He rolled her closer to his body, needing closeness and to offer comfort. But instinctively, her mouth sought his, and her hands clutched at the soft cotton of his shirt. She lifted a leg over him, and as he gave in and kissed her back, she smiled against his mouth.
“Willow,” he groaned, wanting desperately to enjoy the contact but knowing it was wrong. He needed to speak to her before anything else happened. He pulled away from her, just enough to break their kiss. Her eyes flew open, her expression disorientated.
“Are you okay?” He asked quietly, his light blue eyes scanning her face.
Willow swallowed. Her hands were still bunched in his shirt, her leg thrown over his body. “I’m fine.” She cleared her throat, and would have rolled away completely if he hadn’t kept her more or less still with his own powerful hands. “I fell asleep,” she said unnecessarily.
He nodded, but remained otherwise silent. Up close, she could see the little sprinkle of freckles on his nose. Her fingertips ached to touch them, but their difficult situation lay between them like a roll of barbed wire.
“What are you doing here?”
His bright blue eyes seemed to devour her face. It was as though she were a drink and he a man lost in the desert. He cleared his throat. “Long story.” The metaphorical barbed wire was not enough to stop him. He lifted a hand and ran it over her hair. “But I realised something important. Something I need to explain to you.”
“Oh yeah?” She swallowed. Her mouth was parched. “What’s that?”
His lips lifted in the faintest hint of a smile. “I want to marry you.”
She groaned and shook her head. “We’ve already talked about this.”
“No, we haven’t.” He lifted a hand to her lips, in a gesture of quiet. “Willow, I want to marry you. More than anything else in the world.”
She frowned, and a small crease formed between her eyes. “You do?”
“Uh huh.” He lifted his finger and ran it over the furrow in her brow.
“Why?”
He smiled with the secret knowledge he held. “Because I don’t ever want to leave you again. I don’t ever want to wake up, and look down the barrel of a day that doesn’t have you in it.” He ran a finger over her cheek, marvelling at the smoothness there. “I left Haymarket Bay a week ago, thinking I could just slip back into my normal life. But it’s not here anymore. Nothing’s the same, now that I’ve met you.”
Hadn’t she felt the same? As though her life, once fulfilling and satisfying enough, had turned to grey scale. She blinked at him in confusion. “But that doesn’t mean we should get married.”
He nodded. “When it comes to marriage, I consider myself an expert in why not to do it. Don’t marry because someone’s pretty. Don’t marry because it makes sense. Don’t marry because it’s easier than hurting someone’s feelings. The only real reason to tie yourself to someone for the rest of your life and theirs is because you are in love. In love in an a way that will absolutely suffocate you unless you give in to it.”
Tears stung at Willow’s eyes, and she bit down on her lower lip. “This is because of the baby.”
He laughed softly. “The baby’s the icing on the cake. But it’s not why I want to marry you. The moment I saw you in my office, I just knew. I’d had happiness. I’d known perfection. That time in Haymarket Bay was the best in my life. Because of you. Because I love you.”
Willow sucked in a deep breath, but her body couldn’t contain it. She burst out laughing. She laughed until she felt exhausted, and her sides were sore. Then, she looked up into Matt’s bemused face. “I’m sorry.” She grinned. “I just can’t believe how close we came to messing this all up.”
He pressed a finger beneath her chin, and shook his head. “Wouldn’t happen. It might have taken us a while to get here, but I know we’d have always found our way.”
“You’re very confident.”
“Yeah. I am. Isn’t that true love? No room for doubts. No need for lies.”
She nodded. “I do love you, Mattias McCain. Every arrogant, infuriating inch of you.”
He exhaled a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Until she’d said the words, he had worried he’d made a huge miscalculation about how she felt about him. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? How it came out of nowhere. I ran to Haymarket Bay to get to grips with the fact that my marriage was a failure. And I saw how spectacularly it just didn’t matter. Nothing matters now. Only you.”
Willow’s heart turned over in her chest. “You sure this isn’t just a clever way to get me to move to New York?”
“That’s the best bit. I don’t want you to move here anymore.”
“You don’t?” She squeaked, her eyes huge as they soaked in his face.
“Nah. I want our kids to grow up near the beach.”
“Kids?” She teased, but she relaxed, and snuggled in closer to his broad, muscular frame.
“Yeah.” He shrugged ruefully. “I want lots. Boys, girls, I don’t care.”
She smiled, and breathed in his scent gratefully. “Let’s just start with this one, okay?”
“Fine. As for my role as Chairperson of McCain Industries,” he went on, looping his fingers in her hair and knotting it around his hand. “I’ve been thinking about that. Leaving you felt so wrong, Willow. I knew I had to find a way to be near you. And I think I know how. I’ll set up a small office on the West coast, and commute here whenever I need to. I had already decided to do it before you got here tonight, but now, I’m sure it’s what needs to happen. Nothing means more to me than making a family with you, baby.”
