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“They’ll disown you,” Malcolm said. “You will become an embarrassment. They will have no choice but to sever ties, and that means your trust fund. You’ll be left with nothing.”
“No, she won’t,” George said.
Brother and sister turned toward him.
“First of all, Anna-Beth doesn’t even need to use her trust fund,” George said. “If you had actually paid attention to your sister, you’d have seen she has an astute perception for marketing and start-up,” George said.
Malcolm burst out laughing.
George held his fingers up, and began to reel off the companies he knew she’d started. At least three of them had become pains in Malcolm’s side, as they wouldn’t sell to the Knight family. He had come to realize it was, because in a way, they already had a Knight, the best freaking one.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Malcolm asked.
“Anna-Beth helped to start them up. She is the silent partner, and not only that.” George turned toward her. “I want to offer you that job. I want you to be the head of my division of small companies. No one will interfere with how you run things. You’ll choose the staff you need and control everything.”
“You’re being serious?” Anna-Beth asked.
“Yes. I was going to ask you soon. I’ve seen what you’re capable of in the last two weeks, and I know that is what I want for my company.”
“Wait, what the fuck?” Malcolm asked.
Anna-Beth smiled at him, and it was like a kick to the gut for George.
“I want you,” George said.
Her mouth opened and closed.
George took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. “I know we’ve only been together for a short time, but, Anna-Beth, I love you.”
“You love me?” she asked.
“Yes, and I promise I won’t lock you up and force you to live a life you don’t want. What I can promise is that you’ll be happy, happier than you’ve been the past couple of months. I’ll even hire a new housekeeper, but you’re pretty good at that, so maybe I should let you?”
“Am I dreaming?” Anna-Beth asked.
George cupped her face, pushing some of her hair out of the way. “You tell me.” Then he slammed his lips down on hers and kissed her hard.
He heard Malcolm making some weird sound not too far away, but he didn’t care. There was no way he was going to allow Anna-Beth to go. He’d known Malcolm was an asshole. He’d seen their parents in action, and knew them to be cruel.
When he first met Anna-Beth, he’d done his best to avoid her because he’d figured she would be exactly like her family. She wasn’t.
She loved stretching out on his lawn doing yoga poses, while listening to heavy metal music. She loved dancing to pop music, and looking like a crazy person as she did. She couldn’t sing, but he loved to hear the random lines of multiple songs just spurt out of her mouth. He loved that she constantly brought him food to eat, but when he was working, she didn’t linger. Also, how she hated dirty dishes. He’d noticed, even with takeout food, she had to clean something.
Slowly, he had fallen in love with her. Her laughter lit up his whole world. Her beautiful blue eyes sung to his soul. George hadn’t even begun to realize what the past few months had meant to him, but he knew he didn’t want to give her up, not even for his friendship with Malcolm. Right now, he didn’t like the guy.
Pulling away, he stared into her eyes.
“I love you,” he said, and as he did so, he knew it felt so good, so right. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to grow old with you.”
And then, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Sinking to his knee, he stared into Anna-Beth’s eyes.
“Anna-Beth Knight, I love you, I know this is way too soon, and I completely understand if you want to say no, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
****
Three Months Later
