The Princess And The Cowboy Page 13

  “Within a month, she’d hooked up with another rich guy, and when I was born, she told him he was my father. She divorced him when I was two—I don’t remember anything about him. I lived with her for the first eight years of my life. She hated my guts, but she kept me around and didn’t tell Harry about me for revenge. She was alcohol-and drug-addicted for as long as I can remember. Her life was like a revolving door with men cycling through for a few months at a time before she moved on to the next one. The men were always rich.”

  Lily listened to Justin recite the details of his life with the same remote lack of interest as if he was reading from a stranger’s case-history file. Even his eyes held no passion, no reaction at all to what must be painful memories.

  “I told you I was eight years old when my mother dumped me with her father and stepmother. She never came back. I was ten when they told me she’d overdosed and died. I was twelve when my grandfather died and his wife called Harry. I swore on Grandad’s grave that when I grew up, I’d live alone on the ranch in Idaho. Harry bought it outright and told me he’d sell it to me when I was old enough to run it if I’d willingly live with him. You pretty much know the rest of it,” he said. “I stayed with Harry in Seattle until I was out of college, then I went back to Idaho and the ranch. I own sixty percent of the ranch, Harry still holds forty percent. That’s the acreage he threatened to sell off to a stranger if I didn’t agree to marry and have children. I agreed, but only because Harry’s health is questionable and because if I refused, my brothers would lose what they love most, too. And none of us did it for the money,” he said, his eyes turning suddenly fierce. “None of us.”

  “But if you couldn’t ask me to marry you two years ago, what’s different now?” Lily asked, trying to remain neutral when she was outraged at the pain and neglect that she instinctively knew lay behind the bare-bones details of his childhood.

  “I love you, Lily, but the only father-figure I know is Harry. He’s a brilliant, single-minded shark, a workaholic, and he raised us to be the same. In fact, it never occurred to me to consider putting anything or anyone before business until I met you. I would have made your life hell, and sooner or later, I would have broken your heart and drove you away. All without knowing what I was doing wrong.”

  “Justin,” Lily murmured, too shocked to speak above a whisper. “That’s just not true. You’re not like Harry at all, except for the intelligence.”

  “I hope you’re right, Lily. Because I thought I could play Harry’s game and arrange a marriage like a business deal, with a woman who cared as little for me as I did for her. But I couldn’t start the process until I’d seen you one more time.” He took one step and narrowed the distance between them to barely a foot. His hands took hers, cradling her palms in his. “And when I saw you, I knew I couldn’t marry anyone else but you.”

  “I thought it was Ava you fell in love with that night,” she whispered.

  “I did fall in love with Ava,” he admitted. “But she was the icing on the cake. It’s you I can’t live without.”

  “Are you sure?” Lily searched his face and found only stark honesty.

  “Without a doubt.” His grip on her hands tightened. “I have to warn you, though, I can’t be sure I won’t screw up and let you down at some point.”

  “I can’t promise you I won’t make mistakes, either, Justin. I doubt anyone can. We’re only human. I won’t expect you to be perfect one hundred percent of the time if you’ll forgive me if I only make it seventy-five percent.”

  He stroked his fingers over the curve of her cheek. “Does this mean you’ll forgive me?” he asked, his voice rasping with emotion.

  “If you promise we can divide our time between Seattle and the ranch so I can keep my shop.”

  “As long as we share our life, I’m in.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Thank God,” he muttered as he bent his head and took her mouth with his.

  Lily went up on tiptoe and slipped her arms around his neck. She murmured in approval when he swept her up in his arms and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  At last, she thought as he slipped her dress from her shoulders and trailed warm kisses down her throat.

  “I love you,” she murmured.

  “Not nearly as much as I love you,” he growled before he kissed her again and the world fell away.

  Epilogue

  December 5

  Justin and Lily’s wedding was the social event of Seattle’s fall season. After the service at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Seattle’s Queen Anne district, several hundred guests crowded the rooms of Harry’s mansion for the reception.

  “Is Ava with Cornelia?” Lily asked after nearly two hours of mingling and congratulations. She went up on tiptoe in an attempt to locate her daughter in the sea of chattering, laughing people.

  Taller than her, Justin quickly located his aunt and their little girl. “Yes, they’re talking with Harry and Gray,” Justin assured her. His hand rested on her waist and he pulled her closer to whisper in her ear, “Have I told you how much I like your dress?” His fingers stroked slowly up her spine to her nape before returning to rest on her hip. “I’m looking forward to unbuttoning all these buttons later.”

  Lily felt her cheeks flush. She smoothed her palm over the soft satin of her skirt—floor-length and luxuriously full, with yards of beautiful fabric. Only the toes of her matching pumps peeped out from below the hem of the cream lace-and-satin wedding gown. The bodice’s sweetheart neckline of cream satin was overlaid with lace that cupped her shoulders and threw patterned shadows over the upper swell of her breasts.

  “I thought about that when I first saw the dress,” she murmured, soft enough so only he would hear.

  Justin’s eyes darkened and he glanced at his watch. “How long before we can leave for the hotel?”

  Lily laughed and patted his cheek. “We haven’t even had the wedding toasts yet, and then we have to cut the cake.”

  “Let’s speed this up.” Justin took her hand and guided her through the crowd. Catching his brother J.T.’s attention, he mimed lifting a glass. J.T. grinned, nodded and spoke to a nearby waiter. Moments later, waitstaff moved thorough the crowded room, passing out filled champagne flutes.

  Justin and Lily reached the group that included Cornelia, Ava, Harry, J.T. and Alex just as the waiters approached.

  Lily sipped, the vintage champagne bubbly and tart against her tongue, as J.T. joined the nearby string quartet and claimed the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?”

  The noise in the room lowered by several decibels and finally quieted completely, the crowd’s attention fixed expectantly on J.T.

  “I’d like to make a toast.” He lifted his glass and turned to Justin and Lily. “To my little brother, who’s found an amazing woman willing to marry him.” The crowd laughed. J.T. grinned and winked at Lily. “Too bad she doesn’t have three sisters just like her for the rest of us.”

  “I’ll drink to that!” Harry lifted his glass.

  Behind him, Gray and Alex exchanged wry glances.

  “To Lily and Justin—may all your days be happy ones,” J.T. declared, tilting his glass in salute before drinking.

  It was another hour before Justin and Lily left the mansion. Ava was tucked in bed in the lavish nursery on the second floor, watched over by Cornelia and a delighted Harry.

  As the limo pulled away from the mansion, headed for the Alexis Hotel for an overnight stay, Lily curled into Justin’s arms.

  “I thought this day would never get here,” he murmured. “Have I told you how beautiful you are?”

  “Yes, you did.” She smiled. “But I never get tired of hearing it.”

  “God, I love you,” he muttered against her throat.

  “I love you, too, Justin. So much.”

  “You know I’m never letting you go,” he said fiercely.

  “Good,” she whispered. “Because I never want you t
o.”