Willow’s smile almost hurt, it was so broad. She put a hand on his heart, and felt it racing with the same frantic beat as her own. “I knew it would work out for us.”
“You did?” He asked teasingly.
“Yeah. It had to.”
He nodded. It made sense. They lay there, limbs entangled, touching everywhere and hanging on to each other because their love demanded it.
Eventually, Willow shifted a little, so that she could stare into his eyes. “I actually need your help with something.”
“Anything.”
“Ike and Anna,” she sighed heavily, her expression showing her distress.
He thought of the friends responsible for their happiness, and stroked her back. She almost purred against his chest. “What about them?”
“They don’t know about us. And Anna’s not even talking to me.” Her voice quivered as she recounted the afternoon she’d discovered her pregnancy.
“It’s got to be hard for her,” he said with a streak of sensitivity. “They’ve wanted a baby for a long time, and it’s refusing to happen. Whereas you and I basically just looked at each other and, wham.”
She arched a brow, and despite the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t help remarking, “I remember it being a lot better than a single look.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean.”
Willow sobered. “I know. It’s just… I don’t think I can cope if Anna cuts me out of her life.”
“She won’t!” He said fiercely. He’d make sure of it. “We’ll go and talk to them together.”
She nodded. His confidence was contagious.
Matt held her tight, and sometime later, when her rhythmic breathing communicated to him the fact that she’d drifted back into sleep, he uttered a silent prayer. He’d seen death and destruction; he’d been shot and he’d survived. And now he knew why.
Willow had been waiting for him. Willow, their baby, and a future as bright as the sun bouncing off the North Atlantic in Spring.
He kissed her head, and smiled.
Willow had been waiting for him.
EPILOGUE
Annabeth’s hair was longer now. It brushed her shoulders, in a sweet bell shape. Her mother, a woman strikingly similar to Annabeth in looks, sat in the front row, beside her husband. The lines of worry had been erased from their faces completely. Only the way Mrs Stott’s blue eyes constantly
sought out her daughter communicated that there was still a lingering emotional scar.
For who could forget the disappearance of their child?
The not knowing. The worrying and wondering. The believing the worst.
Willow’s eyes drifted to the small, velvetine rabbit shape of her sleeping son. Hank McCain was cuddled against his father, his small back moving up and down as he slept peacefully in Matt’s broad arms.
And Willow smiled, as she always did, when she looked at her husband. Her eyes drifted past Matt, to Isaac. Despite the constant stream of sleepless nights, brought on by a colicky little girl, he’d never looked happier.
“Look at those two softies,” Anna surprised Willow, coming up beside her and putting an arm around her waist.
“I am,” Willow grinned.
Both men, hugging their children. Hank and Emily were separated by only a single month. How Anna and Willow had laughed with joy, when they’d discovered that Anna’s pregnancy was only slightly behind Willow’s.
“I can’t believe our little ones will get to grow up side by side,” Anna murmured, looking out at the packed auditorium but seeing only their families.
“It was fate,” Willow said with confidence. Why else had everything worked out for them? Surely there had been some kind of divine plan at work. For it was all so perfect now, it must have been a destiny written in the stars.
“I’m just glad you forgave me for being such a selfish cow.”
Willow shot her a look of surprise. “You? Selfish? Never.”
“I still cringe when I think of how I reacted that day.” She shook her head. “Some friend I was.”
“Anna, your reaction was completely understandable. I hated that I made you feel like that.”
“You did nothing to me. You fell pregnant. It was my own stupid hang ups that made me see it as a betrayal.” She shook her head. “You’re my best friend, and I yelled at you when you needed me most.”
Willow sighed softly. “You were upset. I understood. And you are my best friend. Which means you’re stuck with me forever.”
Anna’s smile was tinged with regret. “You ready to go?”
Willow nodded. “It’s a full house.”
“Lots of build up around this one.”
Willow nodded. “I’ll talk to you afterwards.”
Anna gave willow a reassuring kiss on the cheek and then disappeared back down the stairs. After a brief announcement from her publisher, Willow took to the stage. She stood confidently at the podium, and smiled at the crowd. But her eyes were drawn to the brave little five year old in the front row.
“A little over a year ago, I met a girl who would change me forever. A girl who is as brave as she is clever; as fearless as she is fabulous. I wrote this story for you, Annabeth Stott. I write books about adventure and mystery, but you are the bravest hero of all.”
As Willow began to read the first chapter of her latest novel, she felt a sense of such happiness sweep over her that she thought she might just combust. The crowd applauded uproariously when she finished the reading, but Willow was already floating on air.
She had her own happily ever after, and she was lucky enough to get to live it for the rest of her life.
THE END
A full list of Clare Connelly books is available on her Amazon author page.
TEMPTED BY THE BILLIONAIRE is the second title in Clare Connelly’s HOMETOWN HERO SERIES. An excerpt from the first novel of the series, A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE, follows.
A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE
Clare Connelly
All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names and are pure invention.
All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.
The illustration on the cover of this book features model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.
