by Avery Flynn
Fury and whatever he’d been drinking had him up off the stool on the inhale, then grabbing his brother by the shirt collar and hauling him up on the exhale. “Don’t tell me what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing. I’m walking away because she doesn’t want me.”
Web didn’t flinch. “Or is it because you just can’t stand to admit you were wrong about her, about how you feel, and about what’s really important?”
Important? Will had always known what was important. He’d been protecting his brother practically since he was born. That’s what older brothers did. They watched over the younger ones. They protected the family fortune. They made sure that they always won, they were always right, that nothing bad ever happened. Like their parents dying. Like going to boarding school when they were so young. Like falling in love with the woman he’d thought was out for his brother’s money and then accusing her of being a gold digger to cover up his feelings.
Fuck.
He let go of Web and slumped back onto his stool, realization like a million-pound weight on his shoulders.
“I failed at everything. I’m sorry.”
“My God, you’re an idiot. You’re one of the most successful people I know, but you can’t control everything. Anyway, you’re my favorite brother.”
“I’m your only brother.”
“What can I say, I have low standards.”
But Hadley didn’t. “How do I make this up to her? Diamonds? That’s what our grandmother always wanted.”
Web grimaced. “Oh yeah, nothing shows affection and esteem like sparkly things.”
“That was about as close to a nursery rhyme as she ever told us,” Will said, covering the shot glass with his hand when the bartender held up the mystery bottle again.
He’d spent his entire life thinking that buying someone’s affection was normal, and then he met Hadley. Seeing her with her family was like stepping into another dimension. For them, it wasn’t the money that mattered but time and togetherness. Even with all his money, he couldn’t buy that. Hell, even if Hadley had his money, she’d probably spend it on helping her family’s new business, charities, and getting out to see them more often.
Something settled in his chest, a certainty that he knew what he needed to do next.
“I gotta get to that fundraiser,” he said. “I have to get Hadley back.”
“Finally.” Web held up his car keys and jingled them. “Let’s go.”
The Porsche logo on the key fob caught the light and on the next heartbeat, Will knew exactly what he needed to do to show Hadley he understood exactly how wrong he’d been about her. The chances of it working might be slim, but as a space cowboy once said, never tell him the odds.
Fuck the odds. He had to believe this would work.
Chapter Twenty
Toes pinched from the shoes she’d borrowed from Fiona and wearing a cocktail dress tailored via safety pins, Hadley kept her chin high and her steps steady as she walked by the coat closet—yes, the coat closet—at the hotel ballroom. Of course, up until that moment, she refused to notice the coat closet. She’d barely even glanced in that direction. Certainly, she hadn’t found an excuse to walk by it multiple times while working the floor at her very first fundraising event run by her fledgling company.
Nope.
She’d stayed clear.
And that whisper of “maybe he’ll show here, since he never appeared on your doorstep,” could just shut up already. Will was out of her life and good riddance to him. It wasn’t like she missed him or thought about him or dreamed about him every single night.
She didn’t.
Not.
At.
All.
He’d left. She’d blocked his number. Life went on.
Still, she searched the crowd in the ballroom, looking for the absolute worst man who she still loved because emotions were a bitch. If she could, she’d have hers surgically removed. Scientists really needed to get to work on that one. Maybe that could be her next charity funding recommendation.
Shoving all thoughts of Will into a deep, dark hole where they belonged, Hadley worked the room, talking with donors and influencers about the Holt Foundation Fund and the work it was doing to support Harbor City’s charities. Then the band started playing the first notes of a song that stopped her in her tracks. It was the song from Adalyn’s reception dance that they’d listened to repeatedly until she and Will had the steps down.
In half a breath, she could feel his arms around her again and could practically smell the musky scent of his cologne. Unable to stop herself, she whirled around to face the stage as her heart hammered in her chest, expecting to see Will standing up there. Her disappointed breath came out in a whoosh. It was just the band.
“May I have this dance?” Will asked, appearing all of a sudden on her other side.
Fighting a battle within herself, she took in the sight of him. The bastard didn’t just look good. He looked amazing. He wore a custom-made suit without a tie and the black cowboy hat she’d had every intention of burning before it had disappeared during the family festivities.
“Where did you get the hat?” Because that should really be the first thing you say to him. Way to go, Hads.
He tipped the brim and gave her a wink. “PawPaw sent it.”
“I should have known.” Was there anything her family didn’t lovingly involve themselves in? No, thank God.
Will held out his elbow to her. “Dance?”
There really wasn’t a way to get out of it without drawing attention, so she nodded in agreement, slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, and made her way onto the dance floor.
The second he placed his palm on the small of her back and took her other hand in his so they could two-step, she gave in to the tide of rightness that followed. For a second, she allowed her eyes to close and let that sense of everything falling into place fill her. Did that make her weak? Maybe, but that was the thing with love. Even when it was inconvenient or wrong or perfect, it was there. A person couldn’t stop that. So she gave herself that moment to remember what could have been and pretend it still could be before opening her eyes to the reality of the situation.
