turned toward me with a smile.
“Baby, you’re not going to believe this.” I squatted at her knees and took her hands in mine. Big brown eyes searched my face as I said, “Doug called. It’s over.” Her pretty lips parted in surprise as I recounted the conversation I’d had with my lawyer. Through it all, her smile grew, and the sadness I’d become accustomed to seeing in her eyes slowly ebbed.
She threw her arms around my neck, squeezing me for dear life. “I knew it! I knew it would go away!”
“You did, baby.” I gently pulled her arms away from my neck to stare into her eyes. “I hated putting you through it all. Thank you for being there for me.”
“Always, Ryder. Every day for forever.”
“There’s more… ,” I went on to say. “Wes called. We got Meriwether.”
“Oh my God, Ryder! That’s fantastic!”
She kissed me softly, and then it seemed as though she had something else to say but didn’t. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that… don’t be mad, okay?”
“Oh no… what did you do, Ree?”
“Hear me out,” she was quick to say. “I overheard you talking to Wes about Declan Meriwether, and I, um… I know his mother.” As I continued to stare at her, she rushed on to say, “Yolanda was a client of mine at Angels on Earth. We kept in touch over the years, and I knew she would want her son to sign with someone as moral as you, Ryder. She needed to hear the truth from someone she could trust. That was me. So I called Joseph. I wanted to be sure what I planned to do was okay. He gave me the green light, confiding that things were going well on his end. And then I made the call.”
“Riana.”
“Don’t Riana me. There was something I could do to help, and I did it. You guys handled all the legwork; I merely opened a window. After Yolanda Meriwether and I caught up, she told me that Declan was undecided between you and another agent. He didn’t care about the rumors, having followed your career. But he worried that your agency wouldn’t survive the gossip. All I did was explain the situation to her and left it at that. It was up to Declan to decide. Which he did. I’m not sorry for that… I’m sorry for keeping it from you.”
She waited as I processed it all, and then her eyes widened a bit when I pulled her to standing and wrapped her in my arms. “Riana, don’t ever apologize for having my back, or for doing something out of your love for me.”
I’d been there. I was guilty of the same. Stemming back from leaving her behind so she could continue in a job she loved. Or for keeping my business failures to myself to spare her from stress.
I’d done it all for her… and I would do anything for her. Like having a baby. If she couldn’t conceive, then we would consider every possibility available to us. I knew without a doubt when that day came that old fears would rear their ugly heads… sure as shit, I’d keep that from her to spare her worrying about me. From start to finish, I’d experience it all with her because I loved her. We did what we had to for the ones we loved… without apology.
“I love you,” she said, resuming her kiss until I pulled away and stared into her eyes.
“I love you too. And there will be plenty of times I fuck up in our relationship. Just remember, like you, I do it out of my love for you.”
“Sounds like this is a disclaimer, Mr. Carter.”
“It’s a promise, Miss Carter, soon to be Mrs. Carter.” As I stood there holding her, kissing her like a starved man, I had to mentally thank Wes for being horny that night and dragging me to a loud, noisy club in Miami.
Epilogue
Him
Ten months later
It felt like a wonderful dream. There had been only one time in my life when profound happiness squeezed my insides to the point of nausea, and that was when she’d agreed to be my wife.
I was marrying her.
After all these years, some together, the awful ones we’d spent apart, and then the amazing ones when we were together again… it was all for now. This was the moment I wanted more than anything in my life. To finally make her my wife.
The piece of paper that would say so was validation that