by Laura Carter
I stand and lean over her, stroking my thumb down the side of her face. Her skin is marked but still soft to touch.
“I’m so sorry,” I cry, breaking down as I press my lips to her forehead. “I couldn’t protect you. I failed you and I’m more sorry than I can tell you. I always will be.”
The rubber seam of the door to the room makes a soft noise as it opens. I close my eyes, holding my lips to her head, wanting one more second. Then I stand and release her hand. Her eyes are full of sadness and the sight rips my heart to shreds. She opens her mouth and for a moment, I feel hope in my stomach. But she doesn’t speak.
“You’re awake, Scarlett,” says the nurse who’s been checking on her every hour. The nurse moves to the bedside and I take a step back, my eyes still focused on exquisite hazel-greens. “Do you know where you are?”
Scarlett watches me as she struggles to respond to the nurse. “Hospital.”
“That’s right. Do you know who I am?”
“A nurse?” she croaks, still fixed on me, watching me take another step backwards.
“Yes, good. Now, I’m just going to ask you to do a few things for me and we’ll get the doctor to come and take a look at you.”
I move my hand to my heart as it breaks in my chest and I mouth to her, I love you.
“We’ve patched you up and you have a few stitches but your scans are all clear. You’ve got a mild concussion and you were dehydrated but otherwise yo—”
“Where are you going?”
Her voice freezes me on the spot and I wait for her to end us. End me.
“You don’t have to go, baby,” she says. “Stay. Please.”
The weight falls out of my legs and I feel like I could crash to my knees. She sucks in air quickly and a tear rolls from her clouded eyes. I want so much to wrap her up in my arms and tell her that everything will be okay. I go to her and take her hand.
“I love you.”
God, I love you too, baby. I love you so much.
“All the shit I’ve brought on you. Everything I’ve done to you and you still say that?”
She reaches up and wipes my wet cheek. “You’re the other half of me, Gregory. Whatever life throws at us, we’ll get through it. Together.”
“I’m fucked up, Scarlett, and I keep fucking up.”
She nods and half laughs, half sobs. “Yes, you are and you do. You’re also the kindest, smartest, bravest, best man I’ve ever known. Will ever know.”
I hold her face and rest my forehead against hers. “I love you to Pluto and back, Scarlett Heath.”
A half smile creeps onto her lips and those eyes sparkle.
Then I kiss her, holding my lips to hers, floating under the softness of her skin. She kisses me back and wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me to her.
“We might have to put the wedding on hold a little while, unless you fancy standing at the altar with the Corpse Bride.”
I chuckle in her hold, my chest bursting.
This is exactly where I’m meant to be and I know, because with her by my side, I’m ten times the man I could otherwise be.
She is my everything.
My reason.
“Aurora,” I whisper.
Epilogue
Five months later
“Scarlett, we’re going to the farm for a weekend, what the hell is in these bags?”
I giggle as I strap my feet into my sandals. “The weather might change. I need clothes for every eventuality.”
“Baby, the only thing you need to prepare for is being naked. A lot.”
I stand from the stairs and tuck my shirt into my skinny jeans before slipping my arms around his waist. “In that case, I should probably take the Mercy corset out of my bag.”
A low growl escapes his chest and he bites the tip of my nose. “You win. The bags can stay.”
“I thought that might change your mind.”
“Let’s go before I take you back up those stairs for a second breakfast.”
My eyes widen. I hold my lips against his, barely touching, and move my hand to the crotch of his jeans, feeling him harden against me. He drops my bag to the floor and pushes me back against the door of the apartment. He kisses me with urgency, his hands pulling my long dark hair.
“I’m going to enjoy fucking you this weekend.” His words are full of lust.
“I look forward to you doing so, Mr. Ryans.”
He rolls his hips against me with a wink that liquefies me on the spot. “Let’s go.”
His square jaw is set the whole time he’s maneuvering our bags into the small space in the DB9 but he doesn’t say anything. I smile to myself as I sit in the car and he takes thirty seconds to cool off by the driver’s side door. His counsellor has told him when he’s frustrated he ought to count to thirty, so I count now in my head and sure enough, when I reach thirty, he climbs into the car.
He pulls out of the Shard’s basement and clicks the music to Oasis’s “Roll with It.” As we drive out of the city, far too fast, we both shout the lyrics and I move my hands, dancing, twisting.
The July sun beams down on us as we leave concrete for greenery and head up the driveway to the farm. We spend more and more time here now, our haven outside the city. Since the kidnapping, Gregory does just about anything he can to keep stress out of my life—except lighten my GJR workload, that is—despite the fact I tell him I’m fine. But this weekend is something of a celebration, too. Nick Henshaw has finally been sentenced and put where he belongs, behind bars.
