by Reese Ryan
Everything had to be perfect.
He’d gone over the words he wanted to say to Sloane and the order in which he should say them. Debated whether he should start with his big ask or by telling her his big news.
He checked on the twins again, corralled in a large, colorful playpen so they couldn’t get into anything.
Finally he heard the tires of her SUV crunch along the gravel up their drive and then the door slammed.
“Hey, babe. How was your trip into town?” He helped her bring in a few items.
“Great.” She kissed him. “Did the twins give you any trouble?” She picked up each of them and kissed their little cheeks before returning them to the playpen. Then she went to the kitchen to start putting things away and he followed.
“Everything okay?” She narrowed her gaze at him. “You’re acting a little weird.”
Take it easy and relax.
“Everything is fine.” He took her hand and led her to the couch. “I just need to tell you about an offer I got.”
“Okay.” She looked a little nervous.
He took a deep breath. “The company that bought mine, they want me to come back to Japan to help them work on a new project.”
“Another six-month-long contract?”
“This time it’ll be a year, and the money they’re offering me to do this is insane.”
“Wow, that’s great.” Her voice and expression indicated the exact opposite. “An entire year. Wow.”
Opening and closing with a wow... Not good.
“Remember when I asked you to go to Japan with me and you listed all the things we could do together there? Well, here’s our chance. And Beau and Bailey will get to travel the world before they’re even two years old.”
“That’s a really incredible opportunity.” She walked over to the fireplace, her back to him.
“Then why do you seem so miserable about it?” He followed her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. “Do you regret turning down the offer at the record company?”
“I don’t regret choosing you, Beau and Bailey over fifty-hour work weeks. But maybe there is a little part of me that wishes I’d gotten to spend a little time doing the job. They came crawling to me, and I negotiated a fair salary. You would’ve been proud,” she added faintly.
“I am proud of you, honey. You worked hard for that creative director position and they offered it to you. So yes, I’m damn proud of you. And if you’ve reconsidered the offer, I’ll support you one hundred percent.”
“There’s no way we can be together if I’m in Nashville and you’re in Tokyo.” She sank onto the sofa, glaring at him as if he’d gone insane.
“Don’t worry, babe. We’ll work it out.” He sat beside her and traced her cheekbone with his thumb. “Trust me.”
“That sounds awesome. Except for the part where it’s completely impossible. Either you win, or I do. There’s no way we both get what we want.”
“Then it’s simple. We move to Nashville. You take your dream job, and I’ll become your incredibly rich househusband.”
Sloane punched his arm playfully and laughed, laying her head on his chest. He draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her against him.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your offer is probably worth more than I’d earn in a hundred years.”
She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean what she wanted wasn’t important. He didn’t need to work another day or do another deal ever. They’d still be fine and so would the kids.
“I’ve already achieved my holy grail.”
“Building a company from scratch and selling it for two-point-five billion is a pretty hard act to follow.”
“Not talking about that.” He grinned. “I meant finally being with you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. So as long as I have you, Beau and Bailey, nothing else matters. I want you to go out in the world and do whatever it is that will make you as happy as you’ve made me.”
“C’mon, Benj. Be serious.”
“I am.” He got on one knee and pulled out the diamond ring he’d been waiting to give her.
“Oh, my God.” She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. “It’s beautiful, Benji. I love it.”
“And I love you, Sloane. I’ve loved you most of my life. But what I feel for you now isn’t a silly crush or lust or obligation or any of the things you were so worried this was. I genuinely love you. And I’m so lucky to have you in my life.”
“I love you, too.” She kissed him. “Just promise me that all of our crazy family issues won’t become our issues.”
“That I can promise you.” He kissed her hand. “Say you’ll marry me, Sloane. And we can live anywhere you want. Do whatever you want. As long as we’re together.”
She nodded eagerly, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Yes, yes, absolutely yes. I love you so much, Benji.”
He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her. Then he stood, pulling her into his arms.
“I can’t believe we’re finally gonna do this.” She smiled, admiring the beautiful platinum-and-diamond solitaire ring flanked with smaller diamonds.
“Which reminds me.” He pulled out his phone, sent a group text message, then returned it to his pocket.
Suddenly Sloane gripped his arm and pointed.
“What is it?” He looked where she was pointing. Bailey stood in the middle of the playpen, teetering on unsure legs.
“That’s great, babe. But we’ve seen her do that lots of times.”
“Shh...” She slipped her hand in his. “Wait for it.”
Arms spread, Bailey looked up at them and smiled. She took three steps toward them before falling onto her bottom again.
