Falling for Fitz (24 page)

“
We’re going to make
mistakes. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“
But you’re the person I
want to make those mistakes with.”

She told herself not to cry, but the
tears snaked down her face anyway.

“
I left you once, because I
thought that’s what you wanted. But it wasn’t what I wanted, and in
the end, it wasn’t even what you wanted. So, here’s a promise: I’m
never leaving you again. Even if you tell me to let you go, I
won’t. I won’t because you belong to me and I belong to you, and
I’ll do whatever it takes to make this happen between
us.”

Daisy’s eyes were distracted by a
slight motion behind Fitz, and glanced over just in time to see her
father’s mouth go “Poof!” She nodded once at her Dad before turning
her eyes back to Fitz.

“
I want to have fun with
you and run a business with you. I want to be the person you say ‘I
love you’ to every chance you get and you better believe I’ll say
it back every time. I want your legs to tangle with mine. I want
you to steal my breath and I want to listen to you sigh every
morning for the rest of my life.”

“
Fitz,” she sobbed,
covering her mouth with her hands.

“
I want you to move in with
me. I want a family with you,” he said, reaching forward to press
his big, warm hand against her flat tummy. “But more than anything,
I want you to be my wife. I’ve been in love with you for nine
years. I love you more today than I ever thought it was possible to
love another human being. So for the fourth time in my life, I need
to ask you…”

He dropped to one knee before her,
taking a small black box out of the back pocket of his jeans and
opening it for her to reveal a sparkling diamond ring
inside.

“
Will you marry me, Daisy
Edwards?”

Daisy started laughing and crying at
the same time as she lowered her trembling hand from her mouth and
presented it to him. He slipped the ring onto her fourth finger and
snapped the box shut, standing up.

“
Finally,” he said, pulling
her into his arms and lowering his head to kiss her like they were
the only two people in the world.

It took a good thirty seconds for the
rest of their families to explode in congratulations and clapping,
coming forward to hug Daisy and Fitz, and Tom English called for
the maid to crack open two bottles of his Krug Vintage brut to
toast his son and future daughter-in-law.

Through all of the rowdiness of hugs
and exclamations and congratulations, almost no one heard Emily
Edwards’s voice saying, “Excuse me!” until she picked up two
low-ball glasses from the bar and clanged the heavy crystal bases
together, standing on a chair, a furious look in her
eyes.

“
Bar-rett!” she yelled from
across the room.

Barrett, who’d been in the process of
hugging Fitz, backed away from his brother, staring at his
girlfriend standing on a chair holding two glasses and wearing a
frown… and the room went totally and completely silent for the
second time.

“
Emily?” Barrett asked,
looking confused.

Emily’s glance flicked to Daisy and
Daisy grinned at her cousin, whose faced softened as she beamed
back at her. “Congrats, Daze.”

“
Thanks, cuz,” said Daisy,
leaning back against Fitz’s chest as his arms folded around her.
“Your turn.”

Barrett crossed the room to Emily, who
handed him the glasses, which he placed on the table beside the
chair, then reached for her waist, pulling her down in front of
him.

She reached into her pocket and pulled
out the ring she’d worn as his fake fiancée and slipped it onto her
finger, smiling into his eyes.

“
Yes!” she said
definitively, laughing as Barrett swept her into his arms and the
room exploded all over again in congratulations.

Mr. English called down for
two
more
bottles
of champagne. Eleanora was already thinking of how to pull off two
weddings in one year, and Felix stood proudly with an arm around
his wife and another around his brother, accepting congratulations
from the as-yet-unspoken-for English brothers. Daisy clasped Emily
in a hug of pure joy, and Emily admired Daisy’s ring while
marveling over how similar it was to her own.

Standing across from each other, on
either side of the women they would marry, Barrett caught Fitz’s
eyes, and Fitz smiled back at Barrett. Happiest of all were the
English boys who had loved the Edwards girls for as long as they
could remember.

Their deepest wishes had finally come
true.

THE END

Keep reading for an excerpt
from

The English Brothers, Book
#3

~Alex and Jessie’s
story~

Coming Soon!

CHAPTER 1

There was something wrong with Alex
English.

During his standing Thursday afternoon
date with Hope Atwell in a deluxe suite at the Four Seasons Hotel,
he had to force himself to concentrate on the task at hand. While
he grasped Hope’s bare hips and thrust into her from behind over
and over again, his thoughts drifted to work, to friends, to his
family, to the Eagles, to the room décor, for God’s sake. Bored by
her predictable moans and vulgar compliments, he closed his eyes
and finished the deed, but the entire act left him feeling
unsatisfied. Annoyed by Hope’s banal post-coital conversation, Alex
used a non-existent work meeting as an excuse to leave her, and
returned to the office.

At a birthday party on
Friday night, Alex renewed his acquaintance with Juliette Dunne,
with whom he had brokered two big deals last year and enjoyed
memorable sex on top of the board room table at English & Sons
to celebrate. After flirting with her for most of the night, he’d
followed her home, only to find himself distracted again. As
Juliette whimpered, “Oh, God. Oh, God.
OhGodOhGodOhGod
,” taking a million
years to climax, Alex wondered if it would be rude for him to go
ahead and come without her, because aside from the reliable
physical rush he got from screwing someone, he wasn’t feeling much
else. After she’d finally yowled her way through an orgasm, Alex
quickly climaxed, but again, he was left feeling empty.

