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“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.”
“I know,” she says, cupping my face. “I know.”
Considering all that I’ve done to her, even with good intentions, those two words are everything to me, and fill me up in a way I would never have imagined possible even a year ago.
She presses her mouth to mine, and I kiss the sweetness of her in, slowly and luxuriously, savoring, tasting. We undress each other, taking our time, exploring each other. Eventually, we end up on the floor in front of the chairs, with her curled on her side and pressed against me. I wrap myself around her and hold onto her, not wanting to let go. In the distance, beyond the glass of the window, lighting streaks a yellowish-white path across the sky.
A storm is coming, I think once again, but I welcome it. Because that storm will be the end.
I will make sure of it.
Chapter Forty-Two
Damion
Surely someone has warned my father that his absence at the office creates the impression of being both guilty and foolish, but he still doesn’t show up to work. No doubt, he’s decided a “killer” headline would hurt him more with the board than invisibility. And no doubt he has a plan to attack me and push me out. My father will never surrender.
Mid-morning, I’m forced to face the potential wrath of reporters when an investor, who hates my father, refuses to meet at my office but chooses a coffee shop next to my office. Walker sneaks me out a side door, and I manage to avoid attention. The meeting goes exceptionally well, and the potential for earning for us meets and exceeds expectations. The investor has left when I’m taken off guard as Caleb sits down in front of me.
“I think today is going to be a good day for both of us,” he says, reaching for my untouched coffee and drinking, which is weird but no doubt some sort of power play. Though I’m not sure how drinking from another man’s cup wins.