As Gregory pulls up outside the house, I turn down the ridiculously loud music. Kian is by the car before I’m even out of the door. He nods to Gregory with a grin and catches the keys Gregory throws to him.
“It’s about time!”
I shift my focus to the door of the farm where Amanda stands, handing baby Penny to Williams who carefully holds her head then lifts her onto his chest.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Ask him,” she says, looking at Gregory who shrugs.
“A surprise,” he says.
Amanda shakes her head then yanks my hand, pulling me into the house, dragging me upstairs to the master bedroom.
“Surprise!” Julia and Lucas squeal in unison. They look as glamorous out of work as they do in Harrods.
“What on earth? What are you two doing here?”
I turn on the spot and see Sandy, holding up a large cream clothes bag. Little men do jiggery in my abdomen. “Is that what I think it is?”
She smiles and Amanda moves to the bag, drawing the zip to the floor. “Happy wedding day, bestie,” she says, pulling out a wedding dress. My wedding dress.
After the shooting I was covered in cuts and bruises, I didn’t want a wedding just weeks later like Lara had planned. And that gave us time, me time to tell Gregory that I didn’t want a big wedding at all. I didn’t want three hundred and fifty guests that didn’t know us and didn’t care whether we were in love or not.
I run my hand over the crystal-encrusted lace and the fitted bodice. Julia fans out the train so I can see the complete look—a slim fitted, strapless dress, overlaid by lace and crystals with a small train.
I’d told him I’d plan but maybe next year. I didn’t want Lara to create some masterpiece that just wasn’t us and I wanted to be able to concentrate on my role at GJR for a while. We bickered just weeks ago because I hadn’t made any progress. He told me he wanted the world to know I was his wife.
Lucas holds up a cathedral veil on the opposite side of the room. “Let’s get you ready.”
I bite down on my lip, feeling and thinking too many things to get a hold on any single one. “I’m getting married?”
“You sure are,” Julia sings.
He wasn’t jo
king. He threatened to take it out of my hands, so he could make me his as soon as possible. Part of me wanted it to be true but I didn’t think he’d really do it. “Holy shit.”
“Mouth, lady,” Sandy snaps.
“Sorry. But holy shit!”
I should have known. When Gregory wants something, he gets it.
Julia, Lucas and Carrie—a beautician and stylist I’ve never met—work wonders. When they’re satisfied with my complete look and leave to make their way downstairs, I’m left with Sandy and Amanda, now changed into dresses they picked themselves—Amanda in emerald green; Sandy in a deep shade of purple.
“You look beautiful,” I tell them.
“Let’s get you in that dress,” Sandy says.
They help me navigate my way, pulling me into the tight elastic of the bodice and zipping me up, before clipping on a chiffon train and pushing the cathedral veil into my pinned-up curls.
“Gregory asked us to give you this.” Amanda opens a large navy velour box to reveal a thick diamond choker. “It’s your something new.”
I laugh because everything is new.
“And, if you’d like to, I’d like you to wear this as your something borrowed and something blue.” Sandy unhooks a delicate sapphire bracelet that my father and I gave her as a gift for her thirtieth birthday.
I hold out my wrist, not able to speak and unable to fasten the bracelet with my shaking fingers.
“Oh, and one more thing.” She moves to the bed and bends to pull out an A4 shape in bubble wrap.
I sit onto the edge of the bed, sticking my tongue out to demonstrate how tight my dress is when I bend. I take off the bubble wrap and turn over the A4 photo frame so the picture is face up. My eyes fill with tears.
“Oh, hell,” Amanda says, rushing to get a tissue and handing it to me.
It’s the picture from my father’s room, blown up to A4. My father, Sandy and me on Brighton Pier. I shake my head as I dab the corners of my eyes, desperately trying not to cry.
“I love it, Sandy, thank you.”
“Enough of the soppy,” Amanda chirps. “Let’s get this show on the road. I hear there’s a groom waiting outside.”
Suddenly, nerves build everywhere in my body, my stomach, my chest, my weak limbs. I nod and shake or do something with my head.
I’m about to become Mrs. Scarlett Ryans. Mr. Sexy Bazillionaire CEO Ryans.
I can’t wait.
He’s thought of everything. We move outside as the thirty or so guests, all family and friends we love, stand from white linen chairs either side of a white aisle laid out on the grass. A piano begins to play the first notes of Yiruma’s “It’s Your Day.” I glance to the pianist who smiles back at me. Violet. He hired the pianist from the charity gala who made me cry. Now she does the same thing again. My eyes fill as Amanda kisses me on the cheek then sets off down the aisle.
He’s always said he wanted me to have the fairytale. He’s given it to me.
“Ready?” Sandy asks as she hooks her arm through mine.
“Ready.”
