He raked his fingers through his hair. Why the hell did it feel like he’d never breathe again if she walked out the door? There were beautiful women everywhere he turned, but he couldn’t keep his mind off one.
Why?
Looking around the party, seeing the beautiful and empty faces, he instantly knew. Better to have a challenge with Avery than a ready smile with any of them.
Avery was different.
And so was he. He needed to talk to her, find out where they stood. He’d claimed her once, and he wanted more. He would search everywhere until he found her.
Searching the sea of faces at his party gave him nothing.
Ryker burst into the kitchen. “Have you seen her?”
“Not for a while. She asked about you, though. You checked her room?”
Ryker shook his head, muttered a few terse words in his native tongue.
“She’s here somewhere,” Kyle offered with a small gesture.
“But where?” Ryker asked, a hint of exasperation in his dark tone.
Kyle thought about it for a minute. “You check the lighthouse?”
“No...” Ryker rocked his head and swiftly moved out of the kitchen. He’d find her if it was the last thing he did.
He quickened his stride and ignored the lump rising in his throat at the thought she might somehow be gone already. He needed to talk to her.
Now
. Ryker Li always got what he wanted. Didn’t he? He nearly laughed out loud. Not when it came to Avery Chase he didn’t. She was stubborn and infuriating. She could be sullen and difficult. She did nothing he asked and pretty much took the opposite route, issuing him a challenge at every turn of the road.
She made him want to share all his secrets and know all of hers as well. She kept him guessing.
Ryker was certain of about one thing. He couldn’t allow her to walk out of his life.
He stopped dead in his tracks at the lighthouse.
There she stood. Alone. Quiet.
He walked up from behind, stopping so close her hair brushed against his chest when the wind blew. “We need to talk.”
She pushed off him, her face scarlet in the moonlight.
Silence sat between them thickly.
“I’m packed. I’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning.” Her hands were balled into fists, and her eyes were so angry he could see she held back threatening tears.
“Come back to London with me instead. Or we could stay here a few more days.”
Avery glared at him with lashes spiked with tears. Tears that trembled in her eyes, threatening to tumble down. “We both know that’s not a good idea.”
“I don’t.”
“Really? Why is that a good idea for either one of us?”
Her anger, her distress radiated from her. Ryker frowned. “I want you to stay.”
“For how long? Until you don’t want me anymore? You’ll get sick of me. Like all the women in your life.”
“I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
“I think we both know I was a...a...fun distraction.”
He quirked a smile. “You are not fun.”
“Great. Now I’m not even a good time.” She paused. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You are so much more to me.”
Her slender shoulders stiffened. “Are you serious?” Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she breathed. Her gaze flew to him, accusingly, bright with pain. “You don’t mean it.”
“I’m not trying to upset you. You’re so much more to me than entertainment,” he clarified.
“But you’ll find someone else. You always do.” Her gaze, ripe with accusation, bored holes into him.
“What if I told you that I only want
you
?”
“For now. But you’ll move on. Like you have from every woman in your life. I’m no different or—” She broke off, her body quaking.
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Avery. You are nothing like the other women I’ve dated.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? I don’t have your experience with the opposite sex. I’m not sure how these arrangements are supposed to work.”
“You’re making this complicated. Let me make it simple for you. We spend more time together.”
“Give you more time to do what? Use me and throw me away? Then what?”
“Why don’t you just say it?”
“What?”
“You think I’m a calloused bastard.”
She glared at him. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
He scoffed. “According to you?”
“Ask any woman out there.” Her finger pointed toward the party. “Come with me. Pick just one. I’m sure you’ve dated more than a few.”
“I won’t lie. I have. What of it? Why would those women make you feel threatened? Not one of them compares to you.”
“But for how long?” Her voice rose and trembled thickly by the end.
“I see what’s happening here. I’m not the ruthless billionaire you make me out to be.”
“When did that change?”
“Why do I have the feeling my morals are not in question? No, you’re too good for me, aren’t you? To feel anything for a rich bad boy like me. You’re above the need for that, aren’t you?” He watched her, realizing he’d scored a direct hit.
“What are you accusing me of, exactly? Having feelings for you?” she asked through a strained voice.
****
“You do have feelings for me. More than you care to admit.” His lips parted in that trademark smile, melting her heart a little.
Avery forced her gaze away from those lips as her tongue darted across her own.
“Not sure what to say next?” he said, pinning her with his words.
She took a step back as her hand came up to the base of her throat. “No. I don’t have your skill in dealing with ex-lovers.”
“Is that what I am to you?” He took in her face in a long slow moment.
Avery could scarcely look straight at him. She couldn’t imagine a worse feeling than this. She wanted to believe his words. To know she was special to him. But didn’t every woman believe they had Ryker when his attention was on them?
He took a step toward her, his gaze fixed on the base of her throat, on her pulse. “Don’t you see? You aren’t like any of those other women. What do I have to do to prove that to you?”
Her body released a shiver, but no words came out. He’d been loving and kind in the time they’d been together. He’d made her feel nothing but beautiful. Her distrust of rich men had less to do with him and more to do with her scarred upbringing. And that wasn’t exactly being fair to him, was it?
He grazed his thumb across her collarbone and bent down to kiss the spot. “What is it going to take?”
“To what?” Her question came out hushed.
“Convince you.”
When his lips found their way to hers, he kissed her. The kiss smoldered with sensuality and promise, and something Avery couldn’t quite put her finger on.