First published 2015
(c) Clare Connelly
Photo Credit: dollarphotoclub.com/CURAphotography and Les Cunliffe
Contact Clare:
http://www.clareconnelly.co.uk
Blog: http://clarewriteslove.wordpress.com/
Email: [email protected]
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CHAPTER ONE
A lone seagull flapped slowly along the shoreline, echoing Madeline May Howard’s own sense of complete and total oneness. A harsh wind tore off the Atlantic, threatening to pull loose some of her sophisticated blonde chignon.
It did not, though.
Madeline’s hair would never move without her express approval. She’d learned long ago that no good could come from obeying every whimsy and flippant fancy. And her hair, make up and clothing seemed to resonate with that same sense of obedience.
“You don’t want to get too close to the edge, ma’am.” A small voice was almost lost on the breeze, but Madeline caught the final word. It occurred to her that it was odd. For two reasons. Firstly, those common civilities she’d been raised with seemed to belong to a bygone era now. At only twenty eight, she often felt like a relic in the fast paced world in which anyone with a mobile phone could become a YouTube sensation. Six years in Ivy League colleges gaining an elite law degree, and her biggest professional successes came only when she sold a great sob story to the hungry followers of social networks. It was the place most people seemed to get their news, and now, her team went first to Facebook, twitter and YouTube, rather than CNN, if they wanted to get a case out to the world.
The other reason the polite term struck Madeline as odd was that it made her feel old. She looked wistfully at the churning waves, rendered lead-grey by the storm-plagued sky, and remembered the last time she’d been on this shoreline. Then, she’d run, as a free spirit. Barefoot, sand sticking to her exposed limbs, long hair flying disobediently and tangled in the breeze, a smile spreading from ear to ear on her fair face.
Not a trace of that girl remained now.
She trained her Louboutin pumps away from the stone wall that led to the sand beneath, and scanned the grass foreshore for the owner of the small voice. On one of the rickety old benches that had been placed throughout the township of Whitegate, Maine – the same benches that had been there for as far back as Madeline’s memory stretched – sat a small, dark haired girl.
Madeline was late. She’d taken her time in the town, picking out the changes here and there, and the overwhelming, saddening similarities everywhere. It had been a long time since she’d been in Whitegait. Several years. So she’d taken her time, and that time had made her very, very late. Her father abhorred lateness. Even in his current state, he would no doubt summon the energy from somewhere to deliver one last, biting lecture to her when she finally returned to the ranch. His lectures, delivered with a cold, unflinching cruelty, were as reliably unkind as Whitegait was beautiful.
It was ungenerous to think of Kenneth in that way. He was, after all, surely only days from death. That certainty did nothing to her heart. It certainly didn’t make her grieve. No. His inevitable passing was not something she was prepared to mourn, except perhaps in an abstract way, as it signalled the end, forever, of what could and should have been her life. It was a credit to her generous nature that she didn’t rejoice and swing her arms in the air, for only with the passing of Kenneth Bartlett the Fourth would Madeline finally start to think of herself as free.
“It’s a mighty big drop down to the sand,” the young girl said, as Madeline got closer. “And there’s no barrier to stop you from falling. I’ve seen strangers go down, you know.”
Madeline was so late. She knew she should keep walking.
She slowed her gait and came to a complete stop before the girl. Behind them
, there was nothing. Just a stretch of green grass and a low-lying fog that made Madeline feel they were being pulled into the clouds. In a black Dior pantsuit with a Burberry trench coat, she looked completely out of place in the small town she’d once known as well as the back of her hand.
“As a matter of fact, I do know.” Her voice was husky from disuse. In the three days since arriving back in Whitegate, she hadn’t had much need for it. She cleared her throat and eased herself onto the bench beside the girl. It would probably leave wet marks against the fine wool. She didn’t care.
“How?” The girl asked, turning her chocolate brown eyes on Madeline with curiosity.
Madeline frowned. “How do I know? When I was your age, I used to play here. A lot.”
The girl wrinkled her nose in a gesture that was somehow familiar to Madeline. Perhaps it reminded her of herself as a little, innocent being. “I’ve never seen you before, ma’am.”
Madeline nodded. “I moved away a long time ago. Before you were even born,” she added with a small smile. “I haven’t been back since.”
“Where do you live now?” The girl asked, kicking the gravel beneath their feet with her bright red converse sneakers. Little plumes of dust flew up and then wisped away in the wind.
“D.C.”
“The White House?” The girl asked in awe, her eyes forming big round orbs in her sweet face.
“No. Near there, though.” She could see the little girl’s swift kick of disappointment and she rushed to remedy it. “My husband works there, sometimes, though.”
“He does?” Her jaw dropped. “For real?”
“Uh huh.”
Madeline turned her head and looked out at the ocean. The view that had once afforded her such solace, and total pleasure, now left her with the same sense of numbness she’d been carrying around for most of her adult life.
Tempted by the Billionaire: A Hometown Hero Series Novel Page 13
