The photos from Fran’s wedding had finally started leaking into the public. I was pretty sure she was the one to thank for that. My business had been booming wildly since then.
“If you ever need help fitting your customers into their dresses, by the way,” Hawthorne said, “I might be able to swing some time.”
I pursed my lips. “You realize they’re engaged?”
Popping a cracker into his mouth, he shrugged. “Just helping them get into their dresses. You’re the one with the dirty mind.”
“Gawd, let me finish!” Fran snapped. Her scowl became a toothy smile fixed right on me. “So I’m saying, I figure red is a great color for a maid of honor dress. And I look fuckin’ great in red.”
“Fran,” Mama Badd scolded.
I looked less good in red, especially when it was my skin turning into the color. Shooting a glance at Kain beside me, I said, “Frannie, give me a break. You’re acting like I’m getting married or something.”
“Well, duh,” she scoffed.
Laughing nervously, I gave Kain a light shove. “Tell her she’s being crazy.”
Under the table, he grabbed my thigh. “You’re being crazy, Fran.” His words were rolling off of a smile, but something in his eyes made me knot up.
Our “little” table was set up on a high deck overlooking Martha’s Vineyard. It was a gorgeous area. Maverick had taken us all for a weekend trip—including my parents. I suspected it was his own disconnected way of apologizing for everything he’d put me through.
I hadn’t entirely forgiven him for the missteps, but I was working on it. I understood his heart was in the right place. He’d also been right—a fact that shamed me—about Brick tracking Kain to my mother’s place, using that route to catch him and me off guard.
It was a private relief that the huge man hadn’t driven that point home.
Now, he watched me from his chair, sipping idly at a mimosa. It should have made him cartoony and less scary.
It didn’t.
My mother was grinning at me, hell—everyone was. When Kain knelt at my side, I startled so much that I tipped my coffee over. No one paid any attention to it as it dribbled onto the patio.
“Kain,” I said through my teeth. My head swam with my old visions of the pretend fantasy wedding I’d had with him back when the possibility wasn’t . . . well, possible. Now that it was, the reality was smothering me.
His hand went into his pocket; Francesca started to squeal. Lula’s midnight eyes were shiny, was she about to cry? Wasn’t that my job? “Sammy,” he started.
My hand clamped over his mouth. “Don’t.”
Kain’s eyebrows knotted. “Ffwhy?” he muffled.
Parting my lips, I found . . . no answer. I had nothing inside of me but the ever-increasing speed of my own heart. Colors whirled through my brain, a poor excuse for words. I didn’t know why I was stopping him.
Deep down, when he pulled my hand away, I was grateful.
“Sammy.” The fierce glint in his stare said he wasn’t backing down. Why had I even tried? “I thought, at one point, that I’d never ask this of someone. And then I thought, even if I wanted to ask you, how could I? I love you, but you deserve to have the world looking on when I finally declare that I’ll protect you . . . adore you . . . obsess and love and every other damn thing humans can do for the rest of my too-short life.”
Shit, I was trembling. I mouthed his name; no sound came out.
He looked across the table at my parents, then at his own. “It’s not the whole world, but this is everyone we have sitting in front of us. There’ll never be a better time than now.” His fingers linked with mine, a gesture he’d made a number of times.
He’d held me like that when we’d first twirled in stunned attraction in his driveway.
He’d clutched me when I ran to him in terror as my home was broken into.
And he did it now as he slid a small ring onto my finger. The silver was twisted in a loop: two horses running together. It was topped by a diamond bigger than the marble-size caviar everyone had been eating moments ago.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“Sammy Sage,” he said, making me thrill with how his tongue rolled my full name. “Will you marry me?”
Francesca slammed her hands onto the table. “Yes! She says yes! Sammy, say yes!”
At some point I’d started smiling. It became a grin, touching my eyes and making my muscles ache as happy tears rolled free. “See this?” I asked him, flapping my fingers by my cheeks. “Ugly cry. This is an actual ugly cry and a yes, okay?”
Sweeping me into his arms, he kissed me in front of all of them. I think they were clapping, cheering, but my ears were ringing with the sweet insanity of a moment I’d dared to hope for and had actually been granted.
I made wedding dresses for a living. I talked to brides that were in love and many that were painfully not. I helped along the ones that had found their counterparts, and for the others, I struggled to bite my tongue to keep from talking sense into them. I wasn’t always successful.
I didn’t know why some people chose an ending that didn’t make them dizzy with joy.
But I did know this:
Everyone should get their happily ever after.
Just like me.
AN EXCERPT FROM ROYALLY RUINED
(BAD BOY ROYALS BOOK 2)
Editor’s Note: This is an early excerpt and may not reflect the finished book.
Once upon a time, I would have been a king.
Firstborn.
Royal blood.
A family full of money and power and everything you could possibly dream of. I would have ruled fairly, justly, taken care of my loved ones and done my best for my country. The key words in all of this are “would have.”
Modern-day princes like me? Guys with mafia roots that stay in control thanks to threats instead of our lineage? We’re often the bad guys.
I sure am.
It’s why I was checking my handgun under my coat—I didn’t need to look to know that it was loaded. And it’s why I was staring down the young woman who wanted nothing to do with me.
“Hold up,” she said, her voice tangling high in her throat, the sign of someone struggling to remain calm. “You don’t need to do this. Thorne knows me, ask him!”
Thorne was my brother. He’d made a point of stepping out of the dressing room when I’d demanded we check every girl here—dancer or otherwise—to make sure they weren’t wearing a wire. Weapons were a problem, too, sure. But for me . . . it was all about the cops.
I hated cops.
I’d already searched the five strippers on shift. It was this waitress’s poor luck that she was working tonight, too. No one had warned her why her boss had told her to go to the dressing room. She certainly hadn’t expected to see me down here.
When I said nothing else, the woman lifted her arms. Was she going to fight me or was she surrendering? Her tongue darted over her lower lip. “I work here, not for the damn cops! Seriously, ask Hawthorne, he knows me!”