She’d promised not to love him—not to even like him. She’d told him to do the same. He should have listened to her, but he hadn’t lied. When it came to her, he couldn’t quite help himself. Everything about her had been an impulse. Even his original proposal had been half impulse, driven by some basic desire to outwit Frances Beaumont.
Their entire relationship had been based on a game of one-upmanship. In that regard, she’d gotten the final word. She’d said no.
Well, hell. Now what? He’d publically proposed, been publically rejected and his whole plan had fallen apart on him. And the worst thing was that he wasn’t sure why. Was it because he hadn’t trusted her this morning when she’d said she didn’t know anything about Richards?
Or was it because, despite it all, he did like her? He liked her a great deal. More than was wise, that much was sure.
This morning she’d shown up at his office with the donuts he’d requested. She hadn’t had on a stitch of her armor—no designer clothes, no impenetrable attitude. She’d been a woman who’d sat down, admitted fault and apologized for her actions.
She’d been trying to show him that she liked him. Enough to be honest with him.
He’d thrown that trust back in her face. And then cavalierly assumed that a big rock was going to make it up to her.
Idiot. She wanted to know she was worth it—and she hadn’t meant worth diamonds and roses.
He was in too deep to let her go. She was worth it.
So this was what falling in love was like.
How was he going to convince her that this wasn’t part of the game?
* * *
Frances was not surprised when no extravagant floral arrangement arrived the next day. No chocolates or champagne or jewels showed up, either.
They didn’t arrive the day after that. Or the third, for that matter.
And why would they? She was not bound to Ethan. She had no claim on him, nor he on her. The only thing that remained of their failed, doomed “relationship” were several vases of withering flowers and an expensive necklace.
She had taken off the necklace.
But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to return it. Not to him, not to the store for cash—cash she could use, now that the gallery was dead and she had no other job prospects, aside from selling her family’s heirlooms on the open market.
The necklace sat on her bedside table, mocking her as she went to sleep every night.
She called Becky but didn’t feel like talking except to say, “The funding is probably not going to happen, so plan accordingly.”
To which Becky had replied, “We’ll get it figured out, one way or the other.”
That was the sort of platitude people said when the situation was hopeless but they needed to feel better. So Frances had replied, “Sure, we’ll get together for lunch soon and go over our options,” because that was the sort of thing rational grown-ups said all the time.
Then she’d ended the call and crawled back under the covers.
Byron had texted, but what could she tell him? That she’d done the not-rash thing for the first time in her life and was now miserable? And why, exactly, was she miserable again? She shouldn’t be hiding under the covers in her cozy jammies! She’d won! She’d stopped Ethan in his tracks with a move he couldn’t anticipate and he couldn’t recover from. She’d brought him firmly down to where he belonged. He wasn’t good enough for the Beaumonts, and he wasn’t good enough for the Brewery.
Victory was hers!
She didn’t think victory was supposed to taste this sour.
She didn’t believe in love. Never had, never would. So why, when the next best thing had presented itself—someone who was fond of her, who admired her, and who could still make her shiver with need, someone who had offered to generously provide for her financial future in exchange for a year of her life even—why had she walked away?
Because he was only here for the company. And, fool that she was, she’d suddenly realized she wanted someone who was going to be here for her.
“I could love you.” She heard his words over and over again, beating against her brain like a spike. He could.
But he didn’t.
What a mess.
Luckily, she was used to it.
* * *
She’d managed to drag herself to the shower on the fourth day. She had decided that she was going to stop moping. Moping didn’t get jobs, and it didn’t heal broken hearts. She needed to get up and, at the very least, have lunch with Becky or go see Byron. She needed to do something that would eventually get her out of the Beaumont mansion because she was done living under the same roof as Chadwick. She was going to tell him that the very next time she saw him, too.
She’d just buttoned her jeans when she heard the doorbell. She ignored it as she toweled her hair.
Then someone knocked on her bedroom door. “Frannie?” It was Serena, Chadwick’s wife. “Flowers for you.”
“Really?” Who would send her flowers? Not Ethan. Not at this late date. “Hang on.” She threw on a sweater and opened the door.
Serena stood there, an odd look on her face. She was not holding any flowers. “Um... I think you need to get these yourself,” Serena said before she turned and walked down the hall.
Frances stood there, all the warning bells going off in her head at once.
Her heart pounding, she walked down the hallway and peered over the edge of the railing. There, in the middle of the foyer, stood Ethan, holding a single red rose.
