The beach is so beautiful. So warm and dreamy. I look up to the hotel patio and I see him there, like that very first time. With his dark hair and his blue eyes. He’s watching me. He gets up and walks down to the beach and sits next to me, getting all sandy in his business suit. I love you, he says. The harsh sound of a ringing bell is pulling me away from him and I don’t want to go. I want to stay with him. I believe him. “Fuck,” Emma moans, fumbling for her phone in the early morning light. “It’s my alarm.” Ugh. I’m tired. I wish I could have stayed in my beautiful dream a little longer. By the time we went to bed last night it was after midnight. I miss him so much. I was so wrong. About everything. I reach for my own phone. And I remember that I don’t have to go to work today. Ace fired me, effective immediately. “It’s 7:00. Do we need to wake up so early?” Emma turns on her side to face me. Her curls are wild and she’s grinning, sort of mischievously. “Because we have some things to do this morning.” “What things?” “It’s a surprise.” I stare up at the ceiling. “It’s way too early in the morning for surprises, Em. Just tell me.” “Can’t. I’m sworn to secrecy.” I look over at her. “By who?” She smiles and gets up. “I’m having the first shower but you’re going next. We have to find you the perfect outfit.” “I’m not getting out of this bed until you tell me what you’re talking about.” “You’ll see,” she sings, slamming the bathroom door. Exactly two hours later, I still haven’t managed to get any information out of my best friend, who’s having a field day with her little secret. I’m dressed in a cute black dress that’s Emma’s newest purchase. She insisted I wear it. My hair hangs loose, freshly washed with some fancy European shampoo Emma was gifted because of her new Instagram following, and it looks thicker and shinier than usual. I’m wearing heels and my favorite gold jewelry. Emma did my makeup (with more free gifts) and she’s good at it. It’s understated and natural looking. In the mirror, I look as devastated as I feel, but the makeup sort of helps. I have to talk to him. I need to apologize for acting like a lunatic. I don’t blame him if he doesn’t want to re-hire me or forgive me, but I at least need to try to explain. We take the elevator down and walk through the lobby to the front door of the building. I follow her out onto the street. “I really wish you would tell me where we’re going,” I say again. “Did you book an Uber?” “Not quite.” It’s then that a black stretch limo pulls up to the curb. “This is our ride.” She’s loving every minute of this. The chauffeur gets out and comes around to open the door for us. Emma practically pushes me in. And there’s only one person I know who would be this over the top. The limo driver closes the door. Soon we’re pulling away from the curb. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve been communicating with the person who fired me yesterday—okay, which I possibly deserved. Tell me, Emma, I mean it.” “Okay, yes. But I think you’re going to want to hear what he has to say.” “What does he have to say?” “I don’t know, but I think it’s going to be good. I’m coming along to live vicariously through you. I mean, limos, billionaires, come on, Dust. Just go with it. You cannot d eprive me of watching Cash Maddox grovel, girlfriend.” “What if he’s done groveling? What if I’ve damaged everything beyond r epair?”
Now that I’m well-rested and not quite as strung out, I feel calmer. But my heart aches. Why do I have to be so damaged, by something that happened to me so long ago? “I guess I behaved sort of irrationally yesterday.” “We’ve all been there, sister.” “Tell me what Cash said to you.” “Can’t.” Her brown eyes twinkle. “It might ruin the surprise.” I glare at her. “Traitor.” “This is way too good, Dust. Just go with it.” A small flurry of butterflies erupts in my stomach. “When did he contact you?” “Last night. When I was unpacking my lamps.” “So it wasn’t someone from work.” “Not exactly. Oh my god, we’re here.” Once again the chauffeur opens the door for us and we climb out. A doorman is waiting for us and ushers us inside the building. Penelope is standing there. “They’re all waiting for you,” she grins. “All?” “Yes,” she beams. “Is this Emma?” “Penelope, this is my best friend Emma Fontaine. Emma, Penelope Callahan, HR director.” “Nice to meet you, Emma. Cash told us to expect you both.” He did? Penelope is as cagey as Emma and they exchange a conspiratorial glance. The little girl with abandonment issues in me has the urge to run, but I’m done listening to her. She’s been giving me terrible advice lately. Whatever’s about to happen at the top of this elevator ride is obviously going to be overwhelming, one way or the other. I love him. I love him like that four-year-old girl on our porch that day, or the ten-year-old girl with the paper route, or the sixteen-year-old who used to hang out in the UT library could never have imagined. And I want to hear what he has to say. We get to the executive floor and Penelope leads us to a large meeting room, opening the door. Inside, the room is full and everyone stands as we enter. Ace is there and for a moment, all I can see is him. He looks more gorgeous than I’ve ever seen him, a stormy-eyed Adonis in a perfectly-cut suit. His wild ferocity, contained as it is in his business suit is... unbelievably hot. Even from across the room, I can detect his relief. He’s so happy to see me. The realization opens some little fissure inside my heart. Now that I’ve had the few hours of distance my addled mind needed, I can see it as much as I can feel it. We need each other. Equally. He’s standing there at the head of the table. I’m sorry, I want to say. Something about his expression tells me he already knows. “Dusty,” he says, almost coolly, but his gaze is fiery and his de ep voice is edged with a husky, controlled joy. He gestures to the empty seat to his right. He wants me to sit next to him. “Mr. Maddox.” It sounds weird and overly formal, but some of the most powerful people in New York are in this room. Noah’s here, and Colton. Alexander is here too. And Evan, as well as the rest of my team. Patel, who I haven’t spent much time with. And Lacey, who’s smiling at me. Guaranteeing that whatever happens in this room is soon going to become office folklore. Emma and Penelope take the two empty seats between Alexander and Evan. And I take a seat next to Ace. Everyone sits exc ept for Ace. “Thanks, Emma,” he says, “for escorting Dusty this morning. And it’s nice to meet you.” “You too, Cash.” Emma is lapping this up. “And it was a pleasure.” Ace is quiet for a few seconds as he surveys the room. It’s been twelve or so hours since I’ve seen him and his effect shoots straight to the pit of my stomach. I love him so much. I love the little wave in the thick silk of his hair. I love that I know how it feels in my