Feeling a woman shudder and tremble
around him, calling his name and clawing her way down his back
usually made Alex feel felt like the king of the world. Sated and
limp, he’d contently stroke a woman’s naked back for hours while
she prattled on about her life, about her horses or kids or boss or
backhand, waiting an appropriate amount of time before flipping her
over and having her again. He had fun, she had fun, and after
brunch the next morning and a long, sloppy, lingering kiss
good-bye, he’d head for home with a bounce in his step, his mind
already turning to his next rendezvous.

But his chest literally ached as he
lay beside Juliette, who started talking about her latest deal.
Numbers while naked should have been enough to make Alex instantly
hard again, but all he felt was desperate to leave. Making the
excuse of walking a dog he didn’t actually have, Alex skipped out
of Juliette’s apartment at midnight and headed home
alone.

Hoping to remedy the problem, Alex had
ramped up his frequency and varied his partners the following week,
adding—in addition to Hope—a tennis pro from the club, a hot
cocktail waitress from his favorite hotel, a Junior League
fundraiser type whose husband was in Paris, and a Manhattan fashion
model doing a shoot at the LOVE sculpture. All were beautiful. All
were enthusiastic, compliant and willing, and as an added bonus,
the fashion model was surprisingly flexible.

The something wrong with Alex
English?

Each and every time, after the deed
was done, Alex didn’t feel satisfaction or contentment or peace. He
felt so hollow, it was painful, and it was genuinely starting to
worry him.

At twenty-nine years old, Alex had
enjoyed a solid fourteen years of getting whatever piece of ass he
wanted whenever he wanted it. And Alex had wanted it all the time.
Young women, older women, married, unmarried, beautiful, plain,
red-headed, blonde, filthy, virginal, rough and meek, he’d enjoyed
them all ten different ways from Saturday and once more on Sunday
morning before taking them to brunch. His reputation was infamous
and he’d heard every variation on his character: Casanova, Don
Juan, manwhore, womanizer, heartbreaker. Casual sex was Alex’s
forte, his living room, his favorite. He had no trouble procuring
it, performed like a sex-god and it always left him feeling
awesome.

Until now.

After another lackluster date with
Hope at the Four Seasons the following Thursday, Alex gave the
matter some serious thought as he walked back to the office. He had
hurt Hope’s feelings this week—he could see the confused
disappointment in her eyes when he left after climaxing before and
without her, then rolling quickly away. He’d made an excuse about
work and kissed her farewell gently, but he couldn’t get away from
her fast enough—the emptiness had turned to panic as he realized
that this problem wasn’t just going to go away by bedding more
women. If anything, it was only getting worse.

As Alex walked the dozen blocks back
to his office, he was shocked to realize that he could actually
pinpoint the moment his troubles had started.

When his older brothers, Barrett and
Fitz, had gotten engaged a month ago, as he watched Barrett with
Emily, and Fitz with Daisy, something had happened to Alex. His
chest had started to ache. The pain was so sharp and unexpected, in
fact, that as his father had uncorked a bottle of champagne to
celebrate the engagements, Alex had slipped unnoticed from the
living room to collect himself outside. As he stood on the west
terrace in the moonlight, palm pressed against his chest, sucking
down gulps of cold, fresh air, he’d managed to convince himself
that the ache was nothing more than some indigestion from the raw
cheese his mother liked to serve with cocktails. Comforting himself
that it had nothing to do with Barrett and Fitz falling in love, he
rubbed his chest until the ache dulled to bearable, pasted a smile
on his face and returned in time for toasts.

But in the morning, the
ache hadn’t gone away, and its source was elusive and just out of
reach. As the weeks went by, he realized that it was a constant
longing in the pit of his stomach, an emptiness that no amount of
sex could fill, made fathomless by his efforts. He didn’t have a
name for it, but he hated the way it made him feel. Worse, he hated
the way it was starting to affect his sex life. For the first time
in Alex’s entire life, sex on its own wasn’t enough. He wanted—no,
he
needed
—something more.

This frustrated him
mightily because all he
wanted
was to get his life back to the way it was:
regular,
satisfying
, casual sex with an oysterful of gorgeous women. That was
his life. That’s what he knew. That’s who he was. Because, hell,
what was the alternative? Finding someone special? Making a
commitment to someone? Monogamy, for God’s sake? He shuddered. Alex
didn’t
do
commitment. Playing the field was much more his
style.

STANDALONE BOOKS

Four Weddings and a
Fiasco: The Wedding Date

(a Kindle Worlds
novella)

Playing for Love at Deep
Haven

The Vixen and the
Vet

THE ENGLISH
BROTHERS

Breaking Up with
Barrett

Falling for Fitz

Anyone but Alex

(coming soon!)

Seduced by
Stratton

(coming soon!)

Wild about
Weston

(coming soon!)