34. Vivian
thirty-four
Vivian
I should be used to the blissful sensation of dancing in Finn’s arms since we practiced with the rest of the town and then on our own under the stars on his deck. Of course, that last session ended up being more kissing than dancing, but…something feels different tonight.
Revelatory.
It takes me two turns of the floor before I realize that I can’t hold my feelings in anymore. I’ve had so many near misses these past two weeks, but with Finn smirking at me as we glide around the room, his black hair loose and playful over his forehead, I can’t not tell him I love him.
“I want to tell you something,” I begin.
His flirty expression falls, sincerity replacing it. “I do too.”
The tight line of his lips makes my heart smack the underside of my chin, but I swallow to force it down and continue. “I, um… I’ve really enjoyed our time together. This has been the best month of my—”
Finn’s smooth steps falter, nearly stomping on my dress. “Are you ending us?”
“What?” An unhinged cackle flies from my mouth. “No. That would make me an absolute dunderhead.”
“A dunderhead, huh?” When Finn smiles at me with that twinkle in his eyes, my words get stuck in my throat.
“Well, yes...because I, uh…”
Though I’ve run through this scenario in my head each night before I fall asleep, I can’t seem to organize my thoughts now.
Not when all my bookish dreams are coming true and the man I love is effortlessly guiding me around the dance floor surrounded by my favorite locals.
The only thing that would make this night more perfect is if Brynn decided to attend.
Since my sister would rather wear sweats than formal anything, I’d known she wouldn’t be interested in the ball. The only reason we’d gone to our senior prom was because we’d both had dates, and Aunt Tammy insisted it was a life milestone we’d regret if we skipped it.
Also…I kinda dropped a pretty big bomb on her earlier, and Brynn needs time—and miles under her feet—to process everything.
When I’d told her about the Oceanside Artisan Fair, she’d been floored.
My sister had given me a hug so tight I almost had to tap out.
And when Brynn told me how proud she was, I happily spilled about everything else: the consignment deal with the dress shop on the mainland, my plans to give her a weekend off with a spa day, and my goal to take us both to Vegas.
I should have been paying attention as I gushed about my plans, then I would have noticed how Brynn had gone silent, how her foot began fidgeting.
That much change at once probably made my sister feel like her skin was peeling off.
I’m honestly surprised she waited until after Finn picked me up to start pounding the pavement.
Once Brynn can wrap her head around everything, I know she’ll be one hundred percent on board.
“May I go first?” Finn’s gentle question brings me back to the room.
Since Finn has always waited for me when I’ve struggled to speak and is gazing at me like I’m the only person in this room, I nod.
“I want you to know that I’ve never been honest with anyone the way I am with you. Not even with my sister.”
Finn had shared a few more stories from when they’d been kids, including a hilarious recounting of a stubborn seven-year-old Cordelia refusing to go to school unless her big brother put her hair in a ponytail.
Every day for three months, she demanded he style her hair.
During the memory, Finn had mentioned that he hadn’t gone to boarding school like his older brother but stayed at the local academy to be close to Cordelia, knowing he’d leave her soon enough for college.
Finn takes a deep breath. “By the time she was born, I’d already internalized my father’s insistence that something was wrong with me.
I’d known that survival meant keeping my innermost thoughts hidden.
But with you”—his gloved thumb traces my cheek—“everything is different. It doesn’t make sense, but you seem to like the unpolished parts of me best.”
My fingers tighten around Finn’s arm. I will explode—just become a puffball of shredded lace and beading—if I don’t tell this incredible man how valued he is, how wonderful he is, and how much my heart belongs to him.
“Finn—”
“I never want to interrupt you, gorgeous, but let me finish this.”
I press my lips together, nodding.
“I’m not who you think I am.” A shudder racks his body as if he expected the air to liquify at the release of those words.
“Let me guess. You’re Batman?”
The joke lands just as I had hoped, pulling a genuine smile across Finn’s delectable beard scruff and an unexpected chuckle from his lips.
Then all the joy dies as he releases a slow exhale. “Kind of.”