She must have made a noise or gasped or something because he looked up at her and smiled. A good smile, the kind of smile that made her want to do something ridiculous like kiss him when she absolutely should not be glad to see him at all.
She needed to say something witty and urbane and snarky that would put him in his place, so that for at least a minute, she could feel like Frances Beaumont again.
Instead, she said, “You’re here.”
Damn. Worse, it came out breathy, as if she couldn’t believe he’d actually ventured into the lair of the Beaumonts.
“I am,” he replied, his gaze never leaving her face. “I came for you.”
Oh. That was terribly close to a sweet nothing—no, it wasn’t a nothing. It was a sweet something. But what? “I’m here. I’ve been here for a few days now.”
There, that was a good thing to say. Something that let him know that his apology—if this even was an apology—was days late and, judging by the single flower he was holding, dollars short.
“I had some things to do,” he said. “Can you come down here?”
“Why should I?”
His grin spread. “Because I don’t want to shout? But I will.” He cleared his throat. “Frances!” he shouted, his voice ringing off the marble and the high-vaulted ceilings. “Can you come down here? Please?”
“Okay, okay!” She didn’t know who else besides Serena was home, but she didn’t need to have Ethan yelling at the top of his lungs.
She hurried down the wide staircase with Ethan watching her the entire time. She slowed only when she got to the last few steps. She didn’t want to be on his level, not just yet. “I’m here,” she said again.
He held out the lone red rose to her. “I brought you a flower.”
“Just one?”
“One seemed...fitting, somehow.” He looked her over. “How have you been?”
“Oh, fine,” she tried to say lightly. “Just hanging out around the house, trying to avoid social media and gossip columns—the normal stuff, really. Just another day in the life of a Beaumont.”
He took a step closer to her. It made her tense. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, his voice soft and quiet and just for her.
“Do what?”
“Put you
r armor on. I didn’t come here looking for a fight.”
She eyed him warily. What was this? A single rose? A claim that he didn’t want to fight? “Then why did you come?”
He took another step in—close enough to touch her. Which he did. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips down her cheek. “I wanted to tell you that you’re worth it.”
She froze under his touch, the rose between them. “We aren’t in public, Ethan. You don’t have to do this. It’s over. We made a scene. It’s fine. We can go on with our lives now.” Her words came out in a rush.
“Do you really believe that? That it’s fine?”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice cracked, damn it.
“It isn’t. Three days without you has almost driven me mad.”
“I drive you mad when we’re together. I drive you mad when we’re apart—you know how to make a woman feel special.” The words should have sounded flippant. They didn’t. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t convince herself that this was no big deal. Not when Ethan was staring into her eyes with this odd look of satisfaction on his face, not when his thumb was now stroking her cheek.
“Why are you here?” she whispered, desperate to hear the answer and just as desperate to not hear it.
“I came for you. I’ve never met anyone like you before, and I don’t want to walk away from you. Not now, not ever.”
“It’s all just talk, Ethan.” Her voice was the barest of whispers. She was doing a lousy job convincing herself. She didn’t think she was convincing him at all.
“Do you know how much you’re worth to me?”
She shook her head. “Some diamonds, some flowers. A rose.”
He stepped in another bit, bringing her body almost into contact with his. “As of yesterday, I am no longer the CEO of the Beaumont Brewery.”
“What?”
“I quit the job. For personal reasons. My second in command, Finn Jackson, flew in today to take over the restructuring project. We’re still dealing with a little fallout from AllBev, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” He said it as if it were just a little speed bump.
“You quit? The Brewery?”
“It wasn’t my company. It wasn’t worth it to me. Not like you are.”
“I don’t understand.” He was saying words that she understood individually. But the way he was stringing them together? It didn’t make sense. Not a bit.
Something in his eyes changed—deepened. A small shiver ran down Frances’s back. “I do not need to marry you to solidify my position within the company because I no longer work for the company. I do not need to worry about unknown relations trying to overthrow my position because I have given up the position. The company was never worth more than you were.”
She blinked at him. All of her words failed her. She had nothing to hide behind now.
“So,” he went on, his eyes full of honesty and sincerity and hope. All of those things she hadn’t believed she deserved. “Here I am. I have quit the Brewery. I have taken a leave of absence from my company. I could care less if anyone’s listening to what we say or watching how we say it. All I care about is you. Even when you’re messy and complicated and even when I say the wrong thing at the wrong time, I care about you.”
“You can’t mean that,” she whispered, because what if he did?
