After that, the reading got interesting.
Gideon’s first stipulation was that I take the Cross name as my own. I could keep Tramell as an additional middle name, but with no hyphenation as a surname. Eva Cross—it was nonnegotiable. And so very like him. My domineering lover made no apologies for his caveman tendencies.
His second stipulation was that I accept ten million from him upon the wedding, doubling my personal estate just for saying I do. Every year thereafter, he gave me more. I would receive bonuses for each child we had together, be paid for going to couples therapy with him. I agreed to counseling and mediation in the event of a divorce. I agreed to share a residence with him, bimonthly vacations, date nights …
The more I read, the more I understood. The prenup didn’t protect Gideon’s assets at all. He gave them freely, going so far as to stipulate up front that fifty percent of everything he acquired from our marriage onward was irrefutably mine. Unless he cheated. If that happened, it cost him severely.
The prenup was designed to protect his heart, to bind me and bribe me to stay with him no matter what. He was giving everything he had.
He joined me on the terrace when I flipped to the last page, strolling out in a pair of partially buttoned jeans and nothing else. I knew his perfectly timed arrival wasn’t coincidental. He’d been watching me from somewhere, gauging my reaction.
I brushed the tears from my cheeks with studied nonchalance. “Good morning, ace.”
“Morning, angel.” He bent and pressed a kiss to my cheek before taking the chair at the end of the table to my left.
A member of the staff came out with breakfast and coffee, arranging the place settings quickly and efficiently before disappearing as swiftly as he’d appeared.
I looked at Gideon, at the way the tropical breeze adored him and played with that sexy mane of hair. Sitting there as he was, so virile and casual, he wasn’t at all the cut-and-dried presentation of dollar signs I’d seen in the prenup.
Allowing the pages to flip back to the first page, I set my hand on top of it and said, “Nothing in this document can keep me married to you.”
He took a quick, deep breath. “Then we’ll revisit and revise. Name your terms.”
“I don’t want your money. I want this,” I gestured at him. “Especially this.” I leaned forward and placed my hand over his heart. “You’re the only thing that can hold me, Gideon.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Eva.” He caught my hand and held it pressed flat to his chest. “I’m going to fuck up. And you’ll want to run.”
“Not anymore,” I argued. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“I noticed you running into the ocean last night and sinking like a damn stone!” Leaning forward, he held my gaze. “Don’t argue the prenup on principle. If there are no deal breakers for you in it, live with it. For me.”
I sat back. “You and I have a long way to go,” I said softly. “A document can’t force us to believe in each other. I’m talking about trust, Gideon.”
“Yeah, well—” He hesitated. “I don’t trust myself not to fuck this up, and you don’t trust that you’ve got what I need. We trust each other just fine. We can work on the rest together.”
“Okay.” I watched his eyes light up and knew I was making the right decision, even if I was still partially convinced that it was a decision we were making too soon. “I do have one revision.”
“Name it.”
“You just did. The name issue.”
“Nonnegotiable,” he said flatly, with an empathic swipe of his hand for good measure.
I arched a brow. “Don’t be a fucking Neanderthal. I want to take my dad’s name, too. He’s wanted that and it’s bothered him my whole life. This is my chance to fix it.”
“So, Eva Lauren Reyes Cross?”
“Eva Lauren Tramell Reyes Cross.”
“That’s a mouthful, angel,” he drawled, “but do what makes you happy. That’s all I want.”
“All I want is you,” I told him, leaning forward to offer him my mouth for a kiss.
His lips touched mine. “Let’s make it official.”
I married Gideon Geoffrey Cross barefoot on a Caribbean beach with the hotel manager and Angus McLeod as witnesses. I hadn’t realized Angus was there, but I was pleased that he was.
It was a quick, beautifully simple ceremony. I could tell from the beaming smiles of the reverend and Claude that they were honored to officiate over Gideon’s nuptials.
I wore the prettiest dress I’d found in the closet. Strapless and ruched from breasts to hips, with petals of organza floating down to my feet, it was a sweet yet sexy romantic gown. My hair was up in an elegantly messy knot with a red rose tucked into it. The hotel provided a bouquet of white-ribboned jasmine.
Gideon wore graphite gray slacks and an untucked white dress shirt. He went barefoot, too. I cried when he repeated his vows, his voice strong and sure, even while his eyes betrayed a heated yearning.
He loved me so much.
The entire ceremony was intimate and deeply personal. Perfect.
I missed my mom and dad and Cary. I missed Ireland and Stanton and Clancy. But when Gideon bent to seal our marriage with a kiss, he whispered, “We’ll do this again. As many times as you want.”
I loved him so much.
Angus stepped up to kiss me on both cheeks. “It does me good to see you both so happy.”
“Thank you, Angus. You’ve taken good care of him for a long time.”
He smiled, his eyes glistening as he turned to Gideon. He said something so heavily accented by his Scottish heritage, I couldn’t be sure it was any form of English at all. Whatever it was, it made Gideon’s eyes shine, too. How much of a surrogate father had Angus been to Gideon over the years? I would always be grateful to him for giving Gideon support and affection when he desperately needed it.
We cut a small cake and toasted with champagne on the terrace of our suite. We signed the register the reverend offered and were given our certificate of marriage to sign as well. Gideon’s fingers brushed over it reverently.
“Is this what you needed?” I teased him. “This piece of paper?”
“I need you, Mrs. Cross.” He pulled me close. “I wanted this.”
Angus took both the certificate and prenup with him when he made himself scarce. Both had been duly notarized by the hotel manager and would end up wherever Gideon kept such things.
As for Gideon and me, we ended up in the cabana, tangled naked with each other. We sipped chilled champagne, touched each other playfully and greedily, and kissed lazily as the day crawled by.
That was perfect, too.
“So, how are we handling this when we get back?” I asked him, as we ate a candlelit dinner in the dining room of our suite. “The whole we-ran-off-and-got-hitched explanation.”
Gideon shrugged and licked melted butter off his thumb. “However you want.”
I pulled the meat out of a crab leg and considered the options. “I want to tell Cary for sure. And I think my dad will be okay with it. I kind of talked around it when I called him earlier and he told me you’d asked him, so he’s prepared. I don’t think Stanton will care much either way, no offense.”