The Billionaire Gets His Way(42)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

“By associating,” he said, “with the most amazing, most wonderful, most sought-after woman in town.”

The thread of disappointment suddenly unraveled. When he put it that way…

“I’m sorry for the things I said about…” He sighed. “About people like us. I’m sorry I was so narrow-minded and so bigoted and so…wrong. There’s a lot to be said for coming from the wrong part of town. For one thing, it allows you to know what’s really important.”

“Money and social standing?” she asked, fully aware he knew better than that.

He shook his head. “People who care about you for who you really are, in spite of everything else. People you can care about in return, in the very same way.”

“So you’re saying you care about me, Gavin?” she asked, already knowing the answer to that, too.

“No, Violet. I’m saying I love you.”

The warmth inside her spread like a conflagration at that. “I love you, too.”

He pulled her close and kissed her again, a long, steady, deep-throated kiss that promised much more later.

“You know, in spite of everything,” he said as he pulled back, “I confess that, even when I was threatening to sue you, part of me wouldn’t have minded being chapter twenty-eight in your book.”

“Oh, really?”

“In fact, I have to confess that, even now, there’s still a part of me that wouldn’t mind being chapter twenty-eight. Not being Roxanne’s—or even Raven French’s—chapter twenty-eight. But maybe being Violet Tandy’s chapter twenty-eight.”

He brushed his lips lightly over her temple, and something buzzed hard in her belly.

“Or,” he continued softly, “even Violet Tandy’s chapters one through twenty-seven.”

Now he dragged his mouth lightly over her cheek.

“And her prologue.”

A kiss to her jaw.

“And her table of contents.”

A kiss to her nose.

“All her indices and appendices.”

Now he moved his mouth to the sensitive column of her throat.

“All her citations.”

Kiss.

“Her foreword and afterword.”

Kiss. Kiss.

“Her headers and footers.”

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

“Hell, I wouldn’t even mind being her epilogue.”

By now, Violet’s pulse was raging faster and hotter than a nuclear warhead. “But being my epilogue,” she managed to say breathlessly, “would mean being with me at the very end of my story. That you’d be my happily ever after. And that I’d be yours.”

“Well, if you must…”

He leaned toward her again, pressing his mouth to her neck once more, and covering her breast completely with his hand. She gasped at the forwardness and immediacy of the intimate contact, but lifted her hands to his hair again, threading them through the thick mass to pull his head closer still.

“Which means,” he murmured against her throat as he massaged her tender flesh, “that it’s time to get started on chapter twenty-nine.”

She pressed her mouth to his temple this time, then dragged it down along his jaw, covering his mouth with hers hungrily, needfully, passionately. “Don’t you want to eat something first?” she asked as she tore her lips from his. “I mean, we missed dinner.”

“Oh, believe me, I plan to eat something.” He moved his mouth to her ear and told her exactly what was on his menu in earthy—and in no uncertain—terms. Then he carried her back into her bedroom so they could get right to work on their next chapter.

To say nothing of their happy ending.

Epilogue

Violet nestled more deeply into her pillow, savoring the softness of the vanilla-scented sheets and the thrum of a purr near her ear. Desdemona, the one-eyed Siamese cat she’d rescued from the Evanston animal shelter where she volunteered three days a week, made it a habit to curl herself around Violet’s head when she slept, while three-legged Edgar and schizophrenic Pippin, the two tabbies, snored happily at the foot of the bed. Norton the asthmatic Basset hound huffed on the floor beside the bed, where the blind Greyhound Betsy whined good-naturedly by his side. It was a chorus to which Violet awoke every morning, and to her, it was the most beautiful symphony in the world.

Warm sunlight filtered through the lace curtains that covered the window above the bed, but she didn’t want to open her eyes just yet. It was Sunday morning, the one day of the week when she could sleep as late as she wanted. And with Gavin lying in bed beside her—nuzzling her from head to toe—as he had been on so many mornings lately, it was a safe bet she wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. Even in his sleep, his arm was roped across her waist and his head was bent to hers. She could scarcely believe eight months had passed since he’d stormed into her book signing in the city. In some ways, it felt as if no time at all had passed. In other ways…

Well. In other ways, she felt as if it had been a lifetime since last October.

What a difference eight months could make. When she had met Gavin, the weather had been cold and bitter, the unforgiving wind whipping off Lake Superior like an angry CEO hell-bent on suing someone he wrongly thought was defaming him. But now, on the cusp of July, the days and nights were mild enough to sleep with the windows open. Ten months ago, she’d had to walk up five flights of steps to reach her tiny urban apartment. But thanks to the combination of book advances and royalties—not to mention a movie option on High Heels—Violet had been able to make a down-payment on a snug little cottage in Evanston.

A cottage that had white clapboard and black shutters and a picket fence encircling its front yard. One where wisteria and morning glory grew lush and fragrant beneath their canopy of sugar maple and oak. One whose kitchen was so often filled with the aroma of cheerful pastries. One with a white wicker swing on the front porch where Violet both read and wrote during the day, and where she and Gavin spent lazy evenings counting fireflies and stars.

Who would have ever thought a man like him could engage in such pointless, whimsical activities? But then, she thought further, there had been times when she was a kid when she wouldn’t have thought she would enjoy such things, either.

She’d spent virtually her entire life planning this little house in the ’burbs. She’d designed it down to the last cobblestone in the garden. And now it was hers. The only dream she’d ever dared to dream in her life had actually come true.