by Sey, Susan
“Oh, it will,” Jax assured her. “It definitely will. I won’t lie about something like this. Peter and Matty both need to face the consequences of what they’ve done and—”
“Agreed. But there needn’t be any legal consequences,” Bianca said. “That’s all I’m trying to say. The only people affected by these fires are Peter, Georgie, Addy and me. And if we don’t press charges or file an insurance claim, there are no legal ramifications of this whole ugly episode.”
“That’s true.” Addy leaned forward, her face intent.
“If Addy’s willing to simply write off whatever personal monies she had invested in Davis Place,” Bianca said with a small smile, “we can proceed as if nothing ever happened. One big family, building on and loving this land where our roots have been sunk so deep.” She leaned in urgently, her face glowing with fervor. “Diego may not have been a perfect husband, or even a good one, Addy, but he left you with the resources to protect the family you love from harm. Will you do it? Will you show those paintings?”
He shot Addy a sideways glance — how the hell do we play this one? — then froze, startled. Because he knew that look. Addy was running numbers in that tidy brain of hers. His family needed money and she was thinking up some way to give it to them.
What the hell? He’d seen those paintings burn. Hadn’t he?
Addison leaned in and kissed the sudden doubt right off Jax’s face. Then she turned to his mother.
“I have an alternative proposal.”
Bianca lifted her brows. “I’m all ears, Addison.”
“I want the house.”
“What house?”
“Davis Place. I want it.”
“But it’s already ours.”
“No, I want to buy it,” Addy clarified. “I want to buy it from you.”
“There’s no need, Addison. We own it already.”
“You don’t understand.” Addy leaned forward. “I want the house deeded to me alone, free and clear. No partners, not even you. And in exchange I’ll deed over to you all of Diego’s remaining works.”
Bianca narrowed her eyes. “Remaining works?”
Addy smiled. “I burned a few tonight.”
Bianca closed her eyes, pained. “The new canvases?”
“Most of them.”
“Most?” Jax asked warily.
“Broken is in my car.” She took his hand. “I wanted to see how it looked, framed up and side by side with the Angel. I wondered if it could be the end to Diego’s story all by itself.”
“And Julia Gates can just go without her fame fix?”
“That was going to be a bonus.” She grinned sheepishly. “But if we look at it, and it makes you unhappy, we can negotiate.”
His hand was warm and strong on hers. “Deal.”
Bianca simply put a hand to her chest, evidently beyond words.
“I’m also planning to sell some of the smaller oils,” Addy went on.
Bianca’s eyes flicked open. “How many?”
“Enough to fund a complete rehab on Davis Place as it currently stands plus a full year of operations once we open for business.”
Bianca winced but didn’t argue. “Fine,” she said. “I didn’t relish the idea of going into the hospitality business anyway.”
“Oh, no. I want you, too.” Addy smiled. “Twenty hours a week.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s got to teach the art classes, and lord knows it can’t be me. You’ll be paid on a profit-sharing basis. Davis Place makes money, so do you. You slack off? Well, there’s always that teaching position at UMD.”
Bianca stared at her in silence and Addy lifted her shoulders. “Hey, you wanted to live on the Davis family name, here’s your chance. It’s a fair deal. And—” She squeezed Jax’s hand. “—it’s all I have to offer.”
“What about you, dear?” Bianca asked Addy, her eyes dark and shrewd. “What do you get out of this deal beside dish-pan hands and continuous overnight guests?”
She sank into Jax’s side and grinned up at him. “I get the house, the family and True Love.” She tipped her head onto his shoulder, breathed in the soap-and-smoke and everything inside her slid into place.
Home.
“I get everything I ever wanted.”
Epilogue
TWO WEEKS LATER, even the locals were willing to admit that maybe summer really had come to the North Shore to stay. Addy curled her legs onto the porch swing underneath her and leaned into Jax, utterly and completely content. He kept them at a lazy tick-tock with one boot, his arm around her shoulders while the moon painted silvery light all over the floor. She closed her eyes, breathed in the warm night air and listened to the lake swirl in the distance. The smoke-and-soap scent of him wrapped itself around her heart and she closed her eyes.
“I think we should get married,” he said, his lips in her hair.
