“What? Just like that? There’s no negotiating?” He chuckles as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re getting soft on me, Celery Ellery.”
“What is it you want to negotiate?” I narrow my eyes as if I’m serious.
“Things. So many things.” He presses another tender kiss to my lips. “Things like when we get back to the city, how you should move in with me.”
I should say that I’m shocked, that my natural response would be to say no, but aren’t we already living together here?
“Live with you?” I ask. “Only if we can get a dog.”
“A dog?” he laughs out.
“Yep. A dog. That’s a requirement.”
“Okay.” He nods. “What else?”
My mind is buzzing a million miles a minute. How hard it was to accept this love and now that I have, how damn easy it is to fall headfirst into it.
“I’m not sure yet, but I reserve at least three more things that I can throw in there once I can think properly.”
He draws a finger down my back, lifting the hem of my shirt so it can skim across my skin. “Why can’t you think properly? Is something distracting you?”
I laugh. It feels so good to. “Maybe. I might need some more distracting.” I lift on my tiptoes and kiss him.
“Distraction commencing.” His groan is all I need to know his body is as wired as mine is right now. Is as needy and wanting. “Now I’m wishing I’d have scheduled everyone else to come an hour later instead of thirty minutes.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I want to make love to you for the first time, Ellery.” He grins. “That’s such a cheesy thing for a guy to say, but to hell with it. I’m using the word love every chance I get so you get used to it. So you are no longer scared by it.”
“Move in with you. Get a dog. And immediate lovemaking. Wow, Sharpe. I don’t know,” I tease, my smile turning up against his lips. “Is that your final proposal?”
“Baby, I’m just getting started.” He chuckles as he leans back to look at me, the grin he flashes making my knees turn to jelly. His words even more so. “No. You’ll know when I propose.” A chaste kiss. “And there will be no negotiating the answer on that one.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Ford
Three Months later
“You really think that’s the best option?” Ellery looks over to me. She’s propped up against the headboard of the bed, in my—er, our—penthouse. Her laptop is on her thighs, her hair’s piled on top of her head, and her face free of makeup.
Jesus.
Sometimes the sight of her staggers me. How did I get this lucky? How did I get her to choose me?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, eyebrows narrowed and lips pursed.
“No reason.” I grin. “Sometimes it just hits me. This. You. Us.” I shrug.
“Fordham Sharpe, are you getting all soft on me?” she teases.
“Not where it counts.” I wink and she laughs before I motion to the laptop. “Yes to your question. Park City is the winter playground for the wealthy. It’s a great place for the next Signature Sharpe. Expensive. Exclusive. And if the success of Azure is any indication, people like to flaunt their ‘unique’ experience.”
And boy, have they.
Azure is booked through the next eighteen months, and we’ve only been open for two. Word spread fast among the elite and celebrity circles. And thank fuck for that.
Of course, there have been a few snafus, as happens with anything that is new, but we’ve managed to mitigate those and correct on the fly.
And I won’t lie, I just might throw its success in my brothers’ faces every chance I get. Just as they would in mine.
“Okay.” She nods as she bites the tip of a pen. “Park City it is.”
“I knew you’d—” The doorbell rings and our rescue mutt, Chex, lifts her head as if she’s figuring out if she gives a fuck before deciding she doesn’t and lays it back down.
The only people who come up without the doorman announcing them are my brothers. “What the hell are they doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she says as she pushes the laptop aside and rises from the bed.
Within seconds, I have the door open and am staring suspiciously at both Ledger and Callahan standing in my entry. “You’re tag-teaming again. What should I be worried about this time?”
Here we go again.
“We have something for you,” Ledger says, moving past me toward the family room as if he owns the place.
“Hello. How are you today, Ford? Are we interrupting anything? Can we come in?” I tease as I follow them. Ellery’s laugh sounds off behind me.
“Trust us,” Callahan murmurs, and fuck if that doesn’t make me worry.
I glance over to Ellery, and she shrugs.
“Can you use AirPlay from my laptop to the TV?” Ledger asks, knowing I damn well can.
“Sure, but . . . do you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
Callahan’s grin concerns me. The last time he grinned like that was when they showed me CCTV footage of me in an elevator with a woman I was dating. They thought it would be hilarious to critique my technique.
Fucking assholes.
“It’s not that,” Ledger says and laughs.
“It’s not what?” Ellery asks.
“You’re better off not knowing,” I say and press a kiss to her cheek that definitely makes her want to know more.
“Take a seat,” Callahan says, but when I don’t, he guides me and pushes me to sit on the couch.
“What in the hell . . .” But my words stop the minute I hear our dad’s laugh fill the room and see him on the screen. He’s seated in a chair, one ankle set on the other knee. He’s leaned back, his arms on each side, his lips pursed.
My heart leaps into my throat. To hear that sound, to see him . . . I look at Ledger and Callahan, and they just motion for me to look at the screen.
“Tell me about Fordham,” a person off camera asks, and I know exactly what this is.
The interview tapes for the biography.
My father’s smile is wistful, adoring, and tears spring to my eyes simply because of his response when he’s asked about me.
“Fordham is . . . he’s an incredible kid. Hard-working. Dedicated. The hugest fucking heart. If you’re looking for juicy stories on him, there are none. He kept his nose clean except for when he was trying to take the fall for something Callahan had done.” He chuckles and runs a hand over his face much like I’m doing right now.
It makes me smile.
“Thanks for that, man,” Callahan says with a pat on my shoulder. “I still owe you for those.” I was so enthralled with my dad on the screen that I didn’t notice both Ledger and Callahan were sitting on either side of me.
“Carly and I used to joke that Ford was the rock of our family. If you needed help, he was there. If you needed to talk to someone, he was there. If we needed someone to mediate between Callahan and Ledger, he was there. Fordham cracked the best jokes at the times we needed them most. He can read a room better than anyone I’ve ever met and would know what comment to make to either diffuse a situation or put someone more at ease. He worried about everyone because he wanted everything to be okay at all times. He wasn’t bothered by taking a back seat to his brothers because his own light shone through regardless.”