Kind of?
“I’m the son of Patrick Otto, of Otto Hotels.” Finn pauses, surveying my confused brow for a beat before he continues.
“My father is a shrewd businessman, exceedingly wealthy, and ruthlessly callous—in both work and his personal life. In college, I had a girlfriend who I thought loved me for who I was and not for the billions tied to my name, so I asked her to marry me. But the whole thing was a farce. My father had put her in my path…after she signed a contract.” A humorless puff of air leaves his mouth as his lips twist into a sneer.
“That’s my father’s favorite thing—contracts.
He loves those more than his children, his wives, probably more than his money… ”
Finn takes a steadying breath, and my mind threatens to overheat, processing this information.
“The terms were simple. Marry me, bear one child, leave before said child turns five, and she walks away with one hundred million.” Finn shakes his head in disgust. “The saddest thing is, he could have easily parted with a billion and not even blinked. After discovering my father’s deceit, we had a falling out.
I was done with all of it. Call it a quarter-life crisis, but I’d figured out that money didn’t solve anything.
In my family’s case, it ruined everything good.
Before I could leave, my dad made me sign a contract, forcing me to change my name, threatening to sue me if I disclosed anything about my true identity, and unknowingly bound me to my sister’s future. ”
My eyebrows hurt from being pinched together. None of this makes any sense. It sounds like the plot to a Wellington novel, not real life.
“In order for my sister to keep her trust, I either need to become the library director or return to work for my father.”
My mouth opens and closes, doing that ridiculous goldfish thing I thought I’d outgrown.
Finn glances over my shoulder before fixing me with a pleading stare. “I wanted you to know now. Assuming I get this promotion at the end of summer, everything will stay as it is. But if I don’t, I’ll only have a year with you before I have to leave to work for him.”
“But you’re a librarian, not a billionaire.” These are the only words my frazzled brain can put together.
A sad smile graces his lips. “Yes. This career and this life is what I traded my billions for, and there’s not a day I regret it, but I need you to understand that as much as I love you, I promised to ensure Cordelia’s future first.”
My chest tightens. “You love me?”
“More than I ever thought possible.”
The honesty in Finn’s amber eyes is unmistakable.
For all the times I’ve encouraged him to tell me the truth, he’s offering this freely.
It’s a breathtaking thing, seeing this man open his tender heart up to me.
I blink, stunned to the marrow but just as determined to prove to Finn that I feel the same.
My fingers curl around his wrist, breaking the dance and dragging him into the stacks.
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t understand.” His large body blocks everyone from view, the bafflement between his brows achingly sweet.
How could he not understand that I’d follow him anywhere?
“When— If you have to work for your father, I’ll go with you. I’ll move wherever you need to be.”
“ Vivian. ” My name sounds like a prayer and the first breath of air in an infant’s lungs and the sound of rain saturating an arid desert all at the same time.
“I can’t ask you to do that. You’d be leaving your town, your sister, your business.” Though his words hold undeniable truths, his fingers curl around my waist, almost like he can’t let go.
I brush a lock of his hair aside before setting my palm against his cheek. “I’m choosing you, Finn, because I love you too. I love you for exactly who you are in here.” My hand moves to rest over his heart. Even through all the layers of fabric, I can feel its solid beat. “Nothing else.”
Finn’s fingertips tremble as they rise to frame my face. “I never thought this would be possible for me.”
Tears spring to my eyes. “I know. But if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you how much you deserve it.”
When Finn’s lips crash over mine, the overhead lights flicker and burn out.
Only the overlay of white twinkle lights—interlaced with silk flowers—remains over the dance floor.
The approving murmur of the crowd fades to silence when Finn deepens the kiss.
I am two seconds from pushing us farther into the recesses of the library for some real privacy when a throat clears behind Finn.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak to you.” A bespeckled woman with what looks like a dead badger around her shoulders focuses on Finn. “It’s urgent.”
“Lynnette.” Finn straightens his cuffs, sliding into his magnetic persona. “Good to see you. Let me introduce you to my—”
“Girlfriend,” I supply, offering my hand to the older woman. “I’m Vivian. Nice to meet you.”
