Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Elle
Moments blur together like fuzzy pictures on a reel inside my head. Bo’s smile the first time we met. Him and Nate on my doorstep, The hay loft. Sadie standing behind me, yelling at me as she forced me to affirm myself in the mirror. The roast I made last night. The first paycheck I earned, even though it was for only a days’ worth of work. Bo and Nate outside my work, in goofy suits, with a horse-drawn carriage. Happy memories that fill me with hope and joy, that make me think I actually can have everything I want, that I can believe in myself, that I am worthy of having dreams, and of getting to see those dreams come true.
But just as quickly the happy images are replaced by awful ones. My ex cheating on me. The tabloids roasting me. My father’s disappointment. My credit card declining because he cut me off. The weight of realizing I could not be with who I wanted to be with without blowing up everything I’d always thought my life would be.
“Please, we can work it out, I promise.” Bo’s strained plea breaks through the montage in my brain, and his mouth turns up in a hopeful smile. I meet his gaze and suck in a breath. Do I dare tell them the truth about who I really am?
Blowing out a breath, I press my hand flat against his, and twine our fingers together. I might as well go for it, because what do I have to lose?
“My name is Eleanor Cordelia Winston,” I tell them.
Bo shrugs. Nate raises his eyebrows.
I roll my eyes. “It’s important.” I go on to explain everything. How I was raised, how I messed up, how I’d been used by some jackass as tabloid fodder, and how my father had reacted. How I’d ended up here. That my plan had been to find a good man and settle down, at least long enough to appease my father and obtain my trust.
Miraculously and unexpectedly, they listen without a word, nodding along in understanding and I see no judgement in their eyes. Once or twice I notice them exchange a look I can’t decipher.
“So that’s it,” I finish. “I need my trust because it’s all I have to offer. I’ve never been allowed to aspire to be anything other than a trophy wife. I have a degree, but it’s a useless one. I went to school to get my MRS degree.” I make a face. “I couldn’t even do that right.”
Bo sucks in a breath, but I’m too wrapped up in my feelings to really notice or even care.
“So you see, it’s not you, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. I was just born into a different world, under the weight of societal expectations. I can’t bring home two men, and I can’t risk losing everything, because I don’t have anything to fall back on.”
Bo looks at Nate and they’re doing it again. Exchanging glances I don’t understand. “Fall back on us.”
I shake my head. They don’t know what they’re saying.
Bo steps close, wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me up against him. “Eleanor Cordelia Winston.” He says it with a bit of teasing and yet an air of reverence. “Do you know our last names?”
I think for a moment, then shake my head. I guess there are a lot of things I never asked, because I knew we were doomed from the start.
“Well mine is Harris, and Nate’s is Bowery, but it should have been Allistair.”
I frown, remembering that they’d mentioned meeting in the system, being foster brothers.
“He’s Governor Allistair’s bastard son.”
I suck in a breath because Governor Allistair isn’t from some redneck state I’ve never heard of. He’s the governor of New York. I squint my eyes and peer at Nate. I see it. The resemblance is very much there. “Okay, why are you telling me this?”
“Because if one or two things had been different in my life, we could have had a very similar upbringing.”
He’s right, but I don’t see how it matters. I’m not strong enough to walk away, to put myself first. It’s the opposite of what I’ve ever been expected to do, and old habits die screaming.
Nate steps beside Bo. He laces my fingers through his. Then he shrugs. “You’re right. There’s no reason to tell you. It doesn’t matter. At all. My past has nothing to do with the man I am today or the one I become. I’m so much more than the way I was raised, which in case you were wondering was by a cracked-out mother who put her heartbreak up her nose on a daily basis. But the point is, Elle, we all have things to overcome.” He offers a sad smile. “Personally, I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”
My expression mirrors his. “That’s sweet but…” I sigh. “I want to be the person that just walks away and goes after what I want with no care for money or anything or anyone else, but I don’t think I can be that person.” I shake my head, my voice cracking. “I don’t think I can live the struggle life. I know it sounds shallow, and I hate myself for it, but it is what it is.”
Nate
Her words are saying no, but her tone is begging us to convince her to stay, to reassure her that it will all work out.
I look at Bo, another silent conversation. There’s a part of me, the cynical part, saying that this shouldn’t be so hard. The other part is saying to push to get past this obstacle and I’ll have everything I ever wanted. I can see on Bo’s face what he’s thinking. He won’t forgive himself if we don’t make every effort, put everything out there, do our level best to prove to Elle she’s the one we want, and we can be the ones she needs.
