“All it took was losing a bake-off for you to reach that conclusion?” Penny set the empty box aside.
“No. That’s not all it took.”
Josh shifted his gaze from the sky to Penny, her profile illuminated by the rainbow light.
“Who is he?” Josh asked. “The guy you kissed.”
Penny was silent for a minute, her face tilted toward the sky. Then she turned to face him. Her eyes looked very blue. Even in the dark, he could see the sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
“Josh,” she finally said. “It was you.”
His heart gave a wild, crazy leap, even as some logical part of his brain said she was messing with him.
“It wasn’t me,” he said.
“It was you.”
“But we… we’ve never kissed.”
She looked at the sky again as a pinwheel of colors spun above them.
“One night… October fifth of last year… you’d spent all day working at the shop and going to classes,” she said. “I’d stopped at your house to return a book I’d borrowed. Your dad was out on deliveries. You asked if I wanted to watch a movie.”
Josh rummaged through his mind and found the memory. “Aliens.”
“We were sitting on the sofa, and you were trying to study and watch the movie at the same time,” Penny said. “You fell asleep about a quarter of the way in.”
She stopped talking. He waited. His pulse was racing, and beneath his heart there was a flicker of something that felt distinctly like hope. Excited hope. Hopeful hope. The kind of hope that made him realize exactly what he’d been hoping for.
“You’d sprawled all over the sofa,” Penny continued. “Practically pushing me off. So I got up to leave and pulled a blanket over you. I was… I was just looking at you, and then I… well, I kissed you.”
A firework boomed overhead. Josh barely heard it past the beating of his heart.
“You kissed me,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“On the lips?”
“Well, not on the chin.” Penny rolled her eyes.
Embarrassment flashed through him. “Why’d you do that?”
“I just wanted to. I’d wanted to for some time.”
“Uh. I… I don’t think that means you’ve been kissed… uh, officially,” Josh stammered.
“I didn’t say I’d been kissed,” Penny said. “I said I’d kissed someone. You just didn’t kiss me back.”
“Well.” Josh cleared his throat. “In my defense, I was unconscious.”
“True. Even given that, it was still a pretty good kiss, though you’ll have to take my word for it.”
“Actually, you… you didn’t say you’d kissed someone,” Josh said, his stomach twisting with both nervousness and anticipation.
Penny blinked. “I didn’t?”
“No. You said you’d kissed a guy you’ve loved for a while now.”
Her cheeks reddened as she averted her gaze.
“And you said I didn’t know him,” Josh continued.
“You don’t,” Penny said, after a minute. “Or at least… you didn’t.”
“This is beginning to sound like Leo’s maze of treachery,” Josh remarked.
Penny glanced at him with a faint smile.
“Josh, the guy I love is amazing. He’s creative, funny, ambitious, and loyal to a fault. He can do anything he wants to do, anything he sets his mind to. He can cook like a dream. He’s much smarter than he thinks he is. He’s strong, dependable, talented. Oh, and he is very, very hot.”
Josh’s breath escaped him in a rush. “Wow. But I still don’t get—”
“You didn’t know all that about yourself, did you?” Penny asked. “You’ve always seen yourself as this guy stuck working in his dad’s pie shop, a student who doesn’t want to be a student, a boy going in the wrong direction but not even knowing how to get himself turned around. You didn’t know the real you.”
Josh’s heart did a flip as he finally realized what she was telling him.
“But you did,” he said.
“That’s the guy I’ve loved for a while now,” Penny told him. “The real Josh Piper.”
All he could do was look at her and think about how she’d been the steadiest part of his life for years now, and he hadn’t even realized that all his feelings for her—warmth, affection, respect, admiration—could all be summed up by that one word.
“It wasn’t the bake-off that forced me to figure out who I am,” Josh said.
“What was it, then?”
“Just one Sweet Penny Pie.”
He scooted over on the grass to close the distance between them. Penny gazed at him, her lips parting as she drew in a breath. He reached out to cup her chin in his hand. He felt a tremble course through her, felt its echo in the middle of his chest.
For a moment, they just looked at each other, and he saw the fireworks reflected in the dark blue irises of Penny’s eyes.
Then all the colors and lights, the booming noise, distilled to the one instant when Penny touched his face. Her cool fingers slid across his jaw and down to the pulse beating at the side of his neck.
Pleasure coursed through him. His head filled with her coconut-cream scent. Her skin was soft beneath his palm. He moved closer and finally brushed his mouth across hers. She sighed. Heat flooded his chest. He slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer. Her lips parted beneath his, her mouth soft and inviting.
Josh shifted. The world around him faded. Penny tasted like apples, cinnamon, sugar, cherries, vanilla. All those sweet pie tastes he’d thought he disliked. Now he couldn’t get enough of them, couldn’t get enough of her. He cupped her face in his hands and deepened the kiss as her grip tightened around his arms and her body swayed toward him.
