The car pulls up to the curb and we climb out. “It’s not much to look at from the outside,” Ben warns, grabbing my bag from the trunk. I don’t mention that I’ve driven by it a few thousand times—he’s seen enough of my psychotic side for one week.
We walk up the path, and with a deep breath, he unlocks the door and holds it open for me. I step inside…and freeze.
There are wide plank hardwood floors and white furniture, an exposed beam ceiling, a beaded chandelier. Toward the back of the house, in the kitchen, I see butcher block counters and an island painted navy blue.
I gasp. “It’s exactly like my Pinterest board.”
“Yeah,” he says. And he sounds ashamed, which is when I turn to him, confused for a moment, and then incredulous.
“I didn’t realize what I was doing at first,” he says softly. “And by the time I did, I couldn’t take it back, and I didn’t figure it would matter. It seemed like you were never, ever going to give me the time of day.”
I brush at the tears running down my face as I laugh. “That’s so creepy. It’s so much worse than I thought.”
“I know, right?” he asks. “But…imagine how much more of our money you could blow on shoes if you lived here instead of your apartment.”
“Our money?”
He rests his hands on my hips. “I have waited for you, Gemma Charles, for two years. Every day of two fucking years. You don’t really think I’m letting you go after all that?”
I smile like a pre-teen who just got asked out for the first time. It’s so goofy I want to hide my face from him, but I don’t. I just go up on my toes and press a single kiss to his mouth. “Fine. But I don’t really believe in marriage.”
He grins. “Sure you don’t.”
EPILOGUE
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Ben appears in my office at noon, tapping his watch.
I glance up from my laptop. “Did you need something?” I ask.
He raises a single, stern brow. “Gemma, you promised.”
It’s been eight months from that first night we were together in his office, and he’s insisting we celebrate with a weekend away. Weekends off are hardly unusual for us—I find myself putting work on hold at least once a month for one of Drew’s lavish trips, which haven’t abated at all even now that she is very, very pregnant. But this is different. It’s just us this time, at his insistence.
He’s also insisting the destination be a surprise, even though I hate surprises.
I grin. “I know. Give me five more minutes. I’m trying to get Lola into that magnet school Victoria likes.”
His gaze softens. He’s been with me to Victoria’s a few times now, and even if she hadn’t won Ben over, which she did, the kids would have. Phillip’s drawings of “me and my friend Ben” now hang all over our refrigerator.
“Five minutes, Gemma, and not a second more,” he warns, doing his best to look threatening.
I finish up my appeal of the school board’s decision, send it off then bolt for the door, purse in hand. I smile at the sight of Ben standing there chatting with Terri, newly grateful he’s making us do this. It’s been at least forty-eight hours since I’ve gotten the chance to peel a suit off him, and that’s forty-seven hours too long.
“Don’t get her pregnant!” Terri shouts after us as we walk out. “She doesn’t have time for that!”
Ben laughs under his breath. “No promises.”
I have no idea where we’re going, though I know it won’t be Fiji—there just isn’t time. Thanks to the attention we got from the Lawson case and our pre-existing clients, we have more work than we know what to do with. I just placed an ad for two more associates this morning and eventually we’ll get caught up…but it won’t be today.
We pull out of the parking garage. I can see the Pacific Coast Highway from our new office, but he heads inland instead, up the 405.
“You’re sure you want to go this way?” I ask. I was hoping we’d return to the cottage where we spent New Year’s Eve, but this is definitely not moving us toward Santa Barbara.
He grins. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“There’s nothing but woods up this way, though,” I tell him. “Oh, God. We’re not camping, right?”
He laughs. “I think I know you a little better than that, Princess. Stop asking questions.”
Eventually, he veers onto the 5 toward Bakersfield, which continues to be a direction I’m not interested in exploring. I manage to hold my tongue until he cuts off onto a nameless side road.
“I can’t do it, Ben. I can’t not ask. Where are we going? Because we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
His eyes cut to mine and return to the road. “Do I need to define the word surprise for you?”
“This looks like a place you’d go to dump a body. If that’s your plan, I told people about this trip so you won’t get away with it.”
“Yes, I figured you would,” he says. “I guess I’ll have to bide my time.”
I pick up my phone to text Drew.
Me: You don’t happen to know where Ben is taking me, do you? I know he probably swore you to secrecy, but I have legitimate reason to think he might be planning to kill me.
Drew: He wouldn’t take a whole weekend off to kill you. He’s way too busy for that.
I laugh.
Me: So you don’t know anything?
Drew: I don’t know a thing. But make sure Keeley comes to Tali’s party next weekend. My brother-in-law wants to meet her.
I turn to Ben. “How much do you know about Josh’s brother?”
In true lawyer fashion, rather than just answering the question, he raises a brow. “Why?”
“He’s interested in Keeley, apparently,” I reply. “He’s in a band, right? You know Keeley would eat that up, so I’m assessing the situation first.”
He shrugs, failing to answer once again. “You know, Graham asked about her too,” he says. The admission is reluctant, as he is staunchly against getting involved in his brothers’ personal lives.
I bark a laugh. “Your brother? Never.”
He glares at me before his gaze returns to the road. “What’s wrong with Graham? I’ve already heard plenty about how attractive you find the men in my family.”
I laugh again. He heard me tell Keeley once that his brothers were hot and he’s been quietly bitter about it ever since. “They are so, so hot. All of them.”
“You can stop now,” he mutters.
I smile. “Nothing is wrong with Graham. But can you imagine him with Keeley? Mr. Responsibility with Miss ‘Lucky Charms is a health food and retirement planning is for dorks’? His head would explode.”
He shrugs and then frowns. “Shit,” he says under his breath, pulling the car over to the shoulder and coming to a stop.
“Did you finally realize we’ve been driving the wrong way for two hours?”
He gives me a dirty look as he pops the hood and climbs out. “No, but thanks for letting me know how you feel, again. The car’s making a noise.”