“Ha. Right. Well, I wanted to apologize, too. I realize that you were just trying to help with the Delicaid competition.”
James rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I mean I was, but I did it in a stupid way. I should’ve kept my nose out of it. You were going to win on your own.”
Juliet shook her head. “I mean, I don’t know about that.”
“Kylie made it pretty obvious,” said James. “I underestimated the grudge she held against me.”
“What’d you do to her?” Juliet cocked her head to the side.
“Well, uh – she kind of had a thing for me.”
A smile spread across Juliet’s face. “Ah, right. I can see that. A woman scorned and all.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I thought she was nice. For an employee, nothing more. She kept bringing in these danishes, I guess she read in a magazine that I really liked danishes. It got weird.”
Juliet stepped closer to him and brushed against his hand. James felt his heart jump.
“You didn’t like Kylie, then?” she asked.
He didn’t want to keep harping on how he’d only loved her for all of these years. But she was asking. “No, I had my heart set on someone else.”
“Oh,” she said, stepping away. “I see.”
He took a chance and grabbed her hand. “It was you, Juliet. I don’t want to keep pestering you with my feelings – I promise I won’t bring it up again. But I just…wanted you to know. It’s always been you.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know.”
He felt like a window was opening. He didn’t know why or how, and he hadn’t expected it, but he wasn’t going to let it slip away. He took her other hand in his.
“And if you were to tell me that you even felt a fraction of that for me, even if it just came on in the last day or so…”
A smile spread across her face. “And what if I did tell you that?”
“Then I’d have to kiss you.”
She leaned in. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“No,” he said, gently touching her face. “We wouldn’t.”
He couldn’t resist it any more – he closed his eyes and kissed her. To his surprise, she kissed him back. His heart soared – it was worth the wait.
“You had to keep me guessing until the last second, didn’t you?” he asked, unable to contain the smile on his face.
She shrugged. “I’m a mysterious woman.”
“Can I be a mysterious man?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “Everything about you is pretty much all out there. Now would you kiss me again?”
She didn’t have to ask twice – he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for another kiss.
Epilogue
That morning, Juliet got up early. She’d taken the day off of work, so she wanted to sleep in, but she was too excited. It was the one year anniversary of James starting his job as a zookeeper, and she was going to the zoo to see some sort of surprise that he set up.
She had no idea what it was going to be, but he promised that it had something to do with his favorite charges – the elephants – so she knew that whatever it was would be adorable. Juliet checked her phone to see if there were any updates from him. There was a text message. “Good morning sunshine! I left something for you on the doorstep – hopefully you get to it before the raccoons do.”
She laughed. Her new apartment was nicer than her old one (and the landlord never yelled at her), but there were some very crafty raccoons that kept getting into her trash cans. She hopped out of bed and opened the front door. A box from her favorite bakery sat on the welcome mat. She carried it inside and opened the lid in the kitchen; it was full of croissants and pastries.
“That was risky,” she typed on her phone. “The raccoons definitely would’ve enjoyed this. But thank you, because I’m going to enjoy it more!”
A cold nose pressed into the back of her calf. Juliet turned around to see that her dog Rufus was also interested in having some fresh pastries for breakfast.
She bent down and kissed his head. “This is not for you buddy.”
He sat down, then tried to give paw. When that didn’t work, he laid down and rolled over. Juliet laughed. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be manipulated by his cuteness, but it was tough.
“Alright, I won’t give it to you now, but if you’re really good and go sit in your bed and stop bothering me, I’ll save you a little bite later.”
He realized that she wasn’t going to give in; though he didn’t know what she said, he was still satisfied with this arrangement and took himself to go sit on the couch.
Juliet turned back to the bakery box. What was she supposed to do with all of these pastries? How many pastries could one woman eat?
This was very much an “old” James kind of move. He used to do things like this all the time when they were both in college. When James went back to finish his degree, it was like he was reborn. He started being thoughtful again, it was like he was filled with joy.
James finished all of his coursework in just 18 months. He was completely dedicated, and he spent much of his free time volunteering at the zoo in hopes of landing a full-time position when one opened up.
The rest of his time was spent with Juliet. The change in him was amazing and she couldn’t help falling deeper in love with him. Her mind told her it was dangerous, but her heart couldn’t resist.
At first she was concerned that he might want to return to his old life in New York City. His dad certainly put up a fight. First, he took away James’ access to all of the comforts he’d grown used to – his condo, his cars, and the ridiculous piles of money.
James was unfazed. He was completely caught up in his schoolwork and loved all the classes he was taking. On top of that, he still had a lot of money from selling some of his shares in the company. It was more than enough to keep him comfortable – though his dad didn’t think it would last because of James’ history of poor spending habits. Luckily, Juliet was more than happy to teach him what a budget looked like.
The next step, then, was bribery. His dad told him that he could get a raise and more control of the company if he were to come back. James politely declined, telling him that he was very happy where he was.
That didn’t go over well, and his father demanded to buy back all of the stocks that James controlled. James was happy to sell them off – but then his dad changed his mind.
After that failed to turn James back to the family business, his father resorted to pleading. He tried to use guilt, intermixed with occasional anger. Juliet thought that he was going through all the stages of grief.
“Unfortunately, he’ll never get to acceptance,” said James.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Juliet said.
When James graduated with his zoology degree, Juliet invited his dad to the graduation ceremony. She wasn’t sure that he would come, but she thought it was worth a shot. He did end up coming, but he had the attitude that he was allowing James to have a bit of fantasy until he came back to his “real” life.