She sat up, startled. “We should?”
He smiled easily. “I think so, yeah. Don’t you?”
“Well, of course. Eventually.” She touched her naked ring finger. “I just finally took Diego’s ring off, though.”
“I know.” He scowled at her hand. “Which is exactly why you should put mine on. Men are bastards. I don’t want anybody getting ideas.”
She rolled her eyes and settled back into his side. “They won’t.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“Because I love you.”
She felt his chest rise and fall under her cheek as he let out a long slow breath. “I never get tired of hearing that. You should say it again.”
She smiled and took his wide warm hand between both of hers. “I love you, Jackson,” she said solemnly. “I love you like kids love puppies. Like flowers love sunshine.”
“Yeah?” He lifted his free hand to her cheek, traced the curve of her jaw to her throat. Hit the neckline of her tank top and slid lower. Dangerously lower. Interestingly lower. Her belly quivered with anticipation “That much?”
She leaned helpfully into his touch. “Like Matty loves comic books,” she managed. She only sounded a little desperate, too. Good for her.
“Graphic novels,” he corrected easily. She hardly heard him, not with that finger of his dipping inside her scoop neck to toy with the lacy edge of her bra.
“You get my point.”
He shrugged. “You could be more convincing.”
“I could?” He abandoned her neckline, traced the side seam of her tank down to the bottom hem. His hand slid warm and sneaky up the ladder of her ribs to the swell of her breast.
“Tell me again,” he suggested and tugged delicately at the sensitive bud of her nipple. A minor light show went off in her head and she gasped.
“Tell you what again?”
“How much you love me, then why you don’t want to get married.”
She could hardly think let alone speak, not when those wicked fingers were tracing and flicking and generally laying waste to her higher order thinking. “You don’t play fair, do you?”
“Hell, no. I don’t plan to, either. I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime, eternal-love, soul-mate kind of thing here, Addison. Messy-headed, dimply babies who can’t draw and won’t, by God, be bastards. You think I’m going to be satisfied with puppies, sunshine and comic books?”
“Graphic novels,” she breathed while visions of talent-free babies with Jax’s hair and her dimples competed with his devastating fingers and the mad thudding of her heart.
“I’m waiting,” he said.
Laughter threatened even as need clawed and howled. She set her lips to the hollow of his throat, and he sucked in a rewarding breath. “I love you,” she said solemnly, “like I love pie.”
“You’d marry pie in a heartbeat,” he pointed out.
She thought about it. “That’s true, actually.”
His grin was a flash of lightning. “There’s the answer I was looking for.”
He scooped her into his arms and came to his feet.
�
�Jax!” The laugh burbled up out of her. “What are you doing?”
“Taking my fiancée to bed, that’s what.” He booted open the front door and hit the stairs. He paused just outside the bedroom, though, gazed down at her with an aching vulnerability that squeezed her heart and filled her soul. “You will, won’t you?” He searched her eyes. “You’ll wear my ring, have my kids, be my wife?”
She hesitated. “Your mom will kill me.”
He made a dismissive noise. “You’re not afraid of Bianca. Not anymore.”
Addy blinked. He was right. She wasn’t. She wasn’t afraid of anybody anymore. All the fear she’d lived with all those years? It had vacated the building. Maybe that was what had shifted aside to make room for love. For Jax. “You know what?” She felt the smile start deep inside her, and bloom until it took over her heart, her soul, her face. “You’re absolutely right.”
“Sweet,” he said, and took her to their bed. Forever.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed Addy’s story, please consider spreading the love by leaving a positive rating or review! And I do hope you’ll tune in next time when Willa meets her match!
Keep an eye on my website for news and release dates!
Can’t wait for your next fix? Check out other books by Susan Sey!
The Money Books
Money, Honey
Money Shot
Stand Alone Novels
Kiss the Girl
The Blake Brothers Books
Taste for Trouble
Talent for Trouble
Touch of Trouble, a Blake Brothers Novella
Time for Trouble
Boxed Sets
Trouble: A Blake Brothers Boxed Set
Includes three full length novels plus a novella!
Copyright © 2016 Susan Seyfarth
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-938580-14-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-938580-14-7
