B00Z637D2Y (R) (25 page)

The crowd parted and they walked down the familiar hallway of Heart’s Home to the stoop outside and he came to a halt at the top of the stairs. Mia gasped. Standing in the street near the carriage were several photographers. One of them, a man with a huge lens on his camera, she recognized from the wedding. Mia sucked in a startled breath.

When she glanced up at Michael, he winked and she exhaled in a sigh. He wasn’t surprised by this. He wanted to be seen with her—had obviously planned it. The control freak. The beautiful, amazing, surprising control freak. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and she squeezed his fingers back, knowing full well this had to be hard for him. Ridiculously difficult after working on his refined public image, to be seen in that…ghastly—yes, the word totally fit—sweater in public.

“Thank you all for coming today,” he said to the photographers. “I’d like to introduce you to someone, but first, I need to ask her a very important question.”

No. No, surely not. A million possibilities flooded Mia’s mind, but one impossible scenario he might have planned kept popping to the forefront. She shook her head to clear it and stared at his beautiful face. Only then did she notice the dark circles under his eyes. Like her, he’d suffered, and she wanted nothing more than to kiss those circles away.

When he dropped to one knee on the stoop of Heart’s Home, Mia was certain she’d fall to her knees herself. Instead, as the cameras clicked, she supported herself on the railing.

“Hang in here with me for a moment longer,” he whispered as he pulled a small box out of his pocket. He opened it and she covered her mouth with her hand, grateful for the support of the railing. It was the ring she had described at the restaurant. A huge blue stone the color of his eyes was surrounded by gold ones that were almost the shade of the flecks in his irises.

“Michael,” she said, barely above a whisper.

Still kneeling and holding the small, velvet box he whispered only loud enough for her to hear, “You asked me in the park if my public image is who I really am…” His eyes sparkled like the stones in the ring. “It’s about to be.”

He inhaled deeply and cleared his throat. “Hermia Lysander Argarapolis,” he said in a loud voice. “I’m a controlling, demanding jackass, and I don’t deserve you, but if you’d do me the honor of marrying me, I swear I’ll do my best to fill the rest of your days with joy and love.” More camera flashes and clicks.

“What about the nights?” Gladys shouted from where she and the Queen B’s were watching through an open window, and everyone, including Mia and Michael, laughed.

“Those especially.” He squeezed her hand. “You asked me what I really wanted and I didn’t answer you. Well, I’m answering now. I want
you
.”

He removed the ring and handed the box to a nurse standing nearby, then took Mia’s trembling hand in his and slipped the ring on her finger. She closed her eyes briefly, and then met his gaze again.

“Marry me, Mia. Please.”

For a moment, it was as if the entire city had stopped to listen for her answer. There was nothing but she and Michael, and the hammering of her heart, and the heat of his hands on hers. She was living a fairy tale. She was within striking range of a happily ever after—one she’d never thought she’d have.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Answer the man already!” Gladys shouted.

Michael’s intense expression held her spellbound for a moment. He appeared to be holding his breath—as if he didn’t know that for Mia there was only one possible answer to his question.

It was barely above a whisper, but that was all she could manage. “Yes.” She cleared her throat and found her voice as the cage around her heart flew open. “Yes, Michael. Yes.”

He wrapped her in his arms and swung her in a circle as Clancy barked and yipped. This time when the camera shutters snapped, it didn’t sound like gunfire. It sounded like applause.

Epilogue

Even wearing noise-cancelling headphones, Mia knew Michael had arrived home from the office because Clancy bolted from his dog bed in the corner of the studio. She lifted her brush and smiled, her body heating as she remembered the promises he’d made when he’d left that morning regarding ratios and how he planned to meet them. One thing about Michael Anderson—he always made good on promises.

Using every bit of self control she had—which was considerably more than before she’d met him, she pushed down the urge to strip off her paint smock and run to the living room to meet him. Instead, she dipped her brush again and continued work. This new series was almost finished and she had contracts for two more.

With her time divided among Heart’s Home in the morning, her private commissioned art in the afternoons, and Michael in the evenings, her life had fallen into a blissful routine. Her smile broadened. Who would have ever believed she’d have any kind of routine? She shook her head and dipped her brush again, waiting for Michael to appear through the doorway dividing her new studio from their apartment, glass of scotch in hand.

Chills shot up her spine as Michael’s warm lips traveled across the nape of her neck instead. He’d departed from his evening ritual, which fired off alarm bells and all kinds of flutters in her belly. She pulled off the headphones and turned to face him, mind racing to figure out what had disrupted his unbreakable routine. He gave nothing away in his face. “You’re doing it again,” she said.

His expression and voice remained placid and controlled. “Doing what?”

Placing her brush on the ledge of the easel, she fought back a grin. “That thing you do when you’re trying to pull something over on me.”

Still wearing his overcoat, he arched an eyebrow. “Hmmm. I’m not sure what you mean.”

She untied her paint smock. “Yes, you do. Like when you surprised me by buying this apartment and converting it into an art studio.”

“Ms. Braxton was more than happy to sell it to me, especially since I offered twice what she paid for it.” Still, his face remained completely unreadable. “And I’m not at all sure that qualifies as pulling something over on you.” And then he did something peculiar—he placed his hand on his chest, his face registering surprise for a fleeting moment before going back to placid.

