Tempted by the Billionaire(25)
Willow’s heart turned over in her chest. “You sure this isn’t just a clever way to get me to move to New York?”
“That’s the best bit. I don’t want you to move here anymore.”
“You don’t?” She squeaked, her eyes huge as they soaked in his face.
“Nah. I want our kids to grow up near the beach.”
“Kids?” She teased, but she relaxed, and snuggled in closer to his broad, muscular frame.
“Yeah.” He shrugged ruefully. “I want lots. Boys, girls, I don’t care.”
She smiled, and breathed in his scent gratefully. “Let’s just start with this one, okay?”
“Fine. As for my role as Chairperson of McCain Industries,” he went on, looping his fingers in her hair and knotting it around his hand. “I’ve been thinking about that. Leaving you felt so wrong, Willow. I knew I had to find a way to be near you. And I think I know how. I’ll set up a small office on the West coast, and commute here whenever I need to. I had already decided to do it before you got here tonight, but now, I’m sure it’s what needs to happen. Nothing means more to me than making a family with you, baby.”
Willow’s smile almost hurt, it was so broad. She put a hand on his heart, and felt it racing with the same frantic beat as her own. “I knew it would work out for us.”
“You did?” He asked teasingly.
“Yeah. It had to.”
He nodded. It made sense. They lay there, limbs entangled, touching everywhere and hanging on to each other because their love demanded it.
Eventually, Willow shifted a little, so that she could stare into his eyes. “I actually need your help with something.”
“Anything.”
“Ike and Anna,” she sighed heavily, her expression showing her distress.
He thought of the friends responsible for their happiness, and stroked her back. She almost purred against his chest. “What about them?”
“They don’t know about us. And Anna’s not even talking to me.” Her voice quivered as she recounted the afternoon she’d discovered her pregnancy.
“It’s got to be hard for her,” he said with a streak of sensitivity. “They’ve wanted a baby for a long time, and it’s refusing to happen. Whereas you and I basically just looked at each other and, wham.”
She arched a brow, and despite the seriousness of the situation, couldn’t help remarking, “I remember it being a lot better than a single look.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean.”
Willow sobered. “I know. It’s just… I don’t think I can cope if Anna cuts me out of her life.”
“She won’t!” He said fiercely. He’d make sure of it. “We’ll go and talk to them together.”
She nodded. His confidence was contagious.
Matt held her tight, and sometime later, when her rhythmic breathing communicated to him the fact that she’d drifted back into sleep, he uttered a silent prayer. He’d seen death and destruction; he’d been shot and he’d survived. And now he knew why.
Willow had been waiting for him. Willow, their baby, and a future as bright as the sun bouncing off the North Atlantic in Spring.
He kissed her head, and smiled.
Willow had been waiting for him.
EPILOGUE
Annabeth’s hair was longer now. It brushed her shoulders, in a sweet bell shape. Her mother, a woman strikingly similar to Annabeth in looks, sat in the front row, beside her husband. The lines of worry had been erased from their faces completely. Only the way Mrs Stott’s blue eyes constantly sought out her daughter communicated that there was still a lingering emotional scar.
For who could forget the disappearance of their child?
The not knowing. The worrying and wondering. The believing the worst.
Willow’s eyes drifted to the small, velvetine rabbit shape of her sleeping son. Hank McCain was cuddled against his father, his small back moving up and down as he slept peacefully in Matt’s broad arms.
And Willow smiled, as she always did, when she looked at her husband. Her eyes drifted past Matt, to Isaac. Despite the constant stream of sleepless nights, brought on by a colicky little girl, he’d never looked happier.
“Look at those two softies,” Anna surprised Willow, coming up beside her and putting an arm around her waist.
“I am,” Willow grinned.
Both men, hugging their children. Hank and Emily were separated by only a single month. How Anna and Willow had laughed with joy, when they’d discovered that Anna’s pregnancy was only slightly behind Willow’s.
