Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance 2(166)

He cupped her face, his hold firm so that she had no choice but to look up into his smoldering gaze. “And the things I said to Lena in that garden…the stuff you must have overhead…Cara, that was just big talk, don’t you see? My feelings for you were still too raw to confess to anyone, and certainly not to my stepmother. I didn’t want to risk her laughing in my face for being such a softie. But it was that stupid pride of mine that sent you away from me. When I said those things, I didn’t mean them and I certainly didn’t mean for you to hear me say them.”#p#分页标题#e#

He rubbed his thumbs against her cheeks, his eyes soft with a stirring plea. “You believe me, don’t you? Please tell me you believe me.”

Keyonna’s gaze fell. “I don’t know what to believe. It all sounded so real. I felt empty and used. I kept thinking how I never really felt good enough. That you picked me just because I was gullible and easily bent to your will. I just felt…I wanted to die. And when you kissed her.”

Nick let out a dismayed sound. “Keyonna, she kissed me. And short of throwing her off me, I tried to endure it. If you’d waited long enough, you’d have seen me wrench myself away from her. Afterwards she called the kiss a ‘congratulatory gesture’ now that my marriage had earned me my ‘fortune’. Little had I known she’d set up the whole display for your benefit. And when I got back to the reception and you were nowhere to be found, I almost went berserk. I couldn’t believe you could just get up and leave without a word.”

“It was childish of me, I know,” Keyonna breathed, her gaze sinking low. “I guess I’d always been an escapist; preferring to run and hide than stay and fight. But I wish I had stayed. I wish I’d given you the chance to explain. And now…”

“And now what?” he asked, and Keyonna could tell he was striving to keep the anxiety from his tone.

“And now I know you do love me,” Keyonna said at last, gazing up into his eyes at last. “Maybe not at first, but I guess you let yourself grow into the idea that maybe you do care for me after all.”

She smiled impishly, and Nick suddenly hugged her in relief, his grip so hard it made her squeal. “Care for you? You are la vita mia, Keyonna. My life. I knew the potential of what we could share. That’s why I made you think we needed to be married for a year, which wasn’t true. All I required was the marriage certificate to make it valid. But I needed an excuse to make sure you stayed as long as it took until we could discover how deep this could go between us. Now to keep you I’d give up everything, even the stupid billions that got us together.”

“I wouldn’t call the Vitale fortune ‘stupid billions’,” Keyonna murmured teasingly. “At least, it made you desperate enough to marry someone like me.”

Her eyes twinkled up at him, referring to that first night they’d clashed on the balcony and he’d told her exactly what he’d thought of any man falling for ‘someone like her’.

“It made me the luckiest guy alive,” Nick said soberly, and as he bent his head to slant his lips over hers in an open-mouthed kiss, words faded as he let his heart do the talking. “Never leave me again.”





Epilogue



Oh hell no.

Nick did not forget today was their wedding anniversary. Keyonna frowned as she checked the time while stirring furiously on the different pots on the stove.

She heaved a sigh, glad that the kids were with her best pal Natasha, who had one toddler of her own with her utterly adorable husband Hurley who also happened to be her publisher. Natasha had stopped working with the magazine, and had left celeb gossip to focus on her writing career. Now she wrote fictional novels about the rich and glamorous, and her books were selling out stores and making all the top ten lists. Keyonna was really happy for her.

Not that Keyonna was doing bad herself. Yes she had a billionaire husband but she was proud to have her own career. Thanks to her daring investment moves, in two years she was more or less raking in the millions and now she could pick the design jobs she wanted to do. These days many of her clients were A-list celebrities – and when she could spare a minute off taking care of her three and four year-old sons, she was either creating a home office for a talk show host, a guest bedroom for a supermodel or a nursery for a rock band bass guitarist.

So yeah, her life was pretty much perfect. She had a wonderful career, marvelous kids she adored and a husband she loved but would skin alive if he forgot to come home on time for their anniversary.

Keyonna resisted the urge to ring Nick’s cell, knowing he might probably be on his private plane getting back. She hoped. His business trip had taken longer than either of them had expected – almost two weeks. In the past week she’d restrained from mentioning anything about the anniversary. Part of her wanted to think he was deliberately keeping mum about it too, as a surprise – but another part of her was scared he’d completely forgot.