It wasn’t until Juliet sent about fifty pictures and videos of James loving his new job at the zoo that his dad started to come around. It was enough time for him to see that the business was able to function without James. And it was enough time for him to see that James was serious and most importantly, that James was happy.
Juliet was glad that they were back on speaking terms. She knew that it might take years for them to mend their relationship, but at least they were on the right path.
And Juliet and James’ relationship had never been better. On their one year anniversary, James convinced Juliet that it would be fun to go to the local animal shelter to look at the pets.
Juliet knew what he was doing – he was trying to trick her into getting another dog. She told him that she wasn’t ready, and he said there was no pressure to adopt anyone, but that he just wanted to go look.
That’s when she met Rufus. He was three
years old and ended up in the shelter because his owner passed away. Juliet fell in love with him at once – he had the pointy ears of a German Shepherd, but he must’ve had some husky in him too because he had one blue and one brown eye. He barked at her incessantly until she came over to his cage to say hello. Then he sat there with a very pleased look on his face, trying to display his array of tricks.
She brought him home that day.
After eating two croissants, Juliet packed up some of the pastries and left to meet James at the zoo. She loved visiting him at work – everyone there loved him, and everyone there knew her. James mostly worked with the elephants now, but he also ran some educational classes for the children who came to the zoo on field trips. Juliet had never seen him happier in his entire life, and it was infectious.
She got to the elephant exhibit and looked around. James was nowhere to be seen, but two of the elephants were playing with toys in the enclosure. They both came running over when they saw Juliet.
“Hey ladies!” she said. “Have you seen James?”
Rosie, the older female, tried to give Juliet a bushel of branches.
Juliet laughed, stretching over the wall to accept them. A moat of water separated them, making it impossible to reach. “Rosie, I can’t reach from here, but thank you.”
She stood there talking to them for about 15 minutes until James emerged from the elephant house.
“Hey beautiful!” he yelled. “How long have you been waiting there?”
She shrugged. “Not long. And Rosie tried to feed me some branches, so I’m taken care of.”
He laughed. “She’s always loved you.”
“Thank you for the baked goods, I brought you some leftovers.”
“Oh, perfect! They were all for you, though.”
“Me and the raccoons.”
“Exactly.” He walked to the edge of the enclosure. “Do you want to meet me at the door of the elephant house and I can show you what Rosie and I have been working on?”
“Sure.”
Juliet walked over. James and Rosie greeted her once she reached the elephant house. She patted Rosie on the trunk and Rosie tried to play with her ponytail.
“So what’s this big surprise?” asked Juliet.
“Well,” said James, a broad smile spreading on his face, “I was talking to some other keepers about how they enrich the lives of their elephants. They said that some of them really like painting on canvas.”
“I’ve seen this online!” said Juliet. “It’s really funny.”
“Yeah! She’s been painting away for the last three weeks, but today she doesn’t feel like it. I was hoping you could walk in and see her with a paintbrush in her trunk.”
Juliet laughed. “She’s entitled to do what she wants with her time.”
“I know, and right now all she cares about is trying to undo your ponytail. But I can show you some of the paintings that she made earlier?”
He led her into a back room that had canvases stacked up on a table. “This is the first one that she did – I think she was trying to paint some tall grasses here. They’re not green, obviously she only had orange paint, but clearly these are orange grasses.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
He moved it to the side to show the next canvas. “Now this one I can kind of see as a self-portrait. I think she was really trying to paint just her ear, though.”
Juliet laughed – he was being so funny about this. “Yes, definitely.”
He shifted the canvas to the side. The next one was a yellow circle. Juliet picked it up. “Wow, did she do this one?”
James shook his head. “No, that was me showing her what the paintbrushes could do.”
“Oh I see.” Juliet set it aside and reached for the next canvas. Her heart skipped a beat. This one had another yellow circle, plus some words written on the top: Juliet, will you marry me?
She looked over at James to see that he was down on one knee, an open ring box in his hand.
“That one was me too,” he said. “But Rosie really encouraged me to do it. She said that you make me a better man, and that everything in my life has improved because of you. She said that you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And I think she’s right. I love you endlessly. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Juliet dropped to her knees to be on eye level with him. “I think Rosie is right. And yes!”
He swept her into his arms and carried her into the elephant enclosure. “Good news Rosie! She said yes!”
Rosie seemed interested as to why Juliet was being carried around. She started playing with Juliet’s ponytail again and Juliet felt like she was being patted on the head. She burst into laughter.
“I must say, you did much better this time with the proposal.”
He pulled away with a smirk on his face. “I’ve always been a slow learner.”
“Better late than never,” she said, leaning in for a kiss.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading! I’d love to know what you thought, and reader reviews are one of the most influential factors in whether someone will give a book a chance. So, if you’ve enjoyed this book, would you please consider reviewing it?
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About the Author
Amelia Addler writes always clean, always swoon-worthy romance stories and believes that everyone deserves their own happily ever after.
Her soulmate is a man who once spent five weeks driving her to work at 4AM after her car broke down (and he didn’t complain, not even once). She is lucky enough to be married to that man and they live in Pittsburgh with their little yellow mutt. Visit her website at AmeliaAddler.com or drop her an email at [email protected].
Also by Amelia…
The Billionaire Date Book Series:
Nurse’s Date with a Billionaire
Doctor’s Date with a Billionaire
Veterinarian’s Date with a Billionaire
Veterinarian's Date with a Billionaire Page 17
