Chapter 21
Alexander Vanderbilt?
I blink awake, face buried in warm sheets that smell like sex and vanilla and Carol.
My body aches in that perfect way—like I was hit by a truck full of orgasms and regret-nothing energy.
Limbs heavy, heart light. For the first time in months, I slept like a man not being hunted, haunted, or handled like a pawn on a billionaire chessboard.
And that blissful fucking euphoria lasts about thirty goddamn seconds.
Then I stretch a hand across the bed and feel… nothing.
No soft skin, no breath on my neck, no golden hair tangled on the pillow beside mine.
Empty.
My heart skips, panic scraping through the edges of my ribcage. I sit up fast, ignoring the way the sheets cling to my bare skin. My eyes scan the space.
No Carol.
Did she leave? Was this a hit-and-run emotional affair? A goodbye fuck with extra love sauce? Did one of the staff see her and think, oh no, this commoner clearly doesn’t belong in our cathedral of capitalism, let’s yeet her into the street with a croissant and a cab fare?
No. No fucking way.
I told them. Made it crystal fucking clear that Carol Atkins isn’t a guest—she’s the only goddamn person on this planet who gets to walk in and out of my life unannounced and own the space every time she does. She’s not furniture. She’s not a fling. She’s the goddamn foundation.
So when I wake up and she’s gone? My heart nosedives like it’s got a weight chained to it. I grab the first pair of boxers I find, her ruined scrubs nowhere in sight, which does not help the fucking paranoia gripping my throat.
My brain’s screaming—Did she leave? Did I push too fast? Did she look at all this sleek black marble and fuck-off money and remember we’re built from two different planets?
I storm out of the bedroom like a lunatic, hair a mess, shirtless, practically vibrating.
And then—
Everything stops.
Because she’s there.
Like a goddamn dream, barefoot in my marble kitchen, drowning in one of my expensive-ass button-downs—top few buttons open, collar wide, sleeves too long.
It’s hanging off her like sin and salvation wrapped in white cotton.
Her hair’s a fucking mess, golden strands curling around her cheeks like artfully placed chaos.
She’s holding a glass yogurt jar with the same look of suspicious judgment she gives shady hospital patients who swear they’re not drunk.
Brows furrowed like the nutritional facts just insulted her lineage.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
Because that’s what home looks like.
And it’s not the penthouse, or the city view, or the silent staff waiting for commands.
It’s her.
Reading a $40 imported Icelandic yogurt like she’s about to kick its ass for existing.
I’m frozen in the doorway like some idiot in a cologne ad, staring at her like she’s the last star in a black sky. My lungs forget how to lung. My brain’s still playing catch-up with the fact that she didn’t run.
She looks up at me then—lifts her eyes from the absurd luxury yogurt—and something in them softens. Like maybe she didn’t expect me to look this fucked up over a woman standing in her underwear with a dairy product. Like she knows what I thought when I woke up alone.
Her lips twitch. “What?” she says, voice half-rasp, half-sunlight. “Didn’t think I’d still be here?”
I step toward her, not even aware I’m moving until she’s in my arms. My hands sink into her waist, my forehead to hers. “You scared the fuck out of me,” I growl. “I thought you Houdini’d.”
“I was reading yogurt, Alexander,” she deadpans, but she doesn’t pull away.
“Next time, read it in bed.” My grip tightens. “With me. Naked. Preferably riding my face.”
She snorts. “Jesus.”
“I’m serious,” I murmur against her skin—kiss her cheek, her jaw, her temple like they’re sacred. “Don’t ever vanish on me again. Not unless you want me tearing through the city in nothing but boxers and a full-blown fucking rage boner.”
“Noted,” she says, deadpan—but her lips twitch, and that tiny almost-smile? That’s the closest thing to a vow I’ll ever need.
“You okay?” I ask, this time in her ear, soft, careful, voice turned down from smirking billionaire to the man who’d burn down the world if she needed warmth.
Because I know it’s a lot. We just made up, two months of heartbreak in the rearview, and now she’s standing in a penthouse kitchen with breakfast made by staff and her toes curling on marble fucking flooring like she doesn’t quite belong here.
Like she’s waiting for someone to tap her shoulder and say Sorry ma’am, riff-raff isn’t allowed in the Versailles suite.
She nods, but it’s twitchy. Her fingers are twisting the yogurt lid like she’s throttling it in miniature.