Will was looking down at her, the depth of feeling in his eyes the best and worst thing to see at that moment when it was taking everything she had not to fall prey to that old fake-it-until-you-make-it feeling.
“Hadley, I’m sorry,” he said as they moved along to the music, each step bringing their bodies closer together until they were aligned, fitting together like two puzzle pieces. “I was wrong. I know that.”
She managed not to flinch, years of covering her true feelings coming in handy, but that didn’t mean his words didn’t hurt. They were all she’d wanted to hear, but how could she trust them after everything that had happened?
“I should have known all along what an idiot I was, but it turns out that defense mechanisms are a helluva thing to realize you’re using,” he went on. “It took Web telling me that I was acting like our grandmother for me to really open my eyes to what I was doing. Please, say you’ll give us another chance.”
The music stopped, but they stayed there on the dance floor, his palm warm against the small of her back. On the ranch, it would have felt like the first moment of the rest of her life. Now it just seemed like a cruel tease of what could have been. She wanted to believe him, really she did, but she wasn’t sure she had it in her anymore to believe. She had her family. She had herself. Could she really think that she could have Will Holt, too? Damn it, she wanted to believe. She really did, and that was the one thing that scared her enough to push every knee-jerk fear of what happened when things stopped being perfect to the forefront, making her whole body ache. No one knew better than she did that perfection was only an illusion; the only thing that was real was love—and he’d made no mention of that.
“So
when all the perfect newness wears off you can wonder again if I was just a gold digger?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “We can’t help who we’re drawn to, but we can help what we do about it.” And she knew what she had to do, because God help her, she loved him. She stepped back, her palm pressed to his chest just above his heart. “Goodbye, Will.”
Chin held high even if it was trembling, she turned and started to walk away. She got two steps before his voice stopped her.
“I was wrong. My assumptions most definitely made an ass out of me. But you? I want to make you the sole beneficiary of the Donavan Trust. You’ll be one of the richest women in Harbor City.”
Shock poured over her like ice water and she whipped around to face him. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to transfer everything into a trust for you,” he said as the upper crust of Harbor City gawked, taking in every syllable. “I want to make it yours. All of it.”
It took Hadley a second to process the meaning of his words. All of it? Hers? And by the time she did, the entire room was buzzing and cell phone cameras were aimed right at her.
“I don’t care about the damn money, Will,” she said, fury filling her like the bonfire she should have burned that damn cowboy hat in. “I wanted your love, not your money, but you never understood that. I’m not sure you can.”
Frustrated tears beating at the back of her eyes, she turned and rushed away before they had a chance to fall, going through the first door she passed.
…
What in the hell had he done?
He’d made it so no one could ever call Hadley a gold digger again, not when she was one of the richest women in the city. It all made perfect sense. How could she not see that, especially when he did it because he lo—
Realization rolled over him like the midtown bus rolling over an empty beer can.
Oh, fuck.
He was the dumbest human being alive.
Eyes wide and mouths agape, the Harbor City elite in tuxes and ballgowns split like an ocean parting as he made his way to the coat closet. Without a doubt, the news would be on the front pages of tomorrow’s paper. His grandmother would be on her way back to Harbor City from Paris on the family jet as soon as someone texted her the news so she could try to bully him in person. This was about to land him exactly where he hated to be—in the middle of the public eye—and he didn’t give two shits about the money or the exposure or anything else. All he cared about was Hadley, and he’d been an asshole to her.
Exhaling a deep breath, he turned the doorknob and walked inside. Hadley had her back to him as she stood at the back of the tiny room filled with jackets. The light from the single bulb above them gave him just enough light to see how her shoulders were shaking as she cried silently.
“Hadley. I fucked all of this up. Again,” he said, staying where he was so he wouldn’t crowd her or make her feel trapped. “The thing is, I love you. I’ve always loved you. It just took me a long time to realize it because, quite frankly, all the private schools I attended and my Ivy League MBA didn’t prepare me for you. Hell, I don’t think anything could. You are a force of nature.”
She didn’t turn, but he could tell from the way her body stilled that she’d stopped crying and the tilt of her head told him she was listening. Christ, this was hard. Feelings. Who in the hell had invented those? They were swarming him, making him hot and cold at the same time while his heart was going fast enough to make him worry he’d keel over before he could get the words out, but he’d be damned if he’d let that stop him.
“Here’s the thing: I should have realized I loved you the first time I saw you standing along the sidelines of that rugby game. Your nose was red with cold, you were white-knuckling that dripping coffee travel mug, and when I offered you my coat, you turned me down because you didn’t need a damn thing from me.”
Hadley turned around. Her cheeks were wet with tears, but she nailed him to the wall with a glare anyway. “I didn’t want anything from you. Not then. Not now.”
