a few more measurements and consulted her catalog for systems that might fit. It would be ultra-expensive to have a custom-built organization system, but she couldn’t find anything that seemed like it would work. Everything in her cat
alog was too small for a space like this.
Sighing, she left the bedroom and went into the main living area, which was in a state of construction. “Maybe the closet doesn’t need to be that big,” she said to the drop cloth protecting the tile floor in the kitchen area. The appliances still had plastic on them, and she had to be out of the room in an hour so the painters could finish.
Then it was just loading the room with the furniture, the new linens, drapes, accessories—oh, and her closeting system.
Desperation pushed against her tongue, but she swallowed it back. She would not panic. She could do it.
“You can do this,” she said aloud and went back into the bedroom. This suite sat in the corner on the fifth floor. Owen wanted two dozen long-term stay apartments, some one-bedroom suites like the one where Gina stood now, and some with two bedrooms. She’d been through those, but she hadn’t been able to take measurements or spend much time in the room, as it had been in the middle of the demolition process to turn the suite into an apartment.
“Maybe the closet is just too big,” she said to the stark room, something Owen had said that morning. They’d gone over a few designs, and he’d liked them all. She’d expressed her concerns over the size, the measurements, and making sure it looked high-end like he wanted, but remained functional—her trademark.
Everyone should have a closet that works for them. That was her company motto, one she’d written herself for Classy Closets, and that she stuck to on every job she took.
After all, it made no sense to hire a professional organizer and licensed interior designer to get something that wasn’t even usable.
She stepped around the scaffolding in the room the painters used and shook out her measuring tape again. “There could be a separate dressing area here,” she said, thinking out loud. “It would shave off a few feet, and give me access to the twelve-foot systems.”
Gina turned in a slow circle, imagining the shelving, the hanging ranks, the spot the iron would go—with a fold-out board that disappeared seamlessly into the wall. She saw the island in the middle, an easy spot for travelers to put their bags and unpack for their stay. Extra towels, robes, and linens could go in the cupboards on the island so guests wouldn’t have to call and wait—or bother housekeeping—for basic needs.
The Billionaire's Bodyguard (Clean Billionaire Beach Club Romance Book 5) Page 15
