The Best Thing He Never Knew He Needed (33 page)

When Sherita thought about
Desmond, money was the furthest thing from her mind. So what? He
was rich. He lived in a house big enough to be a small apartment
building. He had cars, a vacation home, financial freedom – all of
that. She, however, didn’t care about his money. She never asked
for any, even when she could’ve used it.

When she thought of
Desmond, she thought of just him – the way he could read her so
well after three and a half months. She thought of all the times
she dreamed of a life with him. Raising their kids together.
Traveling together. Being happy together. Those were the good
thoughts.

The thought that left a
stabbing pain in her heart was when she wondered how she would feel
to see him with another woman. Someone better than her. Someone he
wouldn’t be afraid to commit to. Every man had that
one
woman who’d make
them get on one knee and pop the question. It didn’t matter how
many times they said they would never marry or commit. When that
special lady came along, he’d find himself doing things he never
thought he would.

“
Sherita.”

Sherita looked up at her
mother with raised brows.

“
I asked you if Desmond
was a millionaire.”

“
He is, and I have no idea
what he meant by saying he wasn’t good enough for me. I guess…I’m
just shocked that he actually talked with Dad.”

“
I know. Your hands are
shaking.”

Sherita looked at her
hands. They
were
trembling. “I think I’m going to have the waitress box up my
lunch. I need to go home and relax for a while.”

“
Speaking of home, where
are you living?”

“
With Desmond,” Sherita
answered.

A wide smile appeared on
Carol’s face. Her daughter was living with Desmond, carrying his
twins and wearing his ring – nothing about this marriage seemed
pretentious, and she had a feeling Sherita would find that out soon
enough.

CHAPTER 43

“
Overall, I think we’re in
good shape,” Dante said to Desmond and Dimitrius. They had just
wrapped up a meeting with the team leads and managers and after
dismissing them, they remained in his office.

“
I agree,” Dimitrius said.
“Victor has already approved the app, and he has nothing but good
things to say about the marketing campaign Desmond put
together.”

Desmond nodded. “I imagine
that’s why he wants to have dinner Friday night. He wants to pop
some champagne.”

“
I’m down with that,”
Dimitrius said.

Dante nodded. “Hey, Des,
speaking of dinner, are you bringing Sherita?”

“
Probably. I’m sure Victor
will ask where she is if she doesn’t show up.”

“
Not necessarily,” Dante
said. “You can tell Victor she’s sick if she doesn’t feel like
going out. After all, she is pregnant.”

“
What?” Dimitrius said,
taking his eyes away from an email on his laptop to look at
Desmond.

Dante smirked. “I thought
you knew, Dimitrius.”

“
I didn’t know anything
about this. Des, you have a baby on the way?”

“
No. I have
two
babies on the way,”
Desmond corrected.

Dimitrius folded his
laptop, set it on the table and stood up. “My lil’ brother is
having twins?”

Desmond smiled. “A girl and
a boy.”

“
Wow! Never thought I’d
see the day,” Dimitrius said, slapping hands with Desmond, patting
him on the shoulder. “Wait…this is a good thing, right?”

“
It is. I’m excited about
it,” Desmond said.

“
And how is Sherita
doing?”

“
So far, so good. She
seems to be carrying well. We have an appointment in a couple of
weeks.”

“
So does this mean you are
Sherita are going to stay married?” Dimitrius inquired.

Desmond sighed heavily.
After taking a few moments to gather his thoughts, he said, “I went
by her parent’s house this morning and spoke with her father. She
comes from a good home and—” Desmond grimaced.

“
What is it, Des?” Dante
asked.

Desmond scrubbed his hand
across his mustache and down his lips. “I try to be this confident,
successful man without a care in the world and can do the most
complicated and complex tasks. But I…I can’t seem to convince the
woman, the
only
woman I’ve ever loved, that I actually love her. And what
hurts the most is—” Desmond frowned, swallowed hard and shook his
head. Expelling a sigh, he continued, “What hurts the most is,
she’s carrying my babies, and she doesn’t think I love
her.”

“
Come on, Des,” Dimitrius
said with his hand on Desmond’s shoulder. “Shake it off. You’ll get
your girl. I don’t even know why you sound worried. You have plenty
to offer Sherita and instead of stressing over what she thinks,
show her what you’re really made of.”

Desmond shook his head and
grinned. “See, this is why I never wanted to fall in love. Dealing
with matters of the heart is too complicated.”

“
It
is
complicated,” Dante
said.

“
But it’s worth it,”
Dimitrius added, thoughts of Melanie and Grace on his
mind.

“
Very much so,” Dante
said, thinking of Emily and Ezra. “Look at it this way, Des. People
are willing to throw millions of dollars at you to lay out
marketing strategies on their behalf. If you can do that, then
surely you can convince little Mrs. Sherita you love her. But you
can’t do it without showing her your heart. One thing I know about
Sherita is, she doesn’t care about money. You can’t buy her love.
After all, this is the same woman who turned down a million-dollar
offer from me.”

Desmond nodded.

“
You need to be vulnerable
with her,” Dante continued. “I know that’s difficult for you
because it was for me. The Champion men are strong-willed,
hard-nosed and audacious by nature and, at times, our genuineness
and concern can get lost in the mix of those strong, dominant
qualities we possess and rub people the wrong way. So be
vulnerable. Let her see your heart. She’s already shown you hers.
Would you agree?”

Desmond nodded. If someone
told him that he’d be getting a lesson on love from his brothers
one day, he wouldn’t believe them. But here he was, getting
pointers on how to love – something he’d never done
before.