I take a deep breath, preparing to tell her the one thing I’ve never told anyone but Bo. “We don’t struggle.” I wave my hand around, gesturing up toward the land that our ranch sits on. “We work hard, and we spend carefully, and we may not live like the upper-class elite, but…” I shrug. “We could.”
“What?” Elle makes a face of pure confusion.
I smile. “Turns out there’s a perk to being a bastard son. Hush money. My mom collected it every month, and for all her faults, she never spent a dime. It sat in an untouchable trust until I turned twenty-five. I didn’t even know about it until then.”
Her mouth falls open and works like a fish again.
“It’s quite sizeable,” Bo confirms with a nod. “We own this place outright. We don’t have to worry that one bad year can ruin us, unlike most farmers and ranchers around here. We just do what we love.”
She’s about to walk away, I can feel it, but I can also feel that she’s fighting something deep within her. I recall Sadie’s advice to us last week at the diner. Stability. Independence. Princess.
It feels like a tall order, and one full of things that are in direct opposition with each other. But… I take a gamble. I step forward, and brush her hair behind her ear, then cup her cheek with the palm of my hand.
“You are incredible, and the fact that you don’t see it makes you even more so. You say you can’t walk away, but you already did. You left so much behind, and you came here to start over. There had to be a reason for that.”
She lowers her gaze and seems to curl into my touch. A good sign. I keep going.
“You came here and you found us, your Daddies. That’s what we want to be anyway, and I think it’s what you want too.”
I brush the pad of my thumb over her soft lips. “Let your Daddies take care of you. You don’t need your trust. You have so much more to offer.”
“I don’t see it,” she whispers, the weight of her admission heavy in her tone. Her sadness breaks my heart.
“We see it, babygirl. We have from the first second we met you. We’re meant to be your Daddies, and if you’ll let us, we’ll hold you up, lift you up until you can see what we see.”
“I want to,” she whispers. “I want to so badly. There’s just…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a movement, and jerk my head to see Bo drop to one knee in front of her. He grabs her hand.
Well, shit. That’s what we planned. But I trust him, so I do the same.
Elle gasps, but her eyes are sparkling with hope. It spurs me forward and I realize Bo was right, as usual.
“Eleanor Cordelia Winston,” he says, his eyes welling with tears as his voice starts to crack, “we love you for you. For who you were, the little girl weighed down by expectations of a life she didn’t choose. We love you for who you are, a brave smart woman who set out on an adventure to find herself, and we love you for whoever you’re going to become. We can’t wait to see it.”
Bo clears his throat then continues, “You might not be sure, but we are. We have been from day one. So just know that we will fight for you, that we will not give up on you, that we will wait for you. We want you. We don’t care about the past, or the money, or any of it. We only care about you.”
“We love you, Elle, and we can’t wait to spend every day falling deeper in love with you.”
She’s crying and nodding, and Bo digs in his pocket, pulling out a ring. A stunning princess-cut solitaire on a white-gold band. I didn’t know he had it, but I’m not really surprised. I haven’t said a thing since we got down on our knees, so I take it from his hand and hold it out. “Eleanor Cordelia Winston, will you please trust us? Trust yourself to be the amazing woman, wife and mother we know you will be? Please babygirl, say yes. Marry us, and make our family complete?”
I hold my breath because this whole day went off the rails from the plan we talked about, and I hate it when that happens. And now I’m down on one knee proposing to the woman who not twenty minutes ago was about to walk away again. The anxiety is eating me alive as I wait for her answer.
Finally, with her eyes shining with tears, Elle blows out a breath and offers a shaky nod. She swallows hard, then finds her voice. “You already love me in ways I’ve never been loved before and I can’t wait to see what kind of life we can build together. I can’t wait to be a part of a real family. Our family. My Daddies and me and Amelia.” She pulls one hand away and wipes at the tears falling down her face. “She’s going to be the luckiest little girl. I’m going to give her everything I never had. She will always know she’s loved, and supported unconditionally, and I’m going to make sure she knows she can be anything she sets her mind to.”
“Is that… a yes?” Bo asks hopefully.
It sure sounded like one, but the words were never actually said.
Elle tosses her head back and laughs, and spreads out her hand in front of Bo. “Yes, yes, that’s a yes!” she cries.
Bo pushes the ring on her waiting finger, and we both get to our feet to gather her in our arms. We embrace, laughing and crying and kissing and then finally the three of us link arms. “I’ve been wanting to say this to you since the moment I meant you, Elle,” Bo tells her. “Let’s go home.”
And we do.