They fitted together easily, his mouth pressed seamlessly to hers with none of the fumbling awkwardness of a first kiss. Josh thought he could sit here forever kissing Penny, tasting her, his blood humming with pleasure as fireworks burst overhead. For the first time, everything was exactly right.
Penny, who always shone the brightest. Penny, whose smile always eased the tension around Josh’s heart. Penny, who thought apple pie and ice cream could solve any problem. Penny, who believed that everyone deserved a happy—
Josh eased away slightly, pressing his forehead to hers. Her breath warmed his lips, her eyes even bluer than usual. And he said it, the words he hadn’t known until now that he felt for her. The feeling that he’d shoved down beneath too many insecurities and fears.
“I love you,” he said. “For a while now too. I’m… I just didn’t know it.”
“Lucky for you,” Penny whispered, reaching up to rub his lower lip. “I did.”
Her smile hit him right in the middle of his heart. He kissed her on the nose as they parted, still sitting so close that their thighs pressed together. They both flopped onto their backs and looked up at the fiery, colored sky.
“We’re not going to have a happy ending,” Josh said.
“We’re… we’re not?”
“No.” Josh fumbled in the dark for Penny’s hand and closed his fingers around hers. “But we will definitely have a happy afterward. And it starts now.”
THE END
About the Author
Nina Lane
USA Today bestselling author Nina Lane writes hot, sexy romances and spicy erotica, including the acclaimed Spiral of Bliss trilogy (Arouse, Allure, and Awaken). Originally from California, Nina loves traveling, and she also spent many years in graduate school studying art history and library sciences. Although she would go back for another degree if she could because she’s that much of a bookworm, she now lives the happy life of a full-time writer.
Find out about Nina’s latest news and books at:
http://www.ninalane.com
or join her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NinaLaneAuthor
and Twitter at @NinaLaneAuthor
I owe debt of gratitude to the following
people, who helped me immeasurably with this story: Kelly Harms Wimmer, Rachel Berens-VanHeest, Melody Marshall, Natalie Marshall, and Will Lewis. Thank you so much for your valuable criticism and unflagging support. You all take the cake.
Priceless
A ROTHVALE LEGACY STORY
By
Raine Miller
Copyright © 2013 Raine Miller Romance
All rights reserved
DEDICATION
For Amanda
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set her free…
—Michelangelo (1475–1564)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all of my loyal fans, I just want to say thank you for supporting the Amanda Todd Legacy by purchasing the Stories for Amanda anthology. The issue of bullying is one that is very close to my heart, and one for which I dearly wish there was no need for awareness. Sadly, the need for people to give attention to this issue is greater than ever. Thank you to the other authors who collaborated on this project with me, as well as the cover design, formatting, editing services, publishing, and promotional efforts that were all donated anonymously because the people behind all those are committed to this cause.
Until we all understand just how tragic the effects of bullying are, we will lose more young souls like Amanda Todd to a useless end. My time as a teacher in the public schools taught me just how priceless all those child hearts are. Thank you from the bottom of mine.
xxoo R
National Gallery
London
29th June
CHARITY galas are bloody horrific things. This one was sure to be no different, so I imagined surviving the next couple of hours would be priority mission number one for me. Well, I did have a little entertainment to look forward to at the end of the evening and that was something. I pulled into the National Gallery, queued for valet service, and checked my mobile for the details.
There it was. I read it twice and attempted to memorize who, what, and where.
Mr. Ivan: Maria will be wearing an emerald green gown. Victorian Gallery 8:00 p.m. Terms per contract. We wish you both a very pleasant evening.
The escort service I liked best was the one that didn’t have a name and you never talked to anyone by voice. Everything was transacted by text. Simple. Efficient. Anonymous. No strings attached to get all tangled into a cocked up mess, and when the date was over everyone went home satisfied.
The less time I had to think about what I was really doing, the better. I wasn’t proud of myself for my behavior, but the reasons were justified in my mind. I was just doing what I needed to do to get by.
Betrayal does that to a man.
By the time I made my way inside and found the venue, I was pleasantly surprised to see I’d missed the dinner. The polite conversation required at these kind of events was sheer torture and I often wondered how on earth that I, out of all of the eligible men in England, could have ended up inheriting a directorship on the board of the National Gallery. There couldn’t possibly be a worse choice than me. I know next to nothing about paintings and no inclination to begin learning about them either. Being ‘Lord Rothvale’ in the twenty-first century did not impress me either. Having patrons address me as ‘my lord’ and bowing upon introduction made my skin crawl.
I was left having to fake it.
I did that a lot.
The pretense grew very tiresome to me because my whole life had been turned upside down by lies. Shredded and stripped, and then stomped and burned in front of me.
False… counterfeit… sham.
Where in the bloody hell had they set the bar up in this place?
I wandered a bit, trying to appear focused on the exhibit and praying nobody recognized me for fifteen minutes. Hell, I’d be happy with five if I could grab even that.
