Chapter Ten
George was pissed off. He was tired of Malcolm and the rest of Anna-Beth’s family treating her like a problem. She wasn’t anything of the sort, and he knew what a find he’d discovered.
He had every intention of drawing up a contract and having her manage his new division for small businesses. She had an amazing talent with people, and for spotting potential. George knew what he had, and he wasn’t going to lose it.
Staring at her now, and seeing how she’d been able to deduce what her family was doing, was pure genius.
“I can’t … seriously?” Anna-Beth asked, and he saw the tears in her eyes.
“Look, Anna-Beth, we all think this is for the best.”
“For you,” she said.
“And for you. Look what you’re doing. I don’t even want to know why you’re in the city, and why you’re currently with George.”
“You put me with him, remember? To keep me out of trouble. Guess what, I’m out of trouble, and you, Mom, and Dad do not have to worry about me causing any more issues. We’re done,” Anna-Beth said.
George stared at her and he saw her strength, and he couldn’t remember a time she’d been more beautiful.
“Anna-Beth—”
“No, you don’t get to say my name as if I’m a problem. You’ve made your decision, isn’t that right? You and everyone else get to decide what happens to me. I’m a thirty-year-old woman. I do not need you or my parents to tell me what to do. I’m perfectly capable of living my own life without you or them.”
“They’ll disown you,” Malcolm said. “You will become an embarrassment. They will have no choice but to sever ties, and that means your trust fund. You’ll be left with nothing.”
“No, she won’t,” George said.
Brother and sister turned toward him.
“First of all, Anna-Beth doesn’t even need to use her trust fund,” George said. “If you had actually paid attention to your sister, you’d have seen she has an astute perception for marketing and start-up,” George said.
Malcolm burst out laughing.
George held his fingers up, and began to reel off the companies he knew she’d started. At least three of them had become pains in Malcolm’s side, as they wouldn’t sell to the Knight family. He had come to realize it was, because in a way, they already had a Knight, the best freaking one.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Malcolm asked.
“Anna-Beth helped to start them up. She is the silent partner, and not only that.” George turned toward her. “I want to offer you that job. I want you to be the head of my division of small companies. No one will interfere with how you run things. You’ll choose the staff you need and control everything.”
“You’re being serious?” Anna-Beth asked.
“Yes. I was going to ask you soon. I’ve seen what you’re capable of in the last two weeks, and I know that is what I want for my company.”
“Wait, what the fuck?” Malcolm asked.
Anna-Beth smiled at him, and it was like a kick to the gut for George.
“I want you,” George said.
Her mouth opened and closed.
George took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. “I know we’ve only been together for a short time, but, Anna-Beth, I love you.”
“You love me?” she asked.
“Yes, and I promise I won’t lock you up and force you to live a life you don’t want. What I can promise is that you’ll be happy, happier than you’ve been the past couple of months. I’ll even hire a new housekeeper, but you’re pretty good at that, so maybe I should let you?”
“Am I dreaming?” Anna-Beth asked.
George cupped her face, pushing some of her hair out of the way. “You tell me.” Then he slammed his lips down on hers and kissed her hard.
He heard Malcolm making some weird sound not too far away, but he didn’t care. There was no way he was going to allow Anna-Beth to go. He’d known Malcolm was an asshole. He’d seen their parents in action, and knew them to be cruel.
When he first met Anna-Beth, he’d done his best to avoid her because he’d figured she would be exactly like her family. She wasn’t.
She loved stretching out on his lawn doing yoga poses, while listening to heavy metal music. She loved dancing to pop music, and looking like a crazy person as she did. She couldn’t sing, but he loved to hear the random lines of multiple songs just spurt out of her mouth. He loved that she constantly brought him food to eat, but when he was working, she didn’t linger. Also, how she hated dirty dishes. He’d noticed, even with takeout food, she had to clean something.
Slowly, he had fallen in love with her. Her laughter lit up his whole world. Her beautiful blue eyes sung to his soul. George hadn’t even begun to realize what the past few months had meant to him, but he knew he didn’t want to give her up, not even for his friendship with Malcolm. Right now, he didn’t like the guy.
Pulling away, he stared into her eyes.
“I love you,” he said, and as he did so, he knew it felt so good, so right. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to grow old with you.”