“I can’t believe our little ones will get to grow up side by side,” Anna murmured, looking out at the packed auditorium but seeing only their families.
“It was fate,” Willow said with confidence. Why else had everything worked out for them? Surely there had been some kind of divine plan at work. For it was all so perfect now, it must have been a destiny written in the stars.
“I’m just glad you forgave me for being such a selfish cow.”
Willow shot her a look of surprise. “You? Selfish? Never.”
“I still cringe when I think of how I reacted that day.” She shook her head. “Some friend I was.”
“Anna, your reaction was completely understandable. I hated that I made you feel like that.”
“You did nothing to me. You fell pregnant. It was my own stupid hang ups that made me see it as a betrayal.” She shook her head. “You’re my best friend, and I yelled at you when you needed me most.”
Willow sighed softly. “You were upset. I understood. And you are my best friend. Which means you’re stuck with me forever.”
Anna’s smile was tinged with regret. “You ready to go?”
Willow nodded. “It’s a full house.”
“Lots of build up around this one.”
Willow nodded. “I’ll talk to you afterwards.”
Anna gave willow a reassuring kiss on the cheek and then disappeared back down the stairs. After a brief announcement from her publisher, Willow took to the stage. She stood confidently at the podium, and smiled at the crowd. But her eyes were drawn to the brave little five year old in the front row.
“A little over a year ago, I met a girl who would change me forever. A girl who is as brave as she is clever; as fearless as she is fabulous. I wrote this story for you, Annabeth Stott. I write books about adventure and mystery, but you are the bravest hero of all.”
As Willow began to read the first chapter of her latest novel, she felt a sense of such happiness sweep over her that she thought she might just combust. The crowd applauded uproariously when she finished the reading, but Willow was already floating on air.
She had her own happily ever after, and she was lucky enough to get to live it for the rest of her life.
THE END
A full list of Clare Connelly books is available on her Amazon author page.
TEMPTED BY THE BILLIONAIRE is the second title in Clare Connelly’s HOMETOWN HERO SERIES. An excerpt from the first novel of the series, A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE, follows.
A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE
Clare Connelly
All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names and are pure invention.
All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.
The illustration on the cover of this book features model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.
First published 2015
(c) Clare Connelly
Photo Credit: dollarphotoclub.com/CURAphotography and Les Cunliffe
Contact Clare:
http://www.clareconnelly.co.uk
Blog: http://clarewriteslove.wordpress.com/
Email: Clareconnelly@outlook.com
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CHAPTER ONE
A lone seagull flapped slowly along the shoreline, echoing Madeline May Howard’s own sense of complete and total oneness. A harsh wind tore off the Atlantic, threatening to pull loose some of her sophisticated blonde chignon.
It did not, though.
Madeline’s hair would never move without her express approval. She’d learned long ago that no good could come from obeying every whimsy and flippant fancy. And her hair, make up and clothing seemed to resonate with that same sense of obedience.
“You don’t want to get too close to the edge, ma’am.” A small voice was almost lost on the breeze, but Madeline caught the final word. It occurred to her that it was odd. For two reasons. Firstly, those common civilities she’d been raised with seemed to belong to a bygone era now. At only twenty eight, she often felt like a relic in the fast paced world in which anyone with a mobile phone could become a YouTube sensation. Six years in Ivy League colleges gaining an elite law degree, and her biggest professional successes came only when she sold a great sob story to the hungry followers of social networks. It was the place most people seemed to get their news, and now, her team went first to Facebook, twitter and YouTube, rather than CNN, if they wanted to get a case out to the world.
The other reason the polite term struck Madeline as odd was that it made her feel old. She looked wistfully at the churning waves, rendered lead-grey by the storm-plagued sky, and remembered the last time she’d been on this shoreline. Then, she’d run, as a free spirit. Barefoot, sand sticking to her exposed limbs, long hair flying disobediently and tangled in the breeze, a smile spreading from ear to ear on her fair face.