“I know.” Knowing there was no way it was a good idea but unable to stop himself, he stepped forward, just enough to be within touching distance if she reached out. He wanted to always be there for her, whenever she needed him—all she had to do was reach out. “The money, it was a gesture—a stupid one, I’m realizing—to show you that you never had to worry that I truly knew how wrong I’d been about you. I love you, Hadley Donavan, and I don’t ever want to stop loving you.”
She let out a shaky breath but didn’t move away. “Hate to be the one to have to break it to you, but you don’t always get what you want.”
“I know that.” If there was anything he’d learned from falling for Hadley, it was that.
“Oh really,” she scoffed. “What in the world have you ever wanted that you didn’t get?”
“You.” It was true, more so than he’d ever known until the words were out. “You’re all that matters. You’re everything to me.”
“Don’t.” She put her hand to his chest as if to push him away, but she didn’t; instead she fisted his jacket, holding him tight. “This isn’t some game. I’m not someone to slot into your win column.”
“No.” He brushed back the long brown hair that had come loose, tucking it behind her ear, wiping away some of the wetness from her cheek with his thumb. “You’re more than that. I love the way you fight for the people you care about. I love that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make your dreams come true. I love that you are absolutely cutthroat at Scrabble but will give up your bed for the night for a three-legged fox. And I love you.”
“You don’t even know me.” It sounded more like a croak than English, but it was still gorgeous to him.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He cupped her face so she could see the sincerity in his face as he said what he should have said back on the ranch. “I’ve spent the last year learning everything about you, watching how you interact with people, and fighting to see you as an enemy when all I wanted was to be with you. I’ve never loved anyone more.”
She took a step back. “You thought I was a gold digger.”
He’d spend his life making that up to her, and he wouldn’t regret having the opportunity to do so. Hell, he’d be the luckiest man on earth. But first he needed to say the one thing he’d been avoiding since he met her.
“I was wrong. No, I wasn’t just wrong—I was lying to myself. It was easier to think you were after my brother for his money than to think you were in love with him. Pushing you out of his life was acceptable as long as it was because I was protecting him and not because I was in love with you myself.”
…
Hadley just stared at him. She’d been less shocked when he’d walked off the airplane in Denver than she was now. Really, besides Lightning showing up with his fourth leg, she had no idea what would throw her more than Will Holt standing in front of her in one brown shoe and one black, wearing his TV movie cowboy hat, and telling her he loved her.
Discombobulating. Flabbergasting. Confusing as hell. It was all of that—but that wasn’t all. That little bubble of hope had her feeling lighter as she listened. She wanted to believe him, like, really wanted, but how could she trust that he really got it this time? That he understood?
“Why are you telling me this now?” The question came out as a whisper, as she knew on an instinctual level that all of this could disappear again in a moment, and there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have this moment last forever.
He took off the cowboy hat, holding on to it with such a tight grip that it was as if it was a talisman. “Because I’m a wreck without you. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Heart pounding, hope expanding, she could barely stand to look at him, but looking away was an impossibility. Not now. Not ever. Will Holt was the man she loved, and he loved h
er.
“You are…” The words died on his lips as he looked at her with a kind of vulnerable hope that echoed what she felt. “You’re my everything. Please give me another chance. I love you. I know I can be the worst, but—”
Unable to stop herself, she cut him off there by closing the distance between them.
“Will Holt,” she said, lifting herself up on her tiptoes and bringing her mouth within millimeters of his. “You are the best man, the absolute best.”
“Only because of you. I love you, Hadley.”
“I love you, too.”
Dipping his head down and meeting her halfway, Will kissed Hadley. She put everything in it that she felt, promising the world and meaning every bit of it.
By the time they walked back out into the ballroom, her dress was a bit askew, his cowboy hat sat cockeyed on his head, and both of them had that half-dazed, kissed-out-of-my-mind look on their faces.
The Harbor City elite staring at them as they emerged from the coat closet were buzzing with gossipy glee as well. Not giving a shit and grinning like a man in love, which she now knew he was, Will picked Hadley up and carried her out of the ballroom, past the huge mural of a sunset that took up an entire wall, and into the rest of their lives together.
Epilogue
One Year Later…
Will was wearing his black cowboy hat again, and Hadley was so beyond the point of denying that seeing him in it and his worn-in Wranglers was hot as hell. And the fact that they were back on the ranch to celebrate Adalyn’s decision to move to Harbor City and become an equal partner in Hadley’s charitable consulting firm, of course, meant only one thing: family game night.
She and Will had barely survived the first round of charades after dinner, which was what must have him so nervous. The bench at the outdoor picnic table they were sharing was practically vibrating from the speed of his knee bouncing up and down, and he hadn’t stopped shoveling Puppy Chow into his mouth since her mom had put it down in front of him with a wink.
