Page 68 of The Dancer and the Grumpy Billionaire

“I am so proud of you,” she says, wiping her hands on the dishtowel and then heading to the door to pull on her jacket and boots. “I’ll be back in to shower in, like, an hour. Is that good?”

I look up, nodding as she steps outside.

My cue to go shower myself, I send off a few emails and then head upstairs, showering and then dressing in a crisp, white shirt and dark jeans. Gigi comes in and strips out of her work clothes, letting me look at her for a moment while her shower heats up. I just had her this morning, and I am wildly ready for a second helping.

“Later,” she promises, stepping under the spray as my cock aches, ready to burst in confinement.

She is quick to get dressed, lovely in a white sundress and jean jacket. She wears her cowboy boots, her hair braided across one shoulder. Gone is the frail, waifish ballet dancer I first fell in love with. Now she is older, stronger, wiser in life. She is a hard worker, happy to spend all day with her animals, or all day in bed with me. She is free to make her own decisions.

And she chose me.

“You ready to do this?” I ask as she comes down the stairs to meet me in the kitchen.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “This is your last chance to bow out of becoming Mrs. Gigi Kyrylo.”

She grasps the front of my shirt. “You have cold feet?”

“No way,” I say, grabbing her hips and pulling her close.

“Good. Me neither.”

One quick kiss becomes another, and then another, and it is she who reluctantly pulls away. “We’ll have time for this after.”

“Okay fine,” I say. “Off to the justice of the peace, then.”

As we walk out to the truck, which she insists on driving, she asks, “Happily ever after, then?”

I lean in for a kiss. “Happily ever after,” I agree. “Except on days you’re mad at me for working too late.”

“I can’t fall asleep without you,” she pouts, putting the truck in gear and heading down the long driveway.

“Even when you come to bed smelling like a horse,” I grin.

“It’s hard work. Sometimes I am too tired to shower.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m just joking. You will put up with my working late and I will put up with your sometimes-horse smell. It will be good because these are things we are choosing for ourselves; things that make us both happy.”

She grins, but it fades quickly. “I hate all that we had to go through to get here. I hate that we still have to hide. I hate that even though I am Mrs. Gigi Kyrylo to you, I am still someone else to the world.”

“Well,” I say, “the world doesn’t need to know our business. We can still travel and have jobs and live like normal people, for the most part. And I do not care what people call me, as long as they call me your husband.”

She frees one hand from the wheel and I grasp it in the middle of the old truck’s bench seat.

“I chose you,” she says. “I will always choose you, Vasily Kyrylo.”

“And I chose you,” I answer. “I tried not to, but I was swept away, Gigi. On the stage, afterwards… You were so beautiful, but now I know how much more you are. You are brave. You are tenacious. You are mischievous. You are sexy. You are intelligent and talented.”

I look over at him and find him grinning.

“Stop looking at me like that or we will never make it to the courthouse,” she says.

“Plenty of time,” I say.

“Insatiable,” she says, shaking her head.

“I could call you the same,” I say with a snort.

“I plead the fifth.”

We pull up and park in front of the small, county courthouse. I have a ring box in my pocket, a ring I actually bought in St. Bart’s but never had the chance to give her. And, in fact, I never got to ask. Gigi asked me to marry her. I turned her down twicebefore, she argued. It was her idea to get married in the first place. She wanted to close the loop and ask one more time.

And I agreed because I will never, ever let her go again.

The End