After receiving a limp handshake, I glance back at Finn.
The heat in his gaze could melt the polar ice caps in two seconds flat.
An unsteady breath slips into my lungs as my neck flushes.
I’m still not used to the immensity of Finn’s intense focus.
It’s intoxicating and disorienting at the same time.
Finn’s gaze slips down the column of my throat, the corner of his lip tucking between his teeth.
“I have information.” She leans toward Finn, snagging his attention before bouncing her eyes pointedly at me. “About Ralph.”
It’s subtle, but I notice the way Finn’s shoulders raise a fraction of an inch, how his spine firms. Whatever news Lynnette has about this Ralph person, it’s obviously very important.
I move to excuse myself. “I should—”
Finn’s palm against my waist stops me. “Stay,” he whispers over my ear. “Please.”
His second word is almost tortured, making my fingers twitchy. I want to run them over his temples and through his hair until his lashes flutter closed, relaxed. Only when I give a small nod does Finn return his attention to Lynnette.
“You can tell us both.”
She shoots me a dubious look before speaking.
“You were going to find out on Monday, but I figured since you’ve been striving toward this goal for so long, you’d like to know now.
That and I’m a fan of Regency romance, so I already had tickets to this event.
” Lynnette straightens the collar to her dowager dress.
“Ralph, it seems, has changed his mind about retirement. I overheard a call with the mayor that he’s decided to stay on for another two years.
I still think you’d make a great replacement, but it seems you’ll have to wait a bit longer. ”
Finn’s hand tenses over the small of my back, and I lean into him to quietly offer support. With what he’s just told me, this news decimates the plans he’s been working toward for years.
His lips tip into that practiced smile. “I appreciate your vote of confidence. And for letting me know. It—” The exhausted exhale leaving his mouth makes my forearms tense. “It certainly changes things.”
Lynnette offers a tight nod before stepping away.
Finn waits until she’s out of sight before pinching the bridge of his nose. “I should have seen this coming.”
“Seen what coming?”
He strides to the end of the stack, collapsing into a wingback chair and bracing his forehead with his palm. “I have no doubt that my father paid Ralph off to stay on longer.”
I hesitate a beat, processing this, before ripping off my gloves. I need to touch him, proper period attire be darned. One hand slides through Finn’s hair as I use the knuckles of my other to lift his chin. “It doesn’t matter, remember?”
“It does. That world is toxic, Vivian. It’ll destroy us.
I was so confident that I’d win this, but I should have known better.
I should have kept my distance. I should have been stronger in resisting that insatiable tug whenever I saw you.
” Finn’s pained expression steals my next inhale.
“I’m sorry. I know what you said earlier, but that was when—”
“You’re forgetting a few key things,” I interrupt. “How incorrigibly stubborn I am. How strong you believe me to be.”
“You are.” His focus darts all over my face. “You’re incredible.”
A soft grin lifts my lips as I lean down until our noses brush. “And how much I love you. That conniving blackguard is powerless against us.”
I don’t give Finn a chance to argue. My lips take his in a bruising kiss.
Finn pulls me onto his lap, returning the kiss with a desperation that sends waves of goosebumps down my legs.
The world drops away until this whirring sound drowns out everything else.
I ignore the noise, knowing that the only thing that matters is the two of us together.
The island’s magic might make it seem like there’s an electrical shortage or stormless thunderclap when, really, it’s the perfect synchronicity of two souls finding each other.
I’ve just decided to spend the rest of the evening right here, on Finn’s lap, when Maxwell runs up to us. “You gotta see this.”
Our eyes catch as we break the kiss, unwavering for a second before reality comes crashing in.
The music has ceased, half the guests have already fled the dance floor, and the rest are rushing toward the exit.
Overhead, the building shakes. It feels like the stained-glass ceiling is seconds from caving in.
What I thought was an auditory hallucination or a trick of the island’s magic is actually the unmistakable roar of a helicopter.
And it sounds as if it’s trying to land right outside the library.