He was trying – he made
strides to add Sherita to his house deeds and tomorrow, he’d buy
her an SUV since she would need the extra room for the babies. He’d
add her to his bank accounts and check with his agent to see if the
offer he made on the building that would become her portrait studio
had been accepted. But like Dante said, Sherita wasn’t interested
in his money. She wanted his heart. Today, he’d do everything in
his power to show her how much he really loved her.

“
I called her this
morning, by the way,” Dante said, breaking into Desmond’s
thoughts.

“
You called who?” Desmond
asked looking up at Dante.

“
Sherita.”

“
Why?”

“
I need a photographer for
the mass wedding this weekend at the Grieving Hearts Connect
Resort, remember?”

“
Oh. Right,” Desmond said.
Since he had let Kurt handle the marketing campaign surrounding the
mass wedding this year, it had completely slipped his mind. He was
busy working on the campaign for Service Swap and when he wasn’t
doing that, he’d been occupied with Sherita.

“
What did she say?”
Desmond inquired. “Is she going to do it?”

“
Yes. She said she would
leave Saturday morning.”

Desmond grimaced just
slightly. Why hadn’t she told him that? Yet another thing he needed
to talk to her about tonight…

“
Oh, and she asked me for
our parent’s names,” Dante said, standing up walking over to the
blinds, staring out the windows with his back to his brothers. His
hands in his pockets.

“
That’s odd,” Dimitrius
said.

“
Did she say why she
wanted to know?” Desmond asked.

“
She did. She, ah…” Dante
took a breath, then forced it out. Turning around to face his
brothers, he said, “She said she was thinking about naming the
twins after them, but wanted to discuss it with you first,
Des.”

“
Wow,” was all Dimitrius
could say at the gesture.

A tingling sensation raced
through Desmond’s veins while a feeling of weightlessness had his
head floating. If ever he needed a sign that Sherita was the woman
he was meant to be with, this was it. He’d consider it an honor to
name his children after his parents – his mother, Celeste, and
father, Nolan – that he loved. He pressed fingers against his
trembling lips, while a mixture of sadness and happiness glowed in
his eyes. “I…I’m blown away she would even think to do something
like that. How did I get so lucky?” Desmond tipped his head back,
closed his eyes then, looking at Dante he said, “I think it’s a
great idea.”

“
Me too,” Dante
responded.

“
So do I,” Dimitrius said.
“Nolan and Celeste Champion will live on.”

Desmond’s face brightened
with a genuine, heartfelt smile. He pinched away the wetness that
formed in the corner of his eyes and said, “Yes, they
will.”

CHAPTER 44

Sherita wanted to cook
dinner. It was nice to go out once in a while or have dinner
catered, but no food was as good as a real home-cooked meal. She
wasn’t sure how Desmond would react since he never cooked, but this
evening, the kitchen belonged to her. She’d been craving pasta for
days, so she whipped up a pan of macaroni and cheese, straight from
her mother’s recipe. To go along with it, she baked a ham, some
crescent rolls and made a fresh garden salad with lettuce, carrots,
cauliflower, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.

Opening the oven, she
carefully took the ham out and placed it on the counter. When she
did so, she felt a shiver run through her entire body. He hadn’t
made a sound, but she could smell Desmond’s scent even over the
pineapple-glazed ham. He was watching her. But why hadn’t he said
anything? She kept on working, waiting to see if he would say
something to her or was he just going to stand there and watch?
When she took a long knife from the drawer, she got her
answer.

“
And what do you think
you’re going to do with that?”

She turned around to look
at him. He was leaned against the island with his arms crossed in a
gray, sleeveless ARMY T-shirt, showing off his muscular arms. He
wore a pair of faded jeans and no shoes. His legs were crossed at
the ankles. His Hennessy-colored eyes were fixed on her.

She swallowed hard, taking
him all in, all six-feet, two inches of him, standing there like a
model, looking at her like he could have a serving of her on his
dinner plate.

“
I—” That’s all she could
get out.

“
You what?” he said,
uncrossing his arms, walking over to her.

“
I was just about to slice
the ham.”

“
Here…let me,” he
insisted, reaching for the knife and fork she had in each
hand.

“
I can handle it,
Desmond.”

“
I know you can. I just
want to help.”

“
You do?”

“
Yes. I do,” he said,
taking the fork and knife from her grasp. “Why do you sound
surprised?”

“
I thought for sure you
would be irritated that I was cooking. I know how you like your
food catered.”

“
Yeah, well, I’m realizing
I can’t be set in my ways like I’ve been, especially when I have an
amazing woman like you with me.” He looked at her with a serious,
pointed gaze, then smiled, returning his attention to the
ham.

Sherita watched him as he
sliced it. Her eyes roamed over him as they had done countless
times before, and when she realized he was almost finished with the
ham, she said, “What time did you get here? I didn’t hear you come
in.”

“
I left work a little
early…got here a little after five. When I opened the door, I
smelled food. I knew you were in the kitchen, so I ran upstairs and
showered.”

“
Oh.”

“
When I came downstairs, I
saw your photo albums and the ultrasound pictures on the living
room table, so I sat there and looked at them. All of
them.”

Sherita cracked a half
smile.

“
So you’re going to
Pleasure Island on Saturday, I hear.”

“
Yes. I told Dante I would
be the photographer for the mass wedding. I was going to tell you
over dinner.”

Desmond nodded. “It’s cool.
I would rather you do it than anyone else. You’re very talented
with a camera…talented at everything you do, Sherita.”

She met his powerful gaze
and felt a flicker in her stomach. “Umm…are you hungry?” she asked,
nervously.