“Uhm—” she starts, cautious, “we gotta talk about last night.”
Fuck.
“What about it?” I ask, and I already feel my pulse tightening. Please don’t say it was a mistake. Please don’t say you regret me.
She licks her lips. “We’ve always been kinda… careful,” she says, quiet. “But last night we, uh… we didn’t use protection.”
I freeze.
She’s right.
So fucking right. All teeth and thrust and moaning mine and there wasn’t a single goddamn second of latex between us and biological chaos.
“Look, I’m not ovulating,” she says quickly, still twisting the lid like it owes her rent. “I did the math. It should be safe-ish. I take birth control but it’s like… low dosage.”
I stare at her. At the flush crawling up her neck, at the guilt in her voice like she’s waiting for me to flip out or run.
Instead I just exhale, long and low. “Okay. Then we deal with whatever comes. Together.”
Her eyes snap up. Wide. Surprised.
“Carol,” I say, stepping in closer, hand finding her jaw, “if you think one maybe baby is gonna scare me off after the shit I’ve been through just to get you back—you don’t know me at all.”
She blinks, and I swear I catch the shimmer of tears in those big brown eyes.
“I’d marry you with a ring pop and a stolen courthouse pen,” I murmur, dead fucking serious. “So yeah. No fucking regrets.”
She laughs—snorts, really—like she’s trying to shake it off. “Stop saying things like that… You can’t marry me,” she says, waving her hand like it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever suggested.
And that? That makes me pause.
My whole body goes still. The air tightens.
“What do you mean I can’t marry you?” I ask, voice gone rough and edged.
Her eyes snap to mine—wide now, soft and uncertain like she hadn’t even considered I was serious. Like the idea of me wanting to keep her was some foreign-ass fantasy. Like I wouldn’t fucking crawl over broken glass to put a ring on her finger.
“I just…” she fidgets, twisting the yogurt lid again, “I thought we’d… y’know, date or whatever. Maybe for a couple months, and then… eventually, I don’t know—break up or something.”
My jaw tightens.
She keeps going, a little breathless, a little panicked now.
“I mean, I’m not built for this—this place or your life or your fucking fancy rich-boy shit. I’m not a gala girl, okay? I don’t do stilettos and champagne toasts with names like Baroness Fucking Von Asshole.”
She gestures wildly at the penthouse around us, like the marble countertops personally insulted her.
“You’re Alexander Vanderbilt. I’m Carol Atkins, RN, with student loans, busted shoes and a full mental breakdown at least once a week.”
I stare at her.
At her tangled hair, the oversized button-down slipping off her shoulder, bare legs and defiance. That sharp, foul-mouthed brilliance she still doesn’t know shines brighter than anything in this soulless high-rise.
“You done?” I ask, stepping forward.
She blinks. “What?”
“You finished talking shit about my future wife?” I say, slow and low, voice dipped in steel. “Because I don’t give a fuck if you can’t spell foie gras or if your idea of a gala is a twelve-hour ER shift and a pint of Halo Top. You are suited for me. You’re the only one who ever fucking was.”
She stares, lips parting.
I crowd her into the marble, palm flat beside her head, eyes locked on hers like they’re the only goddamn compass I’ve got.
“I’m not dating you with a fucking expiration date, Carol. I’m not ‘seeing where this goes.’ I’m not trying you out. You’re not some warm-up act before the main event. You are the main event. You’re it. You’re fucking everything. So yeah. Get used to it.”
She opens her mouth.
Closes it.
Opens again like she’s about to argue—but then it hits. Her eyes get glassy, like the words finally land.
“You’re serious?” she whispers. Her voice is so fucking small, it guts me. “You’re really… really planning to marry me?”
“Have been,” I bite out. “Since the day you stole a bite of my goddamn grilled cheese and called it a ‘tax.’ Since you shoved painkillers at me like you were mad I got hurt in the first place. Since you said I had a life with you if I never remembered my name.”
She blinks fast, like if she doesn’t she’ll cry. “But I’m not… Alex, I’m not elegant, or classy, or any of that good PR shit.”
I step in closer, forehead pressed to hers.
“Good,” I growl, my voice damn near a whisper but it hits like a fucking sledgehammer.