“I just saw my baby girl’s first steps.” He picked up the infant and kissed her plump cheek. She drooled on him and giggled.
Sloane picked up Beau, not wanting to leave him out. “Don’t worry, sweetie. You’ll be chasing your sister around the playpen in no time.” She kissed his cheek, too.
Suddenly her eyes lit up.
“What is it?” Benji asked.
“I know where I want to live.”
“Nashville or Tokyo?”
“Neither.” She grinned. “I want us to build a house right here in Magnolia Lake, where the twins can grow up surrounded by our friends and family.”
“So we pass on both opportunities?” He put Bailey, who was eager to try out her newfound skills, back down in the playpen.
Sloane put Beau down, too.
“It’ll take at least six months for Cole to build our house here, right? It’d be nice to get some decent sushi and see the cherry blossoms while we’re waiting.”
“Are you sure about this, Sloane?”
She nodded. “Positive.”
“You, soon-to-be Mrs. Bennett, are a genius.” He hauled her against him, wondering if they had enough time to put the kids in their cribs and sneak off to their bedroom for a private celebration.
The front doorbell rang. Apparently not.
Marcellus carried in insulated food warmers and Benji went out to help him. Before they were done, his sister, niece and parents arrived. Then Abby and Atticus arrived in their truck, followed by Blake, Savannah and Davis. Zora, Parker, Max, Cole, and his uncle Duke and aunt Iris arrived soon after. Livvie and Mr. and Mrs. H filled out the rest of the party.
Benji watched as his parents fussed over the twins and Sloane showed off her ring.
They’d be very happy indeed living in Magnolia Lake.
* * * * *
If you loved Benji and Sloane’s story,
find out who holds the key
to Parker Abbott’s heart next,
as Reese Ryan’s
Bourbon Brothers
series continues in
April 2019.
Available wherever
is sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Tempt Me in Vegas by Maureen Child.
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Tempt Me in Vegas
by Maureen Child
One
“This isn’t a damn soap opera. It’s real life.” Cooper Hayes jammed both hands into his slacks pockets and shot a glare at the man opposite him. “How the hell did this happen? Secret heirs don’t just appear at the reading of a damn will.”
“The only thing that appeared was her name,” Dave Carey reminded him.
True, but hardly consolation. Cooper stared at the other man for a few long beats. Dave had been his best friend and confidant since college. He was always reasonable, logical and so damn cool-headed that it was irritating at times. Like now, for instance.
“That’s enough, though, isn’t it? She exists. She has a name. And now,” Cooper added darkly, “apparently, half of my company. To top it all off, we know nothing about her.”
Here in his office on the twentieth floor of the StarFire Hotel, Cooper could let his frustration show. In front of the board and the company’s fleet of lawyers, he’d had to hide his surprise and his anger at the reading of Jacob Evans’s will.
Usually, being in this room with its wide windows, plush carpeting and luxurious furnishings helped to center Cooper. To remind him how far the company had come under his direction. As did looking at the paintings of the famed Hayes hotels that decorated the walls. His father and Jacob had started the company, but it was Cooper who had built it into the huge success it was today.
But at the moment it was hard to take comfort in his business...his world, when the very foundations had been shaken.
Cooper still couldn’t quite wrap his head around any of this. Hell, he’d had everything planned out most of his life. Hayes Corporation had been his birthright. He’d trained for years to take the helm of the company and he’d damn near single-handedly made his hotels synonymous with luxury.
Though there were five star Hayes hotels all around the world, their main headquarters was here, in what was considered the flagship hotel, the StarFire, in Las Vegas. The building had undergone massive renovations over the years, but it still claimed a huge swath of the famed Vegas Strip, and at night it glowed as fiercely as the stars it had been named after.
When Trevor died, Cooper had stepped into his father’s place and worked with Jacob. Since the man had no family, it was understood that when Jacob died, the company would fall completely to Cooper, who had been raised to be king.
Except it hadn’t worked out that way.
Cooper looked at Dave again. Now his executive assistant, he and Dave had both worked summers for the corporation, interned in different departments to learn as much as they could and, when Cooper took over from his father, Dave had come along with Cooper. He couldn’t really imagine doing this job without Dave. Having someone you could trust was priceless.
Dave sat in one of the maroon leather guest chairs opposite Cooper’s massive mahogany desk. He wore a black suit with a red power tie. His brown hair was cut short and his dark brown eyes were thoughtful. “We don’t know much now. We will, though, in a couple of hours. I’ve got our best men working on it.”
