Chapter Twenty-Four Gavin
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gavin
“Jordan,” I said as I connected the call, the Bluetooth picking up, so my brother’s voice would soon be blasting through the speakers of my SUV. “What’s going on, brother?”
“Just checking on things. Seeing how everything is at the office. You must be leaving for the day, no?”
Our corporate headquarters flew by the back seat window as Denis drove toward my place, and I finally reached for the knot at my throat, loosening it, along with unbuttoning the top of my shirt. “All is good.”
“That’s all you’ve got for me? That things are good?”
There was a vibration in my hand, and I glanced down at the text on the screen of my phone.
Emily: Blue or red?
Me: What am I picking out?
Emily: A dress I’m buying for Nashville. I can’t decide which color will look best on me.
“Since you’ve been on the road, you’re copied on no less than a hundred emails an hour,” I said to him.
“You get a daily report from our assistant, and you speak to her probably every hour or more. I can’t imagine, out of all the things you could ask me, that you’re generally curious about the climate at the office. ”
Me: Red. Always red.
Me: And you’re not buying a dress, I’m buying the dress.
He chuckled. “Always such a fucking dick.”
Emily: Nice try, but no.
Me: Emily, I’m buying the dress.
Emily: You can fight with me when you see me tonight. And when you fight me, I hope you use teeth because that would be so hot.
“I’m just speaking the truth,” I said to my brother. “You must have a reason for calling. Instead of beating around the bush, how about you tell me what it is.”
Me: You want me to bite you . . .
Emily: Yesss.
Emily: See you soon.
“All right, then. Here’s what’s on my mind . . . I’m staring at Maya’s engagement ring that I just picked up from the jeweler, and I’m thinking to myself, When the hell is my brother going to tell me about him and Emily?”
As Denis’s eyes connected with mine in the rearview mirror, my head leaned back, pushing into the top of the seat. “You’re proposing. It’s about goddamn time.”
“Don’t avoid the topic. I’ll just bring it right back up.”
I took off my seat belt and slipped out of my suit jacket. “How do you know about Emily and me?”
“Did you honestly think my security team wasn’t going to show me the footage of you and her in my elevator?”
It took me a second to realize what he was talking about.
The night I’d walked into Jordan’s place and Emily was on the couch. When I’d offered to drive her home.
When I’d fucking gone down on her in the elevator.
“Jesus Christ,” I groaned. “Tell me you deleted the footage?”
“It’s gone, don’t worry. But I’m going to ask the question again. When were you going to tell me about you and Emily?”
“This has been . . .” Emily exhaled, glancing at the view through the wall of glass from our penthouse suite at the Cole and Spade Hotel in downtown Nashville. “Nothing short of amazing.”
As she sat next to me on the couch, wearing the red dress she wouldn’t let me buy, my hand slipped behind her neck.
While she was focused on the scenery of the city, I looked down her body, my view far more perfect.
The dress cupped her tits, tucking most of them in like a pocket, and then showed off the flatness of her stomach and widened just enough for her hips before it ended at the middle of her thighs.
It would be a fucking miracle if we made it to the dinner I had planned and I didn’t just eat her instead.
“The trip isn’t over yet,” I told her.
“I don’t want it to end.” She finally left the windows to look at me. “I’ve had the best time with you.”
My lips went to her hair, and I breathed her in while I kissed her. “You know, it doesn’t have to end.”
“You mean I can permanently run away from all my responsibilities?” She laughed. “Goodbye, rent. Goodbye, other bills. I won’t miss you.” She shook her head, and that was when my lips lifted off her. “God, that sounds extremely tempting.”
My fingers spread across the back of her neck. “When you move in with us, you won’t need two jobs. You won’t need any job unless you want to keep them. So yes, Emily, you can run from all of it. And you can run straight to my place.”
She searched my eyes. “When I move in with you . . .” Her voice trailed off, silence filling the room for several seconds. “Are you asking me to move in?”
“You’re basically living with us now. How often are you at your apartment? A couple of times a week? If that?”
She turned her whole body toward me and took a drink of her wine. “Gavin . . .”
“You could keep your job with Dr. Kaplan if you really want to and pull back from the rehab center.” I opened the front flap of my sports coat as I twisted on the couch to face her straight on.
“I’m sure Dr. Kaplan would let you work as many times a week as you want.
And that way, you’d get to treat kids, just like your plan was all along.
But again, only if you want to. You don’t have to. ”
Her chest rose as she took several deep breaths. “You just unloaded a suitcase the size of a dumpster.”
