Come home, Kenji had said.
Not to Hawling House. Not to the city.
But to the place I knew had stolen his heart from the moment I first saw the painting of the Three Daughters on his apartment wall.
I blew out a breath. I trusted Kenji more than I’d ever trusted another living soul.
If he said he’d fix it, then he would.
And if my husband wanted me home… that’s where I’d go.
“Was it all a hoax, or are the two of you truly together?” another reporter shouted.
I took a deep breath, the cool winter air energizing me from within.
If I knew Kenji—and I fucking did—he’d want me to be charming and noncommittal.
Unfortunately for him, I had no intention of avoiding commitment.
I grinned at the reporter. “You want the truth? Here it is: Kenji Toma is the love of my life. He will own my heart until the day the Earth stops rotating and our remains crumble into cosmic dust. And because he is the kindest, most generous, and most forgiving human on the planet, he loves me just as much. That’s not a hoax. It’s the most real and constant thing in the universe.”
I graced them with the most lordly eyebrow raise I’d ever conjured. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go join my husband. Our niece just had her second birthday, and she received ashockinglack of noisy toys to properly celebrate it. Kenji and I intend to rectify that.”
The press erupted, firing off more questions, but for the first time since stepping out publicly as Everett Davencourt, I actually enjoyed the chaos.
No false identity to accidentally reveal. No modeling career to derail.
And, as of thirty minutes ago, no political campaign to fuck up.
There was just me, telling the world that Kenji was mine no matter what the paperwork said…
Before finding him and strangling him—lovingly, of course—for flying off half-cocked instead of waiting for me.
Simon pulled up, and I managed to make a smooth exit from the fray. “To Hawling House and then the airport,” I said as he pulled away from the curb. “I need to be in the air as soon as possible.”
As soon as possible turned out to be several hours, but only because the only commercial airline that still had a flight out today was the one I was contractually obligated to avoid.
Thankfully, Jamie Winthrop came through for me with his family’s plane.
“It’s not as nice as yours,” he’d teased, “but it’ll get you there by dinnertime.”
As soon as the plane took off and the white noise of the engine was a steady thrum in my ears, exhaustion caught up with me. I slept for most of the ten-hour flight.
When I landed at the small Majestic airstrip, snow covered the ground, but the sky was dark and clear, with bright white pinpricks scattered from one horizon to the other.
I thanked the flight crew profusely, shouldered my backpack, and grabbed the handle of my large rolling suitcase to carry it down the stairs.
Unfortunately, the Winthrop plane hadn’t had working Wi-Fi, but it had been a blessing in disguise. My shoulders had dropped once I was out of easy reach of the paparazzi and their endless bullshit headlines.
By the time I spotted Foster Blake’s sheriff’s SUV waiting by the tarmac, the urge to strangle my beloved had settled from a raging flame to a warm flicker.
“Let’s go,” Foster grumbled, reaching for my suitcase. “Everyone’s waiting.”
“Waiting? Who’s everyone? How’d you know to pick me up?”
He snorted. “How do you think, Landry?” He tossed my suitcase in the back of the SUV and slammed the hatch. “Get in.”
Once we were inside the still-warm vehicle, I shuddered in relief. There was London winter cold, and then there was Wyoming winter cold, and they weren’t even in the same segment of the thermometer.