The bride reached out and squeezed the woman in the wheelchair’s hand as she passed, then Riley found her standing right beside him, handing her bouquet to her bridesmaid.
“If everyone would please be seated,” the minister said. “Riley, will you do the honor of turning your bride’s veil?”
Riley gulped as he reached out shaky hands for the edge of the veil. After just a moment’s hesitation, he flipped it over. His jaw dropped in disbelief at the smiling face staring up at him.
“Hello, Riley.”
“Phoebe?”
She reached up and took his shaking hands in hers. “I heard you missed me. Is it true?”
He didn’t have words to tell her how much. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, his lips meeting hers with a fire that had been burning in him since the night she ran out of his apartment. She met his kiss with the same need, and they were lost, holding each other as tightly as they could, locked in an embrace that neither wanted to end.
Someone cleared his throat, and their kiss broke apart slowly.
The minister raised his brow. “I think we are a bit ahead of ourselves.”
Riley and Phoebe laughed with everyone else in the chapel. “Sorry,” they said together and turned, hands held tightly, to face the minister.
The older man cracked a crooked grin. “Now then, if we can begin…”
Riley and Phoebe’s eyes didn’t leave each other’s as the minister talked about love and their future life together. Neither one heard too much, already knowing what their lives were going to be like now that they’d found one another. Phoebe leaned against his shoulder, and Riley glanced up towards the heavens, feeling Meredith smiling down at them both. At the life he could now have. At a life they both deserved.
BONUS NOVEL INCLUDED!
BAD BOY MONEY
(A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance)
By
Bella Grant
SARA
The day I received the invitation to the Saunders Empire private ball started off as an ordinary day. I woke up as usual at six in the morning, made it to my job as a barista in a local coffee shop, ate my brown-bag lunch, made small talk with customers I couldn't really stand, returned to my tiny apartment to a sink filled with dirty plates, ordered my usual Chinese combination fried rice, and went through my mail.
As I sat eating my greasy dinner, I lazily glanced through the mail. Bills - people I owe and people who expect money from me, a couple of spam mails, and my Fashionette magazine, which came with a big pink sticker reminding me for the hundredth time that my subscription was ending and I could renew for a big discount. I tossed the magazine on a pile of magazines, and as I did, a golden envelope fell out from between the pages.
I cast a lazy glance at the envelope, trying to decide if I should get up from my cozy seat to pick it up or if I could do that the next day. Laziness got the better of me; if it was a bill, I couldn’t afford to pay it until I got my next pay check in two weeks, so what was the point of opening it?
I grabbed the remote control and flipped through several channels until I found some dumb horror movie - the one where a group of teenagers explore a haunted house and someone takes off to find out where a strange noise is coming from and inevitably gets killed. And of course, another teen followed to see if he's okay, and while the rest of them clamor together in one room, that teen is predictably killed. Slowly, they all disappeared until only one person escaped the house.
Around nine, I'd had enough of the crappy movie, so I decided to turn in for the night. I stepped over that golden envelope lying on the floor; my eyes darted to the return address. Saunders Empire. I picked up the envelope and opened it as I walked to my bedroom. The envelope and the paper it contained were certainly worth more than a day’s salary. It was rich and soft, and on the top was the monogram Saunders Empire. On the front was my name and address: Sara Nolles, 1245 North Main Street.
Saunders Empire caused a loud bell to ring in my head. I had interned for one of the branches as an undergrad, but only briefly. I had applied for a job right after graduation, but they had kindly replied, in an envelope not as fancy as this one, that I was underqualified for the positions available, and they would contact me when a position I was qualified for opened.
I flipped the envelope over; it was sealed with a gold embossed wax in the shape of the Saunders Empires logo. Fancy, I smirked as I carefully broke the seal, my heart beating wildly. I hoped they had changed their minds and were offering me a job. I would certainly swallow my pride, dust off my bruised ego, and accept the job without question. I pulled a card out of the envelope.