Page 54 of The Devious Husband

He pulls back to look at me, his expression a little uncertain, and I nod. “Let’s go,” I tell him, oddly nervous. He’s asking me out on a date, isn’t he? We’ve been spending so much time together in the last couple of months, but we haven’t gone out on dates, and I’m oddly excited about it.

Xavier grabs my hand and entwines our fingers as he leads me through my office building, toward his car, and I grin to myself as I squeeze his hand. I hear the whispers around us, but I couldn’t care less.

“Wow,” I whisper to myself when we walk onto the rooftop of The Siren. Everywhere I look, there are planters with Juliet rose bushes and countless candles. There is only one table, and Xavier grins at me as he leads me to it. He pulls out my chair for me, and I sit down hesitantly. “What is all this?”

He reaches for my hand over the table. “There’s something that I wanted to talk to you about.”

His words instantly make me nervous, and I panic inwardly when he pulls out a set of documents. “You know how I’m not great at expressing myself?”

Is he trying to tell me that he took offense to the way I publicly kissed him last night? Is he going to sue me for it? He can’t, can he? He’s the one who said that keeping our marriage a secret wasn’t part of our NDA.

“You look like there’s something crazy going on in your mind,” he says, chuckling lightly as he slides to documents toward me, and I frown when I realize they’re property deeds. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you since the day we got married, but I couldn’t really find the right words, and I was worried that you’d take it the wrong way.”

“What is this?” I ask, my cheeks rosy.

How could he possibly have known I was thinking something crazy? It’s becoming more and more common for him to know what I’m thinking without me even saying anything at all, and each time he seems to read my mind, I just fall deeper in love with him.

“I’ve thought long and hard about how to say this, and which words I’d choose, but now that I’m sitting here with you, I can’t remember a single one of them,” he says, his voice trembling just a touch. Xavier is always confident, and I’m not quite sure what to make of him tonight.

I reach for the documents hesitantly, my heart racing. “You’re giving me every single major acquisition we’ve fought about over the years?” I ask, looking the documents over. “All six of them?” I frown as I read through the documents carefully. Indus, The Renegade, Artemis, Renaissance, Everest and even The Siren. He’s giving me every project that I thought I’d won, only for him to swoop in and steal it away. Each of these I’d designed right down to the last detail, and he copied every single thing I’d wanted.

Xavier nods, his expression unreadable. “You know how I once told you I never stole any projects from you, and you were so mad you bit my arm?”I laugh, unable to help it. He smiles back at me, his gaze filled with adoration. “What I didn’t tell you then is that they were always meant for you. It was never the properties I was after.”

“Then what were you after?”

His gaze roams over my face. “You.”

I bite back a smile as my heart thunders in my chest. “You want me?” I repeat. “What will you give me in return?” I ask nervously, in an attempt to play off his words in case I’m misunderstanding what he’s saying.

He looks into my eyes, nothing but sincerity in them. “Everything.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice breaking as insecurity shines through. “What if my demands are too high?”

“There’s nothing you could ask for that I won’t give you.”

“What if I want your heart?”

I thought my words would surprise him, but he merely smiles, his eyes overflowing with affection. “It’s already yours. My heart has always has been yours, Sierra. I am madly in love with you, and I have been for far longer than you could possibly imagine.” Xavier reaches for my hand and squeezes gently.

“Always?” I repeat, my heart filled with hope.

He glances at the property deeds and smiles. “In order of acquisition, what do these six projects spell?”

I frown as I think back to the last eight years or so, when these properties were acquired. In order of when he stole each of these, it’d be…

The Siren

Indus

Everest

The Renegade

Renaissance

Artemis

“SIERRA,” I whisper in disbelief when I recognize the pattern the first letters form.

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