The landscape changed when I spotted the lovely Brynne Bennett presenting a painting of a woman with a book. It looked like it could be a Mallerton in the midst of the conservation process. It was being repaired or preserved so it could last another hundred years or so without losing its colors and clarity of image. Yeah, I’d managed to absorb a few bits of knowledge about what needed to happen to old paintings by default. I’d much rather look at the stunning conservator giving the presentation though.
Brynne was very easy to look at, but she was also very taken. By my very protective cousin, no less. Ethan runs a security business so I give him credit for the protective part. He has excellent taste in women. I’ll give him that too.
“Enjoying the show?” Ethan’s voice came at my shoulder.
“Probably more like thinking about when in the hell I could escape the show,” I answered. “I was just thinking about you, cousin.”
“Really.”
“Indeed. Think of the devil and he appears as if by magic.”
“Glad you could make it tonight,” he said sarcastically. “We’ve been wondering when you’d finally grace us with your presence. Brynne wants to introduce you to her friend.” He looked around as if he were searching the crowd for someone.
“Brynne looks very busy right now.” I glanced over at his girlfriend admiringly. “Maybe later.”
“Look, Ivan, there was a pseudo threat delivered to my office today. I’m not horribly concerned but I want you frontloaded on the details.” He handed me an envelope of photos.
Ethan and I had done this plenty of times before so it wasn’t anything new. Eight-by-ten black and white photographs of Brynne and me chatting at Gladstone’s, where I’d met the two of them for lunch a few weeks back. Me kissing her on the cheeks, as I put her in the car. Me leaning in to speak to the both of them, and waving them off. Me on the street after Ethan’s car had pulled away. Me waiting on the street for my own car to come ‘round.
I grunted at the photos as I flipped through them a second time. I flipped over the pictures one by one. Nothing. Until the last one: “Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide” scrawled on the back.
Marvelous. Another fan sending me love notes.
I’d seen this kind of thing throughout my career. It had to be taken seriously of course, but more often than not, it was some lunatic fringe who had an axe to grind on the back of someone notable they perceived to have caused offense to them personally, and with cruel intent. Sports figures especially suffered this kind of crap. I had offended a ton of people in my time and had the gold medals to prove it. Even though I was a retired Olympic archer, I was still hounded by the media all the time. The hounding had grown especially fierce with what had recently happened in my private life. The upcoming Olympic Games being hosted in my home country didn’t help either. It put me back on the radar and the timing couldn’t have been worse.
I counted my blessings that Ethan was blood family. That alone would have earned his protection regardless, but I certainly kept him busy. After a minute I handed the whole lot back to my suave cousin. “Thanks, E, for looking out. I’m sure it’ll all blow over when the Olympics are but a memory.” I looked at the drink in his hand, deciding that getting one for myself was a bigger priority now than earlier. And probably three G & T’s was far more realistic than just the one.
“At least I can hope, true?” I acted like I didn’t care about the threat.
“It’s all any of us can do, mate.” He nodded, clapping me on the back with one hand.
“I need to have something along the lines of what you’re having.” I waved off and left for the bar, in a far worse mood than I’d been a few moments ago. If that was even possible.
~~~~
I loved my dress tonight. Brynne’s aunt Marie had taken us both to a fabulous shop in Knightsbridge that sold vintage gowns. My dark green silk moved so well as I walked, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the superior artistry. It definitely paid to buy quality. I’d bought the gown specifically for tonight and figured it was wise to invest in something I could wear to other formal events. And the party was as beautiful as ever. The annual Mallerton Gala for the Arts in hono
r of Romanticist painter, Sir Tristan Mallerton, was something I never missed. I knew his birthday as well as I knew the birthdays of my own family. June 29th. I ought to know. His work was the basis for my masters in Art History at University of London.
I knew every catalogued painting Mallerton had ever created and had seen a good portion of them with my own eyes. The National Gallery had the largest collection of his work on display in Britain, but it was safe to bet there were plenty of unknowns in private homes and in storage that had never seen the light of day. Mallerton had been prolific during his lifetime. Most of those pieces were in the hands of people who had no idea what they owned, and sadly, no interest in finding out either. Occasionally a painting would come onto the market from a private collection and go to auction though. And it was my job to get it evaluated and into the database.
I stopped at an equestrian portrait that I counted among my top five favorites out of all of his work. It was a happy painting, and every time I saw it I wanted to smile. Mallerton had executed it perfectly, the moment preserved in time for all to enjoy.
The subject was a young bride with long dark hair seated on a magnificent white horse, who’d been adorned with garlands and ribbons and bells throughout his tack. Even though she wasn’t smiling at all like a person would today when posing for a picture, the expression of joy captured so exquisitely in her expression made you a believer. There was no doubt that this girl was a happy bride. It was titled simply, Mrs. Gravelle, and always made me wonder what Mr. Gravelle was like. He’d won a beautiful bride that’s for sure, and I dearly hoped he’d loved her as he should have.
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