“Fine,” Cooper muttered darkly as impatience clawed at his insides. “Jacob had a daughter. A daughter no one knew about. Still sounds like a bad plot in a B movie.” Unbelievable. Apparently, Jacob did have family after all. A daughter he’d never seen. One he and the child’s mother had given up for adoption nearly thirty years ago. And he had waited until he was dead to make the damn announcement.
Pushing one hand through his black hair, Cooper shook his head. “You’d think Jacob could have given me a heads-up about this.”
“Maybe he planned to,” Dave offered, then shut up fast when Cooper glared at him.
“I’ve known him my whole damn life,” he reminded his friend. “Jacob couldn’t find five minutes in the last thirty-five years to say, ‘Oh, did I tell you I have a daughter?’”
“If you’re waiting for me to explain this away,” Dave said, lifting both hands in an elegant shrug, “you’ve got a long wait. I can’t tell you why he never told you. I can say that Jacob probably wasn’t expecting to die in a damn golf-cart accident.”
True. If that cart hadn’t rolled, Jacob wouldn’t have broken his damn neck and—it wouldn’t have changed anything. Jacob had been eighty years old. This would all have happened, eventually.
“He gave her up for adoption, ignored her existence for years, then leaves her his half of the company?” Cooper took a deep breath, hoping for calm that didn’t come. “Who does that?”
Dave didn’t answer because there was no answer. At this point all Cooper had were questions. Who was this woman? What would she say when she found out she was a damn heiress? Would she expect to have a say in how Cooper’s business was run? That stopped him cold. No way was she going to interfere in the company; he didn’t care who the hell she was.
“Okay,” he said, nodding to himself as his thoughts coalesced. “I want to know everything there is to know about—” he broke off and looked down at the copy of Jacob’s will laying on his desk “—Terri Ferguson, by the end of today. Where she went to school, what she does, who she knows. Hell, I want to know what she eats for breakfast.
“If I’m going to have to deal with her, I want to have as much ammunition going into this fight as I possibly can.”
“Got it.” Dave stood up and turned for the door. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe she won’t want any of this.”
Cooper would have laughed, but he was too furious. “Sure, that’ll happen. People turn down billions of dollars every day.”
Nodding, Dave said, “Right.”
“No, she won’t turn it down,” Cooper was saying, more to himself than to his friend. “But she’s not going to show up out of nowhere and be a part of the company. I don’t care who she is. Maybe what we have to do here is find a way to convince her to take the money and then disappear.”
“Worth a shot,” Dave said. “I’ll push our guys to research faster.”
“Good.”
Once his friend was gone, Cooper turned toward the wall of windows at his back. He stared down at Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the bustling Vegas Strip, nearly thirty floors below, and let his thoughts wander. He’d grown up in this hotel and still lived in one of the owner’s suites on the twenty-f
ifth floor. He knew every nook and cranny of this city and loved every mercenary inch of it.
On the street, tourists wandered with hope in their hearts and cash in their wallets. They played the machines, the gaming tables and in the bingo parlors. Every last one of them had thoughts of going home rich.
Why would Jacob’s long-lost daughter be any different?
His gaze swept the hotels that surrounded his own and he noticed, not for the first time, that in daylight Vegas held little of the magic that shone on it at night. The city slept during the day but with darkness, it burst into exuberant life.
Cooper’s family had been part of Vegas history for decades, he reminded himself as he turned back to his desk. He’d taken his father’s legacy and made it a worldwide brand. Cooper had made his mark through hard work, single-minded diligence and a vision of exactly what he wanted.
Damned if he’d let some interloper crash the party.
* * *
“I’m sorry.” Terri Ferguson shook her head and almost pinched herself, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. But one look around the employee break room at the bank where she worked convinced her that this was all too real. Just fifteen minutes ago she’d been downstairs on the teller line, helping Mrs. Francis make a deposit. Now she was here, sitting across from a very fussy-looking lawyer listening to what seemed like a fairy tale. Apparently, starring her.
“Would you mind saying all of that one more time?”
The lawyer, Maxwell Seaton, sighed. “Ms. Ferguson, I’ve already explained this twice. How many more times will be required?”
Terri heard the snotty attitude in the older man’s tone and maybe there was a part of her that couldn’t blame him for it. But come on. Wouldn’t anyone in her current position be a little off balance? Because none of this made sense.
It had been an ordinary day in Ogden, Utah. She’d gone to work, laughed with her friends, then taken her spot on the teller line at the Wasatch Bank in downtown Ogden. Familiar customers had streamed in and out of the bank until this man had approached her and, in a few words, turned her whole world upside down.