She circled him, trying to figure out his game. “You also did this when you came back from the psychiatrist last week with Clancy.”

“I was as surprised as you were when Dr. Whittelsey gave him to us. I was pulling nothing over on you.”

“Okay.” She continued her stroll around him. “How about when you had the entire apartment covered in rose petals the day you proposed.” Never in a million years would she forget that day. After the spectacularly public proposal, Lee drove them to Michael’s apartment in his horse-drawn carriage. Michael carried her all the way from the carriage, through the lobby, up the elevator, and into the apartment, which had been carpeted from the front door to the bedroom with red rose petals.

Dimples flashed. “What a mess. I’m still finding petals under furniture.” He winked as she circled back to the front. “Totally worth the mess, though.”

Oh, yeah. She’d made sure he wouldn’t regret a surprise like that. It had inspired Mia to see just how fast one hot man could be divested of his ghastly sweater—and all his other clothes as well. Pretty freaking fast, it turned out.

Her body tightened at the memory of that weekend. He’d been full of all kinds of surprises and inventive suggestions.

Again, he raised his hand to his sternum and his eyes widened.

“Michael?”

He cleared his throat, hand splayed across his chest. “Hmm?”

A tiny white and black muzzle poked out of his overcoat.

“Oh, my!” She covered her mouth with her hands as he pulled the squirming puppy out of his coat.

“Mr. Kawashima sent us an engagement present—one of his wife’s Japanese Chins. Her name is Sachi.”

“Sachi,” she repeated. The puppy couldn’t have been more than ten weeks old and was adorable with her short nose, round tummy, and silky looking hair.

He squatted down to let Clancy sniff the puppy. After a few tail wags and a nudge with his nose, Clancy strolled over to his bed and curled up as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on, right as Michael’s phone rang.

He passed the puppy to Mia. “Hello?” He shot her a look and smiled. He smiled a lot now, Mia realized. “Sure, Will. We’d love for you and Claire to stop in. We have someone we want you to meet.” He stroked the puppy cradled against Mia’s chest as he spoke, and his fingers grazed her skin above the neckline of her shirt. She trembled at the contact and his gaze grew heated. “Actually. I just walked in the door. Why don’t you come by in say, an hour?”

He shoved the phone back into his pocket. “They’re stopping by to hash out some more wedding plans.”

Mia had been stunned when Michael suggested a double wedding with his brother. “Is Chance coming with them?” She liked both of his brothers, but had seen a lot more of Will than the youngest brother.

“No. He always goes to a bar down in Soho on Fridays.”

“I thought he didn’t drink.”

“He doesn’t. I assume he’s hanging with his buddies from the dojang.”

She handed the puppy back to him and took her paintbrush to the sink. “Maybe there’s a girl he likes.”

Holding the puppy against him, he nipped her neck as she rinsed the brush, sending sparks of desire skittering through her. “There’s a girl
I
like,” he said, tugging the neckline of her T-shirt with his teeth. “A lot.”

He kissed a hot path from her ear to her shoulder, and she had to summon every ounce of concentration she had just to finish the simple task of drying her brush. “How much?”

Taking her hand, he pulled her toward the door between the studio and the apartment. “Let me show you.”

He already had. With words and actions. Far more than she’d ever imagined possible. “What about the puppy?”

“Sachi sleeps through anything.” He shifted the sleeping puppy higher on his chest and picked up speed as he pulled Mia into the bedroom, arching an eyebrow and getting that wicked look in his eye she loved. “I bet she wouldn’t wake up even if you screamed.”

He pulled a pillow from the bed and placed it on the floor, setting the pup in the middle. She didn’t even open her eyes. Then he removed his overcoat and his suit jacket, pitching them carelessly to a chair in the corner, followed by his tie.

“What does Sachi mean?” She asked as he pushed her back onto the bed.

“It means fortunate.” He pulled her shirt over her head and the satin sheets cooled her heated skin. “Lucky.” He kissed a trail from her belly button to the hollow of her throat, lighting her on fire as only he could. “Like me.”

Reaching between them, she unbuttoned his pants. “Let’s see how soundly that puppy sleeps.”

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Acknowledgments

Wow, writing this book was fun, primarily due to the amazing team at Entangled Publishing. I adore you, Liz Pelletier, with or without your savant skills. Thank you to Heather Howland, Candace Havens, Jessica Turner, Curtis Svehlak, Melanie Smith, Brittany Marczak, Kelly Elliott, and Judi Weiss.

As always, thanks to my home team, Sophie, Shana, Lily, Nicole, and Tera.

Big hugs to the girls in Camp Clarke, especially Shawna, for being there 24/7.

Love to my family for putting up with all the… Well, you know.

And most of all, undying gratitude to my readers. It’s all for and because of you.

About the Author

Marissa Clarke
lives in Texas, where everything is bigger, especially the mosquitoes.

When not writing or reading, she wrangles her rowdy pack of three teens, husband, and a Cairn Terrier named Annabel who rules the house (and Marissa’s heart) with an iron paw. If you love young adult fiction, be sure to check out Marissa’s alter ego, Mary Lindsey!

www.marissaclarke.com

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