We walk the first section of the aisle behind one half of the guests, then turn left and I see him, standing next to Williams and Jackson, his back to me. Williams turns to me then pats Gregory on the shoulder and whispers something in his ear. Gregory stands in that pose I love. His hands by his sides in his black, perfectly tailored suit. His legs parted, his shoulders tall and strong, his hips slightly forward. His hair is slicked back.
My blood pumps hard in my veins. I want to see his face.
Sandy excitedly squeezes my hand and I look around our family and friends. Luke smiles at me. Lawrence dips his head. Lara wipes her eyes with a tissue and Stuart turns his lips in a half smile that’s so incredibly familiar. There’s one person missing but I know he’s looking in on us from his cloud and he’ll be content because his little girl is the happiest she’s ever been in her life.
Sandy takes my bouquet as I stand in front of the trellis archway and Amanda fans out my dress and veil on the floor. Then I take the final three steps alone. Towards the man I love. The man I couldn’t have dreamt.
He turns now, those mesmerising browns looking over my body, then meeting my hazel-greens. His chest rises with his breath. His hand moves to his heart.
If it’s possible, I fall just a little bit deeper.
* * * * *
Acknowledgments
To you, the reader, thank you for taking Scarlett and Gregory into your heart. Writing this, the final installment in the Vengeful Love series, was bittersweet. I wanted to give Scarlett and Gregory the ending they deserve and a conclusion that you could really enjoy. But I was incredibly sad to write those final words, THE END. I hope Vengeful Love will stay with you long after you finish reading this book.
So many people have helped bring you Scarlett and Gregory’s story. Every person I’ve worked with at Harlequin and Carina Press has been incredibly helpful and hardworking and really behind making a series we could all be proud of. I want to single out Kerri Buckley, who truly is a wonderful editor but also funny and kind. Not only has she been a driving force behind this series, she actually makes me enjoy editing! I also want to mention Melissa Anthony, who is quite simply a machine! She’s been rooting for this series from the start and really is amazing to work with. Thank you so much also to Heather Goldberg, Kimberley Cannon, Stephanie Doig and Angela James. This still leaves so many people behind the scenes in so many roles who have helped put Vengeful Love together, and I am no less grateful to each and every person involved with the series.
To Andrea Barzvi, my fantastic agent, thank you for everything you’ve taught me, for all your insight and direction, and for championing me and my dreams, as well as the books. I have wonderful friends and family, and people who I have met more recently because of the books, who have encouraged me and backed the series. You know who you are and I appreciate everything. I must single out Alan and Diane, who do so much in every other aspect of my life so that I can work and write without losing my mind. You are magnificent! Jennifer and Jenny P, thank you for keeping me company on bookish trips and providing me with endless laughs. I’m blowing you air kisses, you just can’t see me.
Finally, I want to thank my kind, patient (mostly), gorgeous husband, Sam. You’ve done everything you possibly can to help me get here and I love you with all my heart. This is the first book I have dedicated to anyone for a number of reasons but I wanted this one to be yours. Because you are my everything and my reason.
Also available from Laura Carter
and Carina Press
The Vengeful Love Series
Suggested reading order
Vengeful Love
Vengeful Love: Deception
Vengeful Love: Black Diamonds
About the Author
Laura is a lawyer by day, working for a global business law firm. By night, she puts pen to paper, writing about handsome billionaires and sassy alpha females. Laura grew up in England, UK, and has spent a lot of time traveling the world. It was while she was living in Australia in 2009 that she began drafting her first novel (now safely in a drawer for a later date!). In 2012, working as a lawyer in London, inspired by the blinding lights and corporate world, Laura was bitten by the writing bug again. From a small bedroom in the city, Gregory Ryans and Scarlett Heath were born in the first book of the Vengeful Love trilogy.
Learn more about Laura and her books at:
Website: www.LauraCarterAuthor.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LauraCarterAuthor
Twitter: @LCarterAuthor
Instagram: @LauraCarterAuthor
Looking for more heroes who will do anything for love? Don’t miss Wounded Warrior, Anna del Mar’s romantic suspense series!
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The Wounded Warrior series continues with THE STRANGER (August 2016).
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DIDN’T I
WARN YOU
by
AMBER BARDAN
Not everything dangerous is bad.
From the moment Angelina laid eyes on him, she fell into a fantasy.
Mysterious, foreign, gorgeous, Haithem offered her what she needed most—a chance to feel again.
But he lives in a world of danger where everything comes at a price…and she was warned.
“This isn’t a romance for the light-hearted. It’s gritty and wild and passionate in only a way that love can be. DIDN’T I WARN YOU will have readers falling hard and fast.”—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
The Bad for You series continues with DIDN’T YOU PROMISE.
You’ve been warned.
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