Chapter 48
STERLING
I was barely aware of the block party happening all around me. It was loud and chaotic, packed and obviously going well, but as far as I was concerned, it was nothing more than a blur of music, shrieking children, and the distant hiss of meat being thrown onto a grill.
All I could see was her, my Laney, standing under strings of colorful lights, the expression on her face caught somewhere between hope and heartbreak as she stared up at me. She hadn’t said a word, but she’d nodded when I’d asked if we could talk.
That was enough for now. Shit, it was a lot more than I’d expected.
I could feel people watching us, just standing here staring deep into each other’s eyes in the middle of a party, but I didn’t give a damn.
I wouldn’t even care if someone snapped a picture and it was plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids tomorrow.
As long as the headlines didn’t read something along the lines of “Trouble in Paradise” or “The Ice King Gets His Cold Heart Shattered,” I would be happy. Actually, I didn’t even care about the headlines. All I cared about was fixing things with her.
“Laney,” I said, my voice already cracking just on that first word.
I stepped closer until I could smell her perfume, something soft and warm that always undid me.
The scent I’d missed in my bed last night and in my bathroom this morning.
“I was wrong, Laney. What I did, what I said to Jameson, I was wrong.”
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t run away either.
She just looked up at me with her eyes wide, clearly waiting for me to explain.
I swallowed, every word having to force its way through years of practiced control.
It went against the grain to say anything more than I had to, but on the other hand, I did have to say this.
More than having to do it, I wanted to. I needed her to know.
“In the beginning, yeah, this was business to me. Even then though, I liked you more than I should’ve.
You surprised me. You challenged me. You spoke to me in ways no one ever had before.
I was intrigued by you. I tried to convince myself that was it, but it never was. ”
I took a breath, staring into those gray eyes that I’d grown to love so much and finally feeling like I could breathe again.
Not completely. Not properly. I wouldn’t be able to do that until she was in my arms and I knew everything was okay, but even just looking at her in person rather than staring at the pictures of her on my phone was making oxygen saturation easier.
“Last night, I got caught up in the argument and I shouldn’t have, but Jamie didn’t let me finish. I also didn’t want to tell him before I told you, but love really never was part of the deal. I was prepared to accept that until I met you.”
Her lips parted, her breath catching. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I love you.” The words burned coming out, but not because they hurt.
It was just because they were so raw and so real, the emotion behind them so much more intense than I knew what to do with.
“I’m in love with you, Laney. I’m so deeply, madly, desperately in love with you and I have been practically since the word go.
You’re it for me, and if you don’t feel the same, if this hurts too much, or if I’ve already ruined it, I’ll let you go. I mean that.”
Tears welled in her eyes and it fucking killed me to see it, but I pressed on.
I needed to finish. I needed to get it all out so that, at the very least, she knew that this was entirely her decision to make.
No strings. No agenda. No reason to have to forgive me other than wanting to allow me the opportunity to earn it.
“If that’s what you want, you can walk away.
I’ll sign all the shares in Baby Blossom over to you.
My attorneys will have the paperwork drawn up tonight.
You can keep your business. Keep the money.
Keep everything. None of it matters to me.
All I want is for you to be happy. That’s all I care about. ”
For the first time ever, I wasn’t thinking about what I might lose.
I truly didn’t care about any of it. Not the contract, the baby, the family legacy—either mine or hers.
I didn’t care about the seat I’d spent my entire adult life working toward in the executive office at Westwood and Sons and I didn’t give a shit about my dad’s expectations.
I just didn’t care about anything other than her.
My breathing was ragged, my chest burning, but nothing was going to hold me back.
Not while she was still willing to listen.
“I should’ve told you this right from the start, but I figured it was none of your business.
I told myself that you were getting what you wanted out of the deal and that my reasons for wanting to get married had nothing to do with you, but I was wrong. ”
Her gaze moved from one of my eyes to the other, but still, she listened. The man I’d been before her had never groveled, not once and not for anything, but I found myself willing to go down on my knees for her now if that was what she wanted.
“All my life, I’ve been groomed to take over as CEO when my dad retires.
Around the same time that Megan approached us to buy her shares, he told me that he intends on doing that next summer.