“Because I don’t need a press release or some glossy society piece to validate this. I need you. The woman who does a shitty British accent during The Crown and thinks she’s nailing it. The one who bribes me with pizza when I look like I’m about to spiral. The one who fed me, clothed me,
patched me up and fucking loved me when I couldn’t even remember my goddamn name—when all I had to offer was a busted arm and a whole lot of nothing.”
She laughs—chokes on it really—and I swear on everything holy, if she says no, I’ll swan dive off the goddamn penthouse balcony in my fucking boxers and haunt her ass just to keep making her breakfast.
“I fucking love you, Carol.” My grip on her hips tightens like I’m scared she might vanish.
“I don’t give a shit about cocktail parties, or corporate pissing contests, or heiresses with designer smiles and no goddamn soul. I want you. I want takeout on the floor, I want your shampoo in my shower, your bobby pins everywhere, your voice in my ear when the world gets too loud.
I want the life we had crammed in your shoebox apartment—multiplied.”
She just stares. Those big brown eyes blinking fast, lips parting like she doesn’t know if she should laugh, cry, or punch me.
And I go for the kill. Full fucking send.
“Marry me, Carol. Fuck the press, fuck the board, fuck the world—marry me. Make me the richest man alive. Not ’cause I’m a Vanderbilt, not ’cause I’ve got a trust fund that could buy a country, but because I have you.”
Her breath catches.
And then her whole fucking world tilts toward mine.
She looks at me like I just rewired her goddamn soul. Then—voice low, raw, trembling like the words cost her everything and give her even more—she mutters:
“You really did hit your damn head too hard.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt like she’s bracing for impact, like loving me might wreck her but she’s jumping anyway.
“I love you, Alex.” Her voice cracks and suddenly I’m the one holding my fucking breath.
“I loved you from the second you showed up in that ER looking like roadkill, eyes all wild and soft, still thinking your name was fucking Crash.”
She huffs a breath, half laugh, half sob.
“I loved you when you got that dumbass job at 7-Eleven, beaming like a goddamn golden retriever with his first paycheck. I loved you when you poured dish soap in the laundry because you didn’t know better and ruined every sock I owned.”
She looks up, and fuck, there’s nothing but fire in her.
“And I’m gonna keep loving you. So I hope you’re prepared, Vanderbilt, because I’m all in. Not for the penthouse. Not for the marble floors. Not for the fancy-ass breakfast or that ridiculous black sheet bed—though I do appreciate the mattress—”
I bark a laugh, god, I’m so gone for her.
“I’ll love you for the rest of your life, you arrogant, beautiful idiot. Legacy or no legacy. Billionaire or gas station job. You’re mine. And I’m fucking yours.”
Her breath catches, eyes wide and glossy like she can’t believe she said it out loud—but there’s no taking it back now. And fuck if I’d let her.
I pull her flush into me, her arms looping on my neck as I lift her off the floor.
“Then let’s get married, Ms. Vanderbilt” I say.
She lets out this full-body laugh, the kind that rattles through her chest and into mine, and holy fuck I want this forever.
She laughs, breathless, shaking her head like she doesn’t know whether to cry or slap me. “You’re insane.”
Then she wraps her arms tighter around my neck, eyes fierce and wet and blazing.
“Yeah,” I mutter, brushing my nose against hers, “Insane for you. I’m completely fucked. And happy about it.”
“You want to marry me,” she says like she’s testing it on her tongue. “You want to make me a Vanderbilt.”
“Fuck yeah, I do. I want to watch you terrify a boardroom in Crocs. I want to introduce you at galas and watch you fake laugh at rich assholes while holding my hand under the table. I want you next to me when I burn the old guard to the ground and build something better. With you.”
Her hands tremble on my face. “I don’t even know how to behave at a brunch without flipping someone off.”
“Perfect,” I smirk, “I hate brunch.”
She bites her lip like she might lose her mind. “You gonna make me breakfast every day now, Vanderbilt?”
“Every goddamn morning. Eggs. Bacon. Orgasms. The works.”
She lets out this full-body laugh, the kind that rattles through her chest and into mine, and holy fuck I want this forever.
Then she wraps her arms tighter around my neck, eyes fierce and wet and blazing.
“Fine. Fuck it. Let’s do it. Marry me, you lunatic.”
And right there—barefoot, in my shirt, in the middle of my marble floor—I kiss my future wife like I already won the world.