Page 37 of The American

She had to run to keep up, laughing. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They ran past beautiful rooms. She had never seen any place so well appointed and comfortable and elegant all at once. At the end of one hall, the tile turned to carpet, thick, then they stepped to a pair of double doors. Thad pushed a button, and the doors opened, revealing an observatory. An elevated chair rested just below the lens of an enormous telescope. “Whoa.” Sage had never seen one before. “This is incredible.”

“The sky is almost dark enough. The view is exceptional tonight.”

Staff entered with a table. They set up candles and drinks and desserts and left with hardly a sound.

Music played softly in the background. “I want to share everything with you. This was one of my favorite rooms as a child.”

Sage was enchanted and couldn’t wait to sit in that chair and see out into the universe. They joked and talked for twenty more minutes and then Thad led her up the ladder to sit in the chair.

“Let’s look at the Milky Way tonight.”

Sage was surprised. Of all the things to see, that seemed the most unremarkable, but she was happy to view anything.

When he set it all up, and she took a look inside, she waited several minutes to understand what she was seeing. “It’s like a sparkling path of stars. For the first time I understand what if feels like to be a part of the Milky Way. For years it was always a band of cloudy white in the sky. And now I can almost feel us moving around on this side of our galaxy.”He smiled and ran his palms down her arms. “That’s what I felt like the first time. Like I was a part of something, special.”

She turned to him, his eyes sincere, twinkling with light.

Thad whispered, “Keep looking.”

Sage drank it in. Then the image changed. A fiery, bright, galaxy came into view, made of a circular path of the stars following each other around the center.

“When they work together, it’s more than special. It’s spectacular.” He moved closer, his whisper tickling her neck. “I think this is what we have. You and I.”

She swallowed. “You do?”

“I do.”

When she turned again to face him, his lips captured her own and she was lost. The magic of the galaxies, the intensity of Thad’s kisses, the thrill of being in love.Love.He was quickly becoming her everything. She vowed to spend as much time as she could getting to know him better.

Chapter 19

Their time in Torren was more enjoyable than any he’d had with a woman. Seeing her with his family, laughing with the brothers, even taking an afternoon to work together, solidified in his mind that she was everything he had ever wanted. They were so perfectly matched. And she seemed to love Torren. Perhaps they could make it work, perhaps she would come to stay there with him.

They were to spend the morning helping with a press release and ribbon cutting for a new sky-rise, and then the jet would take them back to New York. Once the press saw a few pictures of them in Torren, they had left their apartments alone. And Lucan took the opportunity to set up extra security measures. They would both have security detail and they had helpers to keep the press at bay. Thad had convinced her to stay in her own room at his apartment, with bodyguards in tow.

After the ribbon cutting, Thad stalled until almost everyone had left. “Sage. I want to show you something.”

Her eyes filled with a hint of excitement. “Okay.” Her grin made him smile in return.

They went to the elevators, and he used his key.

At last, they stopped and the door opened up out on the roof.

“This is incredible! Thad I think every time I am with you something remarkable happens.”

He took her hand, pleased, and suddenly anxious to prove to her that he wanted life to be the same, full of remarkable moments. “Sage. I want to see where this goes. I’m yours now, after this visit especially, you fit in so well, I don’t want anyone else in my life.”

She swallowed, her eyes shining. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. Thad, I thought I was going crazy, after such a short amount of time. I’d marry you tomorrow.”

She stopped and her face went white. “I mean, you know.” She laughed nervously.

His heart pounded, but he knew what he wanted to say. “Did you mean it?”

“What? That I’d marry you?”

---