Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“How long this time?” Zax asks with a cold austerity that tells me he’s fuming fucking mad. Lenox was right, but I don’t think this is his gloating moment.
“Practically since the beginning,” Lenox answers honestly, and wow, Grey and Zax did not like that answer. They are pissed .
“Fuck!” Grey hisses, dragging his hands through his hair and pacing away. “What the fuck, Lenox? You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants and out of my cousin for three fucking weeks so you could help her and not make it about you?”
I sigh. Older brothers. They’re like this. Overbearing and overprotective, and while I appreciate some of that—the part where I know they always have my back and would do anything for me—right now I think they’ve forgotten I’m a grown-ass woman.
Asher throws Lenox a sympathetic look, but Lenox is too focused on Zax and Grey to see it.
“You promised us,” Zax says coolly, his dark eyes locked on Lenox. “You fucking promised us.”
“I know.”
Zax huffs a breath, his hands meeting his hips and his eyes dropping to the floor.
“You know! That’s what you say? Are you fucking kidding me with that?
!” he shouts. “Because she wasn’t vulnerable enough, huh?
You had to go and fuck with her already fucked with head and heart?
” He eviscerates Lenox with his eyes. “Or wait, are you going to tell me it’s just fun and no feelings are involved? ” he mocks acerbically.
“Does anyone want to hear what I have to say in this?”
“No!” Grey and Zax both yell at me without so much as a glance in my direction.
Yikes. The tension over here is thick enough you could cut it with a scalpel. And while their blatant disregard for my position in this hurts and is frankly annoying and chauvinistic, I’m not sure I should intervene since Lenox told me this was between the three of them.
I get it. They’re pissed Lenox broke his promise to them. After he kept us a secret from them for two years and broke my heart.
So yeah, they’re angry. And I guess they technically have a right to be.
But the truth is, Lenox and I are two people who never knew how to stop once we started. We could have made a million rules and laws, said anything we wanted, and had a million obstacles between us. But at the end of the day, we were inevitable. It was always going to turn out like this.
The only difference between now and then is that the timing is right for it to really happen. Georgia and Lenox. Two people who couldn’t be more opposite from each other, and yet I’m not sure two people were ever more right together.
“Georgia, why don’t you and I?—”
“No,” I tell Asher. “I’m not going in the other room. I’m sorry, but this is crap.”
Everyone ignores me.
“It’s not just fun, and there are feelings involved,” Lenox answers Zax’s comment from like three minutes ago, because that’s how this is going right now .
“I trusted you with her,” Zax snarls, and Lenox makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat.
“No, you didn’t. Neither of you did, and I understood your reasoning for that. She needed help, and I was the only one who could deliver it. But you never trusted me with her. Not for a second.”
“Because you fucked her behind our backs for two years and then broke her heart!” Grey yells.
“Wait,” Asher calls out, stepping forward. “What is this? I thought they were just pissed because you were screwing around with their cousin.” Asher steps in front of Lenox. “When did that all happen?”
“Six years ago,” Zax tells him, and Asher frowns, shaking his head in consternation, but he’s looking at Lenox, really looking at him.
“Six years ago, huh? I remember you six years ago.” He puts his hand on Lenox’s shoulder. “I remember you the two years before that when you were evidently screwing around with Georgia behind our backs. Two years,” he repeats. “That’s no joke time right there. Tell me I’m wrong with that.”
“You’re not,” Lenox answers, and Asher nods, understanding lighting his features.
Lenox swallows hard, and then we hear footsteps, several of them, and then Callan and Aurelia are there.
“Katy and Mason are with Layla, Wynter, and Fallon in the other room,” Callan announces with an air of annoyance in his tone.
“We had them put on a movie. So how about you tell me what has you all yelling the word fuck when there are little children in the other room who were able to hear you?”
“Lenox is fucking Georgia,” Grey announces. “After he promised us he wouldn’t touch her.”
Aurelia rolls her eyes and comes over and stands beside me. “Men,” she grouses to me.
“Totally.” I smirk, only to quickly wipe it away.
“Should we let them work this out or step in? ”
“Work it out,” I whisper back to her. “And only step in if necessary.”
She nods in agreement.
“Again?” Callan murmurs, and everyone sort of freezes and then looks at him in surprise including Lenox. “What? I knew about it.”