And then, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Sinking to his knee, he stared into Anna-Beth’s eyes.
“Anna-Beth Knight, I love you, I know this is way too soon, and I completely understand if you want to say no, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
****
Three Months Later
Anna-Beth put her hand onto her swelling stomach. She was pretty sure the baby had moved, but it could also be the salad she had for lunch. The salad George had insisted on her eating.
“What is it?” George asked, suddenly appearing in her office.
The last three months had been a whirlwind. First, she’d accepted George’s proposal, had even told him she loved him. It had felt good to finally tell him how she felt. Malcolm hadn’t been too impressed, and he’d stormed out of George’s apartment that night. The following day, Anna-Beth had been summoned, but she’d declined to go and see her family. Her trust fund had been frozen, but again, she no longer needed that. Also, she’d taken the job George had offered her. The press had a field day with that juicy piece of gossip.
Someone had also leaked to the press exactly what she did, and her association with many of the different companies. She imagined her family had read about the juicy gossip. Either way, it didn’t matter.
Malcolm had slowly started to mend bridges, as he didn’t want to be cut off from his best friend, or his sister. Relations were strained, but Anna-Beth didn’t mind. Even though she’d always been on good terms with her brother, there were times she simply didn’t like him. Especially once she learned what he was like when it came to business.
After their whirlwind wedding, they had a short honeymoon, and then work took over. Not only did she want to prove her family wrong, but she wanted to make this work for George. The press had been all over this new division within George’s company. There were a lot of people who were critical and wanted to see it fail.
In the past three months, she’d watched it grow stronger.
Of course, George nearly had a panic attack when he learned she was pregnant. They hadn’t exactly been careful all the times they had sex, not that she had a problem with that. George had been the only man she had ever wanted to be with. Her love for him had never diminished in the twenty years she had known him, and had only gotten stronger, just as she knew it would.
“It’s nothing. Either digestion, which sounds gross to me, or our baby is moving.”
George rushed over and placed his hand on her stomach. She couldn’t help but smile as he always did this while pulling her into an embrace. She wasn’t going to complain with him holding her.
She loved it when he wrapped his arms around her, breathed her in, and she could just close her eyes and fall into him. That was all she wanted to do.
“I don’t even know if after three months our baby can kick,” she said.
George kissed her head. “Let me call the doctor.” He’d already pulled out his cell phone and Anna-Beth took it from him.
“Let’s not.”
“Anna-Beth, don’t you want to know? And I’m not doing any of those crazy Internet searches either.”
Yeah, they had ended up at the hospital after he did one of those as he felt she was hiccupping too much. After that, she and the doctor agreed to keep George in check. She did her best, but the man was a machine.
“We’re not going to do Internet searches, and we’re going to enjoy this together.” She cupped his face and pulled him in close for a kiss. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”
“Yes, but I don’t have a problem hearing it.”
“Have I ever told you that when I was ten years old, the first moment I saw you, I knew I wanted to marry you?” she asked, trying to distract him.
“No, you’ve never told me that.”
It was so much easier to distract him with the truth.
She ran her hands over his chest, playing with the lapel of his shirt.
“You’re lying?” he asked.
“No, I’m not lying. I’m telling you the truth.” She went onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. “I loved you then.”
“Anna-Beth, I was twenty years old.”
“I know, and my young heart didn’t care. I knew what I wanted, and I wanted to be with you. I loved you then and every time Malcolm brought you around, I tried to think of stuff to say to you.”
“We never talked,” he said.
“Exactly. I had no idea what to say to you, but now I know what I want to say.” She kissed him again.
“I didn’t love you as a ten-year-old girl,” George said.
“That’s good to know.”
“But the moment Malcolm brought you to my house, I couldn’t stop watching you. I was drawn to you. When he told me he was looking for men to marry you off to, I couldn’t stand it.” He pulled her in close, banding his arms around her. She stared into his possessive eyes, and George didn’t disappoint. “You’re mine,” he said.
“I’m yours.”
“Don’t forget it.”
This time, she slid her hands down toward his ass, in the same way he held onto her. She gave his ass a squeeze and nearly burst out laughing. “And you’re mine?”
“Always, Anna-Beth.”
The moment his lips touched hers, Anna-Beth knew she was no longer dreaming. This was real, so very real.
This was her life, and she loved every second of it.