Page 64 of The Bourbon Bride

“Your love, huh?”

“Of course you fixate on that.” I laugh and push my hand into his unyielding chest.

“Yeah, I do. You’re mine, you know.”

He grasps my hand and holds it against his body.

“Your what?”

“You know I’m desperately in love with you, right?”

“It’s like pizza,” I say, and he gives me a confused look. “You would have told me because I’m not a mind reader.”

His look of understanding precedes his noise of approval.

“Well, because neither of us is a mind reader, I want to make it known to you and this empty apartment that I am desperately in love with my wife and will kiss the ground she walks on from now until eternity because she is the very model of grace and perfection.”

I smile widely, but my hands are sweaty and there’s something so foreign about proclaiming this to one another for the very first time. I fall back on humor, like he has, to ease some of the nerves. “I guess you wiggled your way into my little old heart, too.”

I place my hand on his face and dip my head to rest against his as I find a way to strip myself even more bare than I’ve been with him before. It’a about time he knew exactly how I feel. We are married after all.

“I love you, Hayes, and I look forward to watching this fresh new love grow into a wrinkled, lived-in, and weathered love that is talked about for ages to come.”

The nerves that twist my stomach into knots from admitting my feelings are more excited to admit this than terrified of what it means.Mostly.

He rolls on top of me and kisses me far gentler than I expect, lazily exploring my mouth and trailing sweet kisses down my neck until I’m moaning. I’m rethinking my no sex because I’m sore stance when his phone rings and disrupts the moment.

“Fuck,” he grunts, rolling to his side and pulling out his phone. “It’s work. I’m so sorry, angel. I have to take this.”

“Don’t apologize. It is Monday and a workday, after all. Go get your work done.”

“How are you so understanding?” He kisses me again and leaves the apartment for his office next door as he answers the call.

This is exactly what I expected life to be like with Hayes. He is a consummate workaholic, and I watched Daddy leave family dinners and downtime for work emergencies far too many times while growing up to not be understanding of my own husband doing it now.

“So this is the life of a billionaire businessman’s wife,” I say to the empty room.

I miss Cerberus, my demon spawn shadow who would have listened to me bemoan my new reality of Hayes being dedicated to his work first and foremost and me having nothing to do. The big dog stays in Atlanta with a trainer when Hayes goes out of town and can’t take him. The rooftop flatisa bit small for a one-hundred-pound canine, so I can understand Hayes’s reticence to bring him with us, but it doesn’t stop me from missing the dog anyway. My thoughts drift to a solution to this problem, and I start daydreaming about finding a home here in town with a nice big backyard for him to enjoy so he can come with us. That would be so wonderful and would give me a permanent place in my hometown to enjoy.

So what will I do with myself now, and how will I manage The Mansion when it looks like we may be spending a significant portion of our time in Atlanta? The general manager of a hotel is not exactly a position that lends itself to a remote work environment. I’ll have to figure that out before the new year when I’m set to take on my new position. That is, if my parents don’t completely revoke my trust, disinherit me, and pretend I don’t exist when they find out what I’ve done. That would solve the problem of splitting my time in two cities, not that I like the prospect one bit.

But…I would still have the work with Underworld Spirits that Hayes has promised me to look forward to. It’s a good backup plan for me should the worst-case scenario play out. The feeling of floating on clouds with Hayes deflates as I think of my parents and their inevitable response to my hasty marriage and my end to their plans. They won’t be happy, especially Mama. I’ve made a habit of making her incredibly displeased recently, which is a first. I guess it took her crossing that final line to set me on a new path that deviated from the good, obedient daughter role I had played for so long. Will I be able to keep this up once faced with her wrath? I sure hope so, or I’ll be in for a world of hurt and disappointment.

twenty-five

Hayes

“Theirimmediateresponsewasa fat hell no. Even though we’ve been working through all of our bargaining chips, they’re not even interested in entertaining the offer. We went in above market value and it would be more than generous, but they don’t care.” Diego Vallarta, the senior vice president of finance at Olympus, sounds perplexed as he updates me on the Xenios takeover and it’s not what I want to hear.

“Could be a tactic to get us to raise our offer.”

These multimillion-dollar acquisitions can sometimes take months to hammer out details and get each side what they want. There are concessions each side has to make and even more that are demanded before you can find a place to settle in the negotiations. We don’t have months.

“What are they holding out for?”

“Everything, as far as what they’re actually saying.” I hear him sigh impatiently over the line. “We expected this, Hayes.”

“What can we concede that isn’t going to fuck the whole thing up?” I reply, just as irritated.

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