“I can and I do. I truly never believed I would meet anyone I could care about, much less someone who would mean more to me than the job. But I did. It’s you, Frances. I want you when your armor’s up because you make sarcasm and irony into high art. I want you when you’re feeling vulnerable and honest because I want to be that soft place where you can land after a hard day of putting the world in its place. And I want you all the times in between, when you challenge me and call me on my mistakes and push me to be a better man—one who can keep up with you.”
Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees. “So I’m asking you again. Not for the Brewery, not for the employees, not for the public. I’m asking you for me. Because I want to spend my life with you. Not a few months, not a year—my life. Our lives. Together.”
“You want to marry me? Me?”
“I like you,” he said simply. “I shouldn’t, but I do. Even worse, I love you.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I love you. I’d recommend you love me, too.”
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Not a damn thing. Because what was she going to say? That he’d gotten better at sweet nothings? That he was crazy to have fallen for her? That...
That she wanted to say yes—but she was afraid?
“I’ve seen the real you,” he said, still on his knees. “And that’s the woman I love.”
“Do we get—married? Next week?” That had been the deal, hadn’t it? A whirlwind courtship, married in two weeks.
“I’m not making a deal, Frances. All I’m doing right now is asking a simple question. We can wait a year, if you want. You’re worth the wait. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“It won’t ever be simple,” she warned him. “I don’t have it in me.”
He stood and pulled her into his arms as if she’d said yes, when she wasn’t sure she had yet. The rose, she feared, was a total loss. “I don’t want you simple. I want to know that every day, I’ve fought for you and every day, you’ve chosen me again.”
Was it possible, what he was saying? Could a man love her?
“I expect to be wined and dined and courted,” she warned him, trying to sound stern and mostly just laughing.
He laughed with her. “And what do I get out of this again?”
“A wife. A messy, complicated wife who will love you until the end of time.”
“Perfect,” he said, lowering his lips to hers. “That’s exactly what I wanted.”
* * * * *
If you loved Frances’s story, pick up the first four books in the BEAUMONT HEIRS series:
NOT THE BOSS’S BABY
TEMPTED BY A COWBOY
A BEAUMONT CHRISTMAS WEDDING
HIS SON, HER SECRET
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His 24-Hour Wife
by Rachel Bailey
One
Callie Mitchell straightened her skirt, took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in her stomach and followed the receptionist to Adam Hawke’s office on the top floor of a downtown LA office building. The central operations of his company, Hawke’s Blooms, took up the entire floor and, as CEO, Adam had a corner office, which had to have killer views.
In hindsight, it had probably been a bad idea to stop on the way for a little Dutch courage—especially because it had been alcohol that had started this whole crazy mess—but she’d needed some help. It wasn’t every day a woman had an appointment to see her secret husband.
In fact, she hadn’t seen him once in the three months since their wedding day, so this was quite the m
omentous occasion. They’d met at an industry conference in Las Vegas just over two years ago and spent an amazing night together, then had hooked up again at the following year’s conference. Third time had been the charm—this year they’d added vows to their rendezvous.
The receptionist opened the door and waved her through and suddenly Callie was standing in front of him. The man she’d spent the most explosive times of her life with. The rest of the world faded away, leaving only him. The oxygen must have faded away, as well, because suddenly she couldn’t get her lungs to work.
The receptionist had slipped out and closed the door behind her, leaving them alone, but Callie couldn’t find a word to say. Although Adam wasn’t saying anything, either.
He was as perfect as she remembered, which was a surprise—she’d been certain her imagination had embellished things, that no man could be that gorgeous. Yet here was over six feet of proof standing before her. His green eyes were as intense, his frame as broad and powerful as the image she had in her mind’s eye. But he was wearing a suit with a crisp white shirt and dark blue tie. Most of her memories were of him stretched across the Vegas hotel sheets wearing nothing but a smile.
He cleared his throat. “You look different as a brunette.”
She’d gone back to her natural caramel brown about three weeks ago, but instead of telling him that, she heard herself say, “You look different with clothes on.”
His eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. That Dutch courage had been a very bad idea.
Then he laughed, a low rumble that seemed to fill the room. “I’m starting to remember why I married you.”
“And what drove you away again,” she said and smiled. After a day spent in bed, gradually sobering up, Adam had suggested a divorce. She’d been having so much fun—and was, in all honesty, so dazzled by the Adonis who’d proposed to her—that she would have given their marriage a shot. But she’d had no rational argument for staying together, so she’d agreed.
Falling For Her Fake Fiancé (The Beaumont Heirs 5) Page 17