“How did you know and I didn’t?” Asher challenges.
Callan rubs the back of his neck, his blue eyes flickering around to each one of us.
“Because I was there. We were all drowning in our shit, but Asher, you were in college in Alabama trying to get your football career going. Grey, you were working on music in LA and made your first solo album. Zax, you couldn’t handle looking at Lenox without losing your shit about Suzie, but I was there.
I was in medical school and living in an apartment not far from Lenox’s place in Cambridge, and I’d go there to study because I was fucking worried he was going to kill himself one day.
But then he started going out, and when he’d come home, he was different.
Calmer. Less restless and self-destructive.
He was in his head less. I saw Georgia’s name in a text once on his phone and put it together.
I figured she was helping him when no one else could and in ways no one else could, so I didn’t say anything because I was afraid it would stop. ”
“I saw it too,” Zax admits, his expression anguished.
“I did. I didn’t know it was Georgia, but when you told me it had been going on for two years…
” He trails off and heaves a heavy breath.
“It’s why I couldn’t bring myself to hate you or let you go.
Georgia gave you something we couldn’t, but I couldn’t handle you hurting her for it. ”
“I couldn’t handle that either,” Lenox promises, moving over and standing before Zax and glancing over at Grey.
“I loved her. When I loved nothing in this world except for my dead sister and you guys, I loved her. I’ve loved her since.
I’ve loved her always. She and I just didn’t get there until very recently because she hated me for the majority of the time we’ve been married.
There was nothing to tell you, not really, until now.
This isn’t how I wanted you to find out. I had a plan for it. ”
“Yeah, that’s sorta my bad,” Asher apologizes, and Callan grabs him by the shoulder.
“Come on, brother. Let’s let them figure this out. No one is bleeding, and no one needs to be held back. Am I right with that? Will it stay that way?” Callan asks Zax and a still-emotional Grey. Both nod.
“And miss the show?” Asher pouts.
My lips bounce, and Aurelia pats Asher on the back. “I’ll give you the highlights reel after.”
“Thanks, doll, but I’ll need more than highlights. I’ll want the play-by-play.” He gives me a conspiratorial wink, and Aurelia shoves him in the direction of the media room. But Asher, as always, has managed to lighten the mood, which was obviously his intent.
“You love her?” Grey asks, standing before Lenox, searching his face. “This isn’t just sex?”
Lenox shakes his head and holds out his hand to me.
When I take it, I feel his trembling, and then his eyes meet mine, and one by one, he slips my wedding band off first, followed by my engagement ring.
My breath catches and my eyebrows knot together, and I frown when Lenox hands Zax Suzie’s ring back.
“What are you doing?” Zax questions.
“This isn’t her ring,” Lenox states simply.
“When we were kids, you asked me if you could date Suzie. You promised me you’d never hurt her and that you’d always be good to her.
I didn’t give you the same respect with Georgia because I wasn’t in a position to make that same level of promise.
But I am now. My plan was that I was going to ask you both for your permission to be her husband. Then all this happened, and now…”
He trails off and turns back to me, his blue eyes all over me.
“I love you,” he says slowly. “I’m completely in love with you, Georgia Monroe. I don’t just want you, I need you. Every day, I need you more and more. So I don’t want you to wear Suzie’s ring. I want you to wear mine.”
He lowers himself down onto one knee, and mine just about give out.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a ring, no box, and slides it right onto my finger. “We’re already married, but now I’m asking if you’ll be my wife.”
Oh hell. My chest clenches, and tears instantly burn my eyes.
“Yours and no one else’s,” I whisper, my voice cracking at the end as a tear slips out and tracks down my cheek.
He smiles softly and slips my ruby band back on my finger, nestling it against my new diamond ring.
He stands, his hands sliding up to cup my cheeks, his thumbs wiping away my tears, and then he kisses me.
Right here in front of his cousins and Aurelia.
No more hiding. No more sneaking around. No more trying to hate what is impossible not to love.
The moment he pulls away, Zax and Grey grab him and haul him in for giant hugs. They’re whispering stuff to him that I can’t hear, but whatever it is has Lenox smiling and laughing.
Aurelia snatches my hand and jerks it in her direction. “That’s a hell of a ring.”