I thought I was finally going to be handed the keys to the kingdom.
I figured it was my birthright, but good old Dad threw a monkey wrench into the works. ”
When her eyes widened, I knew she’d suddenly realized where I was going with this, but I said it out loud anyway.
“He told me that I needed to get married and produce an heir before he retired, or else. Jameson overheard us talking about it after I’d had the contract drawn up and he tried to convince me not to cave to Dad’s pressure. ”
I blew out a breath and glanced at the lights above us.
“Hell, he practically begged me not to cave, but I’d already made up my mind.
I thought it would be easy and clean. The fastest, most direct route to getting what I’ve been working toward my whole life, but deep down, I’d known that I only really wanted to do it if you agreed. ”
“When I had that contract drawn up, I was already intrigued by you. I insisted on going on that trip to LA with you so I could confirm my own suspicions, and when I did, I gave you that fucking folder like it meant nothing. Like your future was a chip I could bargain with to get what I wanted, because I already knew that what I really wanted was you.”
“Really?”
“I love you,” I said, softer this time. “I love you, Laney, and I’m so, so sorry I didn’t tell you any of this earlier. Honestly, I’m not even sure I ever considered it. I got so wrapped up in you, and in us, and in the possibility of building a life with you that…”
My voice got so tight that I took a moment to just breathe.
When the pressure in my throat subsided, I shook my head in complete and utter disbelief.
“I never even knew I wanted that life, with a wife, and kids, and holidays in Napa until I realized how badly I wanted it with you. All those reasons I had originally for giving you that contract just didn’t seem to matter anymore because somehow the most beautiful, most amazing woman I’d ever met had agreed to marry me and she was already mine. ”
I shook my head. “That’s what I should’ve told Jameson last night,” I concluded. “That love was never part of the deal, but that I was the luckiest son of a bitch in the galaxy for finding it anyway.”
I stared back into those eyes and waited, my heart pounding so hard that it drowned out the noise of the party continuing around us.
This was the moment when I would either lose her for good, even after letting her see the man under the ice in all his messed-up glory, or the moment when she would decide to love me regardless of what a mess I really was.
For the longest minute of my entire life, I held my breath, genuinely not knowing which way this would go, but then Laney closed the space between us, her hands coming up to catch my face before she surged up onto her toes and kissed me.
If I was being honest though, it didn’t feel like just a kiss. It felt like salvation and forgiveness, like hope and shared dreams of a future all wrapped up into one searing, desperate moment. I kissed her back like a man who had been buried alive and was finally tasting air.
My hands curved around her waist and I pulled her closer until there was no space left between us for uncertainty or lies.
I didn’t care who saw us devouring each other like we would never separate again.
I didn’t care about the cameras I was sure were pointed our way by now, or the gossip that would follow, or the gawking looks I knew we had to be getting.
When she finally pulled back, she was breathless, her cheeks flushed, but her eyes brimming with joy. “We should, uh, we should probably stop. There are kids here.”
“Come home with me, Laney,” I rasped out, my voice hoarse and pleading. “I can’t?—”
“Yes,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to mine and sliding her fingers into my hair. “Yes, Sterling. I’ll come home.”
I exhaled for what seemed to be the first time in weeks, and all at once, the noise of the party filtered back in. I took her hand and straightened up, feeling raw and exposed in ways I hadn’t ever felt, and I lifted my gaze over her shoulder.
Jameson stood off to the side next to Callum, who was talking to Sadie. His hand hovered near her back like he might touch her, but he wasn’t actually doing it. Jameson though, he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at me.
Our eyes met, and in that moment, I knew he saw it all, the stripped-down, shameless truth of me loving this woman. The version of me that had let go of everything I’d built my life on because she mattered more than anything else.
He gave me a small, knowing nod. For once, there was no smirk on his lips and no sarcasm in his eyes. All I saw staring back at me was understanding.
One day soon, perhaps even tomorrow, we would have that conversation, but for now, I tightened my grip on Laney’s hand and nodded back at him, silently telling my brother what I hadn’t been able to say out loud last night.
You can have this too, Jamie. You just have to give it a shot.