36. Halliday
36
HALLIDAY
THREE WEEKS LATER
“I could easily spend all day here.” I sigh happily, resting my head against Sterling’s chest.
“You stay in this bed a minute longer, and I’ll do what I just did all over again and make you late for your yoga class.”
He presses a kiss to my hair, and I smile.
“You can wake me up like that every day on our honeymoon. In fact, I should put in our pre-nup. Wife requires awakening by use of hot husband’s very skilled tongue.”
He chuckles, caressing my hand in his.
“Baby girl, I’ll wake you up every day of our marriage like that, not just our honeymoon. But you’re not putting it in a pre-nup.”
“You think the lawyers might get offended?” I incline my head and grin at him.
“They can’t get offended about something that won’t exist.”
I look at him in confusion. “But when I mentioned it before you never said anything? You’re a billionaire, I expected to sign something.”
“I never said anything because I thought you were kidding. We’re not having a contract, Hallie. If I ever do anything in our marriage that causes you enough hurt that you leave me, then you can take what you need. I won’t fight you over it.”
“If you do anything?” I frown. “What about if I screw up? What if you don’t?—”
“Would you ever stop loving me?”
I search his eyes, my heart sinking. After everything, that still haunts him. The thought of losing love. He’s lost too much already. A part of him still believes he doesn’t deserve this happiness we’ve created together. It tears at my soul seeing it hiding in the depths of his eyes.
I intend on spending every day loving him with everything I have until that part shrinks away to nothing.
“Never,” I whisper.
He tightens his arm around me and brings his other palm up to cup my cheek.
“Then it’ll all be okay, no matter what.”
“It will,” I agree, shuffling up the bed and pressing my lips to his in a tender kiss.
He threads his fingers through my hair as he kisses me back.
“You need to go if you want to get those sun salutations in,” he says against my lips.
“I do.”
I kiss him one more time, then slide out of bed.
I look back at him, watching me. The silk sheets pool low on his hip bone, showing the top of the defined ‘V’ of muscles and the scattering of ‘happy trail’ hair leading down.
“I need to go,” I say, talking to his abs.
“You do.”
“I really do.” My gaze inches up, dipping into every ridge and valley of his defined torso until I meet his amused gaze.
“I love you. Now go, before I pull you back in here with me.”
I bite my lower lip with a groan as I spin on my heels, heading into our dressing room.
“I’ll come by Seasons on my way back and bring breakfast,” I call, pulling on my workout gear.
“I’ll look forward to it,” he calls back in a deep velvety voice.
I grab my bag, giving him a last lingering eye-fuck and little wave as I head out of the bedroom. Then I stop and spin straight back around, poking my head around the door.
His eyes connect with mine instantly, and a smirk tugs at his lips. The sheet has moved lower, and his gorgeous dick is there in its full glory.
“You forget something?”
“Just to tell you that I love you.” My eyes linger on his dick before moving back up to his glittering gaze.
“Go, Hallie,” he growls softly. “Before I get out of this bed and drag you back into it and underneath me.”
I flash him one final smile. “I’m going to picture you like this for the rest of the day.”
His expression turns tender and his eyes drift over my face like he’s committing it to memory. I shiver from the intensity of it.
“And I’m going to picture you smiling like that and telling me you love me for the rest of my life. Now go.”
My stomach bursts into flutters and my cheeks heat as I give him one last parting look.
“The rest of our lives… together , Fiancé,” I call, tearing myself away.
There’s a bounce in my step as I exit Central Park and pass the iconic Songbird hotel.
I smile at the beautiful building. Maybe I should add it to the list of places to consider for the wedding. So far I’ve been unable to decide whether we should get married in London or New York. Sterling says whatever makes me happy will make him happy. But he’s lived in New York his whole life and his family are here. And I’m going to be living here now. It makes sense it should be in New York. I only have Mum, Dad, and Sophie, who I really want there. I don’t need some huge elaborate affair filled with people I hardly know.
Hesitation slices through me.
That would be exactly like Sterling said his wedding to Elaina was—arranged by their parents as more of a business deal than anything else. He didn’t know eighty percent of the guests. They were all colleagues or associates of their parents’.
And they were married here in the city.
Maybe we shouldn’t get married in New York, or London. I could look for somewhere overseas. Somewhere we can have something small and intimate. Meaningful.
I pull my phone from my purse to check the time, 7:30 a.m. Sterling will be on his way to his office soon, if he’s not there already.
I snap a selfie, blowing a kiss at the camera and send it to him.
Me: I’m on my way to give my fiancé breakfast, served with a kiss. I love you.
His reply comes instantly, and I smile. He always replies straight away.
Sterling: Serve yourself to me on my desk, Baby girl, and I’ll die a happy man.