I gaze down at the large emerald-cut diamond with tapered baguette side stones. Simple. Beautiful. Classic. “It’s perfect.”
“Yeah. It really is. Your husband did good.”
I laugh. My husband. “It feels so strange now after how this all began.”
“We should throw a party. An actual party this time. Give you a proper wedding. I bet Asher would get ordained for it and remarry you. You know him.”
I glance over at Lenox, who is watching us, and tilt my head. “What do you think?”
“You want Asher to marry you?” Grey asks incredulously.
“It can’t be you or Zax. You’re family. It’s not exactly Callan’s thing, but it totally is Asher’s.”
“I’ll do it!” Asher calls out from down the hall and comes sprinting back toward us.
“I told them I had to go to the bathroom, and the fools didn’t challenge me or think I’d sneak back over to listen.
It’s like they don’t know me at all. Anyway, yes, I’ll marry you.
Mason can be your ring bearer, and Katy your flower girl. Let’s do it. Let’s fucking do it!”
“Did you take something?” I ask, and he shakes his head .
“No, I’m just amped. I want to ask Wynter to marry me, but she’d tell me it’s too soon, which it likely is, but whatever. This is the next best thing. Let’s do it Friday since I have to leave Saturday for Dallas for a game on Sunday.”
Lenox’s lips twitch with amusement, and he threads our hands, his eyes all over me as if the decision is mine.
“Sure,” I say, loving the idea more and more. “Let’s do it.”
“Yay!” Aurelia jumps up and down and pulls out her phone and starts texting.
A second later, Wynter, Fallon, and Layla all come running in.
I’m swarmed in hugs and congratulations and oohs and aahs over my ring.
Zax and Grey are all smiles, happy that this didn’t end in tears and heartbreak and broken noses all over their faces.
I’m getting married. And though my dad or even my mom won’t be there, I already know it’s going to be the wedding of my dreams since I’m marrying the man of them.
After that, we finally leave the foyer and gather in the great room, Boston Harbor and the skyline beyond the large windows. Lenox has me on his lap as he silently listens to everyone chattering around him, his fingers toying with the rings on my hand.
We told everyone about Alfie and Ezra, though Zax already seemed to know most of it. As far as I’m concerned, they’re on borrowed time, and with them both being clueless and across the country, I’m not going to overthink now. Not today, at least.
That time will come.
“We should go shopping tomorrow,” Fallon says. “I’d love a fun dress for this.”
“Same,” Layla agrees. “And not that I’m inviting myself to be, because I realize we don’t know each other all that well yet, and while I’d be honored to be a bridesmaid, please do not make us all wear the same thing.”
I laugh. “What? You don’t all want to wear pastel pink?”
“No,” all the women say at once.
“Wear whatever you want, and obviously you’re all my bridesmaids because that’s how this works. I bought a dress when we were in Vegas. It’s the one I got married in there, but it’s up in Maine. ”
“Pfsht.” Aurelia waves that away. “That dress doesn’t count, and you definitely can’t re-wear it for this. Talk about bad luck. We’ll all go to my studio tomorrow, and I’ll get you set up in a gorgeous gown.”
“A gown?” I scrunch my nose. “You don’t think that’s a bit too much for this, for just us, for just here?”
“No,” all the women cry once again in unison making us all crack up.
“Fine. I’ll wear a gown. With a lot of sparkly crystals on it, because that’s what I want.” I twist on Lenox’s lap so I can see his face. “You can’t wear a tux.”
His eyes glitter. “No?”
I shake my head. “No. Definitely not. You’re not a tux guy.”
“What should I wear then?”
I press my lips to his. “Surprise me.”
Just then a notification sounds on Lenox’s phone, and he shifts me around on his lap so he can dig into his pocket to pull it out. His eyebrows bounce, and a grin curls up the corner of his lips.
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
“It seems the LAPD are moving fast for once.” He flips his phone around so I can read his screen.
“What is that?” I ask because it’s sort of difficult to tell.
“That’s the inside of the LAPD’s computer systems. They have a warrant for Alfie and Ezra Earnheart on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and aiding and abetting murder. Once the FBI gets wind that they’ve been arrested for this, it’ll all come together.”
“And you, Georgia, will be thrust back into the media spotlight,” Callan says.
“Yes,” Lenox agrees. “Only this time, she won’t be in it alone.”