Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68354 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I turn away from him. I can’t take this anymore.
It’s over. God, I have to get away from him because if he touches me…
When he reaches for my arm, I close my eyes.
“You can’t touch me,” I whisper. “I need to walk away and you’re making it impossible.”
“So that’s what it’s about,” he says, pulling me to him. The rain falls harder, blurring my vision, running down my face in rivulets with my tears. “You jumped to conclusions.”
I try to pull away from him. I can’t stand it one more minute.
“Cora, you listen to me,” he says, grabbing me about the shoulders and shaking me. “Listen. The contract is void because I broke it. Not you. Rule number six,” he says, dragging me to his chest, we’re both soaked through to the skin. A flash of lightning overhead lights up the sky and I see his eyes look down on me with a tenderness that gives me pause.
Wait. What?
“I love you,” he says through the rain, cupping my face in his palm and pulling me closer. “I love you. And I won’t let you get away from me. Not now. Not ever.”
Then his mouth is on mine as lightning splits the sky in two.
“Come home with me,” he says. “Get in the car and let’s go. Let’s drive away. We’ll buy a house in the country and take Ben and Bailey and leave this all behind. They can keep the Greenery and I can build somewhere else, because I don’t care. None of that matters. This is all that does.”
“We both broke rule number six,” I tell him. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I love you,” I tell him. “God, we’re a pair of saps declaring love amid the flowers in a damn rain storm.”
Chuckling, he pulls me to his sodden chest again. “Don’t you ever run from me again,” he warns.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, then give him a little fake pout. “I should maybe be… punished?”
His growl makes my body heat despite the freezing rain. “You sound a little too eager,” he says.
“No contract,” I muse. “Does that mean I have no rules? No consequences for disobedience?”
“Like hell,” he rasps out, pinching my ass.
And all is right with the world.
Epilogue
“I’ll miss the crowds,” Bailey says. We’re in the back of Liam’s car, and the four of us are moving the hell out of NYC. “And the stores.”
“I’ll miss the cheesecake,” Ben says with a wistful sigh. “And the pizza.”
“You guys, it’s not like we’re never coming back here,” I tell them. “Right, Liam?”
“Of course not,” he says, ruffling Ben’s hair and tugging a lock of Bailey’s. They both grin, and my heart melts a little. God, I love how he is with them. For the man who never wanted children or to be saddled with responsibilities, he’s taken to a ready-made-family as if it were meant to be.
And maybe it was.
“But I’ll tell ya, after you eat real pizza in Italy and real pastry in France, you may never want to come back to New York again.”
He’s bought a place an hour from the heart of the city, and he’s promised me we’ll return. After all, we have a private room at Verge, and I don’t want to miss my friends. I’m oh so happy to get out of the city, though.
“Oh my God, I want to go to Italy,” Bailey says. “And Paris!”
“Well, good,” I tell them. “Because someone’s splurged on a graduation present for me, and we all get to go.”
Ben’s eyes widen comically and Bailey squeals. “Oh my God, Liam, I love you! Well, you know, not the way she loves you,” she says, chattering on with the pink-cheeked blush that seems to run in the family. “I love you like a brother, and you know, that’s what you’ll be once you two… You know.”
He looks at me and I look at him, and I feel a lump rise in my throat. I do know.
“You two gettin’ hitched?” Ben asks curiously, his head tipped to the side.
“Ben!” Bailey says, smacking his arm.
“I dunno,” Liam says. “Depends on whether or not your sister will have me.” We cruise to a stop when we pull up outside of our new house.
I look from Liam to Ben to Bailey and all of a sudden they’re grinning, all of them, and Liam’s pulling a black velvet box out of his pocket.
“They were in on this, too,” he says. “I thought it would be all poetic justice if I proposed during the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new botanical garden, but you know…” His voice grows husky as he turns to me. “Get out of the damn car so I can get on one knee.”
“So romantic,” I tease, but I think I fly out of the car. He takes my hand and practically drags me out. The sun is shining and birds twitter in the air above us as if nature itself rejoices in this moment.