I chuckled. “I know . . .”
She searched my eyes. “Do you, though?”
“We need to talk.” I let that sink in. “After the conversation I recently had with my brother, it became apparent.”
“What conversation?” Her brows rose.
I took a long drink of my scotch. “Jordan asked when I was going to tell him about us. I had no idea how he knew, since I hadn’t said anything to him.
That’s when he proceeded to tell me about the security cameras in his private elevator.
Apparently, there’s footage of me getting on my knees and licking your pussy.
” Her eyes began to widen. “Considering that happened a while ago, he’s been sitting on this news for quite a bit.
” I wasn’t going to drop the engagement bomb. I didn’t think I needed to.
“Gavin, What?” She put her hands over her face. “Your brother saw you? Doing that to me? I’m about to die right now.”
“He deleted the footage, don’t worry.”
“But he saw it.” Her hands dropped while I nodded, then instantly returned to her face. “Yep. I seriously want to die.”
I pulled her fingers away. “Listen to me, I’ve walked in on my brother during a threesome. I’ve seen the dude doing plenty of shit over the years. This isn’t something you need to worry about.”
“I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not.”
“The man is practically married, which means he saw the footage, he immediately deleted it, and he waited for me to tell him about us. I didn’t, and that’s the fucked-up part about this. I should have told him, Emily.”
“Hold on a second.” Her hand went to her chest, tapping her heart as though she wanted to slow it down. “Has he told Maya?”
“If he did, I’m sure she would have asked you. Don’t you think?”
She slowly nodded. “Yes.”
“Baby, why haven’t you told her?”
Her cheeks puffed out as she filled them with air, eventually releasing it through her mouth.
“This is some of the baggage that’s inside the dumpster-sized suitcase.
” She paused. “During my last girls’ night with Maya, she said to me that I need to find myself a Jordan.
And instead of saying I already have one, I agreed with her. ”
“Why?”
She took another drink and set her wine on the coffee table.
“I don’t know. Part of me thought you didn’t want them to know, even though your mom and Bettie know—which, I get, makes no sense.
Part of me thought you wanted to keep us a secret.
Part of me kinda liked the whole secret thing and found it so hot.
Part of me still doesn’t believe we’re together, and the ridiculously sexy owner of the Bears, who I saw at the game that night with Maya, is really my boyfriend.
” She rubbed her hands over the bottom of her dress.
“And maybe a part of me wanted you to be the one to say it’s time to tell Maya and Jordan.
” She let out another long exhale. “My reasoning is quite possibly a mixture of all that.”
I held her chin. “Emily, once I got the approval from my son—yes, I got his approval to have you around more, and I made sure he wanted to hang out with you as much as I do—it didn’t matter to me who knew.
” Her lips pursed the second I mentioned my boy.
“The Ben step was the most important. After I got past it, you could have screamed about our relationship from the top of my building.” My hand moved to her cheek.
“I should have made that clear to you. I should have had this conversation with you, and I’m sorry I didn’t.
And I feel like shit for not telling Jordan.
I should have, I don’t know why I didn’t.
But I can understand how things could have been confusing for you.
” I gave her a small kiss. “I assure you, I want the whole fucking world to know you’re mine. ”
“Feel this.” She put my hand on her heart. “Emotion is literally exploding through me.”
“I might as well unload a little more of that suitcase, then.” I traced my thumb across her lips, holding her gorgeous bright-blue gaze. “I love you, Emily.”
Her eyes closed, and when they opened, they were filled with tears. “You do?”
I wiped the first one before it fell from her eyelid. “I have for a while.”
She threw her arms around my neck. “Gavin, I love you too.”
I hugged her against me, and when she pulled back, she kissed me. She cupped my face to keep me close until she separated our mouths, then pressed our noses together.
She sighed. “Maya is going to murder me for not telling her.”
“Maybe it would be safer to do it over the phone.” I chuckled.
“I can’t. It feels like something I should do in person. Unless Jordan or your mom or Bettie tells her before I get the chance.”
I shook my head. “They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of my past. Because of losing Sarah, Ben’s mom.
They know I don’t love easily or at all.
And if I ever did, like the way I love you, they would treat the situation as though it were glass.
” I leaned back to look in her eyes. “I assure you, no one is saying a word about this. In fact, they’re tiptoeing, hoping more than anything that you’re the one.
” I slipped my arm around her back, a smile stretching across my lips as I admitted, “And you are.”