I giggle and drop my phone back into my purse, heading into a deli to grab something. I’m thinking banana nut muffins, hot coffee, and a side of melon. He loves nuts and I know he’s only just getting back into eating them again. Elaina had an allergy.
Fifteen minutes later, I prepare to open the front door to Seasons, using the key Sterling gave me, but the door’s ajar. One of the security team must already be here.
I walk inside and head down the dim hallway. It’s all mood lighting from here to the main bar area.
I head through the door at the end that leads toward Sterling’s office, flicking on the light with one hand and balancing the tray of coffees and brown paper bag of breakfast things in the other. I use the key Sterling gave me to open his office door. It’s definitely one of Denver’s team who are in. If Sterling was here then his office would already be unlocked.
I step inside and turn on the light.
I don’t know how he spends so much time in here without natural light. His office doesn’t have any windows. Probably a good thing considering that time he went down on me on his desk. My eyes rake over the dark mahogany wood on the far side of the large room, the memory making my thighs clench.
Maybe I should lay myself out on it like he suggested? I’m sure I’d like his reaction if I do.
I smile to myself as I place our drinks and food onto the desk, then put my purse down on one of the sofas and shrug out of my coat. He’ll be here any minute. Maybe I should send him a text of me sitting on his desk to make him to hurry up.
I pull my phone out of my purse and curse at the dead screen.
“Ugh. Again.”
The battery has been draining ridiculously fast for a couple of days now. I’ve been meaning to get a replacement, but I’ve been busy talking with new clients and haven’t done it yet.
I pull my charger from my bag and plug it into the socket beneath Sterling’s desk, leaving my phone next to our coffees to charge. The pink rose quartz heart I gave him catches my eye and I pick it up, turning its smooth surface over and over inside my palm.
“Unconditional love and healing emotional wounds,” I muse, placing it back beside the desk phone.
I lift up the receiver and am halfway through punching in Sterling’s cell number to see how close he is, when a bang that sounds like the door to the main bar area stops me.
I grin. It’s probably him. He always checks the main bar area on his way in each morning to make sure the team from the night before cleaned up properly.
Another bang catches me off guard and I drop the handset on the desk.
“You’re so loud!” I call with a giggle as I walk out into the hallway.
I head to the door at the end of the hallway, serving the bar area and main entrance, and reach for the handle.
My phone rings in his office.
It could be the newest client I’ve taken onto my books. A widower from San Francisco. I think Sterling inspired him that it’s never too late to choose to live again.
I falter for a moment. I can call him back.
I grab the door handle in an excited rush. It’s only been a couple of hours, yet I’m giddy to see Sterling again.
I’m ridiculous. Ridiculously, sickeningly in love.
I yank the door open. The hallway seems darker than when I arrived.
I squint, my eyes starting to water. Maybe the light went out. There’s a smell of… I take in a breath and immediately choke out a cough.
The air is thick, cloying.
Unbreathable.
Thick black smoke billows up the walls, circling around the ceiling in a cloud.
Something’s on fire.
The sound of shattering glass pierces the air from inside the bar area as smoke pours from the open doorway.
I rush to the fire extinguisher on the wall, but the metal is hot and sends a sudden lancing pain up my arm. I recoil, cradling my hand against my body as the thickening smoke makes it harder to see.
Fire reaches out through the open bar doorway, and the sheer heat of it steals my breath.
My exit is blocked.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I turn back toward Sterling’s office. If I can get inside and close the door I can call for help. It must be a fire door. It’ll buy me time.
It’s impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me, and even harder to breathe. I drop to my hands and knees and crawl like you’re supposed to. Keep low, away from the smoke.
I make it back through the inner hallway door and reach out, feeling along the wall. What takes seconds on foot feels like long, excruciating minutes on all fours. The throbbing in my hand is overtaken by a scratching in my lungs, and I fight not to breathe in the smoke. But no matter how hard I try; some claws its way into my lungs making them burn.
The wheezing in my ears is almost as loud as the roaring coming from the fire behind me.
I hit blank space and wave my arm around, knocking it against the doorframe. I struggle to focus, my head’s heavy and my eyes feel like acid’s dissolving them. I drag myself through the opening, pushing the door closed behind me.
Sterling’s warm blue gaze rushes into my head as I stagger to my feet and toward his desk, scrabbling to get to the phone.
“Get it together,” I scold myself with a sob, struggling to see the buttons on the handset.
It’s fine. I’m behind a fire door. It’ll keep the flames back. It has to.
I fall into Sterling’s desk chair and punch in one number after the other.
9-1-1
Another bang from inside the building makes me almost jump out of my skin.
My hand shakes as I hold the receiver to my ear.
Sterling’s face is all I see.
And as the room spins, one voice filters through the haze, calling to me.
I answer it. And I beg.
Help me, Jenny.