Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“You know I want to go,” she says. “I’m all dressed up and ready for my mac n cheese with my future husband.”
Future husband. God, I love how that sounds.
Her hands settle on my lapels. “And if, as a bonus, we help our cause, which is to get your father out of the picture, so be it.” She captures my hand. “Now feed me already.”
***
The press swarms us as we exit the building, and Walker is ready for us and them, sheltering us even as I fold Alana in close to me. “Well, that was fun now, wasn’t it?” Alana asks as we settle into the SUV across from Joey.
Her light mood so close to her kidnapping is surprising, but she’s proven time and time again in her life to be resilient.
“We’re just pigs in mud, it’s so fun,” Joey grumbles. “Fucking piranha reporters.”
Alana smiles at his grumpiness and kisses my cheek. How many times is this woman going to steal my heart all over again in one night?
After a few detours on the path made by smooth-operating Smith, the reporters are left in the dust, and arrival at the restaurant is free of hassle. Once we’re actually in an intimate private room, sitting at a cloth circular booth with a view of the city lights twinkling before us and wine in our glasses, for just a little while, we’re able to just be us. It’s something we haven’t really been able to do since finding each other again. We laugh and talk about the old days and all the trouble we got into with each other—or I got her into, she claims. And of course, there’s the mac n cheese, which lights up Alana’s face the minute she takes a bite.
By the time we reach dessert, a carrot cake, we’ve turned the topic to the Hamptons. Alana stabs a bite of the cake and pauses. “I can’t wait to see it. I wish it were tomorrow.”
“Me too, baby, but the wait will be worth it if we end up celebrating new beginnings.”
“We’re doing that anyway,” she declares. “No matter what, we’re doing this—the you and me thing.” She waggles her fork at me. “We decided that. In this together. And everything here is so freaking good, but it’s still too expensive.”
“I’m going to have to convince you to stop looking at prices.”
“Never going to happen, but back to your house in the Hamptons…”
“Our house in the Hamptons. And what about it?”
“I’m most curious about it because you saw it and had to have it.”
“Part of that was that my father hates the Hamptons. I knew I’d never run into him there, but I love the house, too.”
“I’d think he’d love all the money running around in the Hamptons,” she muses.
“He’s fucked enough of those people over to be hated.”
“But you’re not him.” It’s not a question.
“No, I’m not him, and aside from leaving you behind, the UK was a good move for me. I built relationships and revenue, not a list of enemies, and I plan to do the same in the US market. I sent Mary a text and told her I needed this week to work things out for her. Did you hear anything from the show after I left?”
“Not a peep, but when we’re all over the news tomorrow again, they’ll probably cook up some new ways to use us for advertisers and ratings.”
“You like doing the show though, right, baby?”
“I do. I love it.” She sets her fork down. “I just hate the uncertainty of every season. I think it plays on all the uncertainty I’ve felt in my life.”
Because everyone in her life has used her and left her.
And that includes me.
But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to spend a lifetime making it up to her. I’m going to make her a queen. I’m going to make sure she knows she’s loved.
***
The trip back home is uneventful, aside from a few reporters hovering about the door on our return.
We enter our apartment, our home, alone, no Walker on our heels, and I shut the door and lock it. Alana’s waiting on me as I turn, and I catch her perfect, perky backside under her dress and lift her. Her legs wrap my hips, and I carry her to our window, sit in one of our chairs, bringing her down on top of me with her thighs straddling my hips. It’s then, and only then, with her in a position of control and me submissive as fuck to anything she wants—I would give her anything—that I slide my hand under her hair, curving my palm to her neck, and drag her mouth to mine. “I’m never going to stop loving you. I’m never going to stop wanting you. And I’m never going to let you go.”