Suddenly, he stopped. Taking her hand, he pulled her back toward the party.
Surprised, she cleared her throat. “Good. I have work to do, I should get back.”
“Trust me.”
Ryker led Avery to his mother. She sat at the bar, stiff, upright, and dignified. Her eyes grew wide with surprise as though shocked her son brought a woman to meet her.
“This is Avery,” he said, his tone deadpan. “The one I told you about.”
“How very nice. That you seem to remember this one’s name.”
Chilly woman.
Ryker’s gaze hardened and became narrow. “I thought you should meet first. She should have all the information at hand before making an informed decision.”
What does he mean by that?
Ryker’s mother held out a perfectly manicured hand to Avery, even as her expression looked as though she’d just been asked to walk a plank in the open sea. “It’s a pleasure. I’m sure I have no idea what my son is up to.”
“Let’s not begin caring now, Mother,” was all Ryker said.
Avery took the hand being offered. The skin might have been soft, but the fingers were cold as ice. “It’s a pleasure.”
Taking back Avery’s hand, Ryker walked her out onto the beach and far enough to be completely alone. When everything was quiet save for the rhythmic waves next to them, he looked straight into her eyes and bent down on one knee.
She gasped, and the noise echoed out to sea.
“You are nothing like any woman I’ve ever met.”
Chills ran up Avery’s arms. The world shrank. Nothing mattered but the two of them. There. Together in the place she loved, with the roiling waves as their music.
“I want to spend our lives figuring out exactly what that means. You are the only woman for me, the only woman I want to share my secrets with...the only woman I promise to be faithful to...” He looked at her hand. “The only one capable of wrapping me around her finger...
“Avery Chase, will you do me the considerable honor of being my wife?”
Barely a beat later, Avery nodded. For a woman who didn’t believe in fairy tales, she sure felt like a princess. Here she was in a magic land, complete with a loving and kind man.
“Yes. I will marry you.”
Ryker swept her off her feet, picking her up in one fluid movement. He mumbled a good night to the few couples they passed along the beach and carried her straight to his bedroom, where he locked the door behind them. “This time, when we make love, I don’t want to use protection.”
“You don’t?”
“I want children. That is—”
She blinked, waiting for the caveat.
“If
you’re
ready.” He breathed into her neck, groaned when he pulled off her dress. “I want a child and so much more from you.”
“There’s more?”
It didn’t take two seconds for him to be completely naked. “All of our lives spent together, and many, many children,” he said as he buried his kisses in her hair, up and down her neck, and then buried himself between her parted thighs.
She was ready for him, allowing the three little words he said over and over again to overtake every other thought.
I love you.
They climaxed perfectly in sync with each other, each movement of release a perfect symphony of electricity until every last ounce of pleasure had been drained.
Ryker didn’t pull out right away. “I want to stay right here forever. In you. With you.”
Avery’s breathing slowed as her lips quirked a smile. “As much as I love that idea, and believe me, I do, we have to venture out to eat sometime.”
He ran his finger ever so slowly, tantalizingly, from her belly button up, between the rise of her ribcage, in between her soft breasts to the base of her neck. His lips crushed down on hers, and she moved her lips with his.
As his finger moved in sensual strokes up her neckline, he opened his eyes and held her gaze.
Perfect tiny droplets of pure joy spilled from Avery’s eyes.
“I can’t think of a better way to spend the next eighty or so years, than to be right here with the woman I love.”
“You make me feel beautiful.”
“With everything I am capable of being, I love you. Only you. It was only ever you. My perfect Avery. I can’t imagine a life without you or a world without you in it. I want to be with you...forever.”
Epilogue
The news of the wedding spread faster than Alexandria could move her fingers on the keypad of her Blackberry.
Avery had phoned her mother out of courtesy, not invitation. She was sure her mother would be crafty enough to explain her way out of the humiliation to all her society friends for not actually being at her daughter’s wedding.
Kyle had agreed to get certified on the Internet to perform the ceremony. A man of the cloth, he’d joked, was something he’d never been asked to be before. Fashion designers quietly clamored for the privilege of designing Avery’s dress, more so than usual because her capricious style gave them the rare chance to play around with the traditional white dress.
She gave the honor to the one who understood her style and had discovered her first. It came as no surprise she ended up choosing his first design.
The dress was funky, fashionable, and more importantly, totally her.
There were no guests at the lighthouse ceremony where two people stood on the edge of the world and vowed to love each other for the rest of eternity.
Ryker quietly promised to cherish Avery forever. The look in his eyes when he said it more than sealed the deal.
Avery made a similar promise.
Then she said, “I do,” while wrapped in the arms of the one man who made her feel—truly—completely—beautiful, and absolutely loved.
A word about the author...
Barb Han lives in North Texas with her husband, has three beautiful children, a spunky Golden Retriever/Standard Poodle mix, and too many books to count.
When she’s not writing, researching, or otherwise getting lost in a story, she volunteers at her children’s school, is in the kitchen “creating” dinner, or can be found on or around a basketball court.
Writing contemporary romance and romantic suspense has been a dream come true for Barb—something she’s wanted to do for as long as she can remember. She left her corporate job, at her husband’s urging, and has been happily playing with imaginary friends ever since.
Learn more about her latest releases at www.barbhan.com and don’t forget to say hi. She loves hearing from readers.
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