hands. The smoothness of his recent shave is underlaid by a barely-detectable roughness. I love how it feels when it scratches against my thighs. My craving for him is pulsing in me, along with the beat of my heart. “Thank you all for being here,” Ace says, all business this morning. “I know this is somewhat unexpected but I have some things I need to say, and since you’re all going to be a part of what happens next, you need to hear them.” Ace glances down at me, his eyes a resolute, unholy blue. “A few months ago, I took a trip to Hawaii to meet with Ty Dyson about the fund of his we purchased. After our meeting, I was sitting out on the hotel patio having a much-needed drink. It was the day after the insider trading emails were detected. And that was when I first saw Dusty. She was on the beach. She smiled and walked right past me that day, and as soon as she did, I decided to stay an extra day.” Alexander leans back in his chair and folds his arms, enjoying this. He elbows Colton. “You were right. I needed to cancel all meetings to be here.” “Told you,” Colton whispers back. They both wait for Ace to continue. Which he does. “The next night, I happened to run into Dusty at the beach bar. I really couldn’t believe she was real. She seemed to me like a dream come true.” It sounds romantic and it is, and I’m reminded of something he said to me over the weekend. I’m a hard-ass numbers guy without a romantic bone in my body—until that moment. You turned me into someone who wanted to fall in love. Like, hard. De ep. For real. Even so, I’m relieved when he’s light on the details of what went down that night in Hawaii. “In the morning, Dusty left without saying goodbye. She was gone and she made it very difficult for me to find her.” I glance up at him and he gives me a naughty-girl look, which makes my heart beat faster. “The next two months were both a nightmare and a feverish quest. I couldn’t concentrate on the impending implosion of my company—and I have to both apologize to and thank my brothers for picking up the slack— because I was too distracted by the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, who’d vanished into thin air.” Lacey’s eyes get shiny and she blinks at Ace like she can’t believe the guy she always thought was an arrogant prick is gushing all these love words. “So you can imagine my surprise,” Ace continues, “when our newest junior analyst was shown to my office on Friday morning. What do you know, my Hawaiian fever dream had materialized into a living, breathing employee.” Another nudge between Alexander and Colton. “The boy is whipped,” Colton says under his breath. Ace slides them a glare but there’s no heat in it. “I’m telling it like it is, and I wanted you to know at least some of our backstory, because I’m going to be making some changes here at IE and I want you all to know why. First things first, nothing that I say here today goes any further than the walls of this room.” His question is pointed at one person in particular. “Is that understood?” Lacey nods sincerely. “Of course, Mr. Maddox.” “Good. Because leaks will lead to immediate dismissals. I think we can all agree on that, with all that’s happened lately. Second, Dusty has been relieved of her former position as junior analyst.” What? After everything he just said, he’s still firing me? But then he says, “With myself and Noah, Dusty will be helping make the decisions about her new role. We’re going to be creating a position for her that suits her capabilities and her vision.”
There are a few murmurs around the room. I’m as shocked as they are. “It was Dusty who pinpointed and exposed the fraud that almost brought this company down,” Ace continues. “For that reason, and because her talents are clearly being wasted in a junior position, I’ve made the executive decision to promote her. Let me be clear about one thing: she’s not being promoted because I’m in love with her.” Emma makes a small whimper. Evan, who’s sitting next to her, notices her reaction. In fact, he seems to be staring at her in a way that’s sort of... rapt. Ace’s romantic tendencies seem to be rubbing off. “She’s being promoted because she’s an asset to IE,” he says. “And—if I get my way, which I’m going to make sure I do, even if it takes me a lifetime to do it—she’ll eventually, as my wife, be a co-owner of IE at the highest level.” Did he just say wife? is the question that fizzes through my brain at the exact same time Alexander murmurs to Colton, “Did he just say wife?” “That escalated quickly,” Colton murmurs back. “He’s lost his mind,” Alexander mutters. “So it makes sense for her to have a senior role in the company starting now,” Ace is saying. “If it takes a while for me to convince her the time is right for me to close down Tiffany’s for the night so she can pick out the ring of her choice, then so be it. I can be patient. But it’ll happen.” The reactions around the room don’t really sink in, but I watch as Emma’s eyes glimmer and so do Lacey’s. Penelope’s hands are clasped together with emotion. Colton mutters, “hoo, boy,” and Alexander just shakes his head. As for me, I don’t know how to react, exc ept to feel equal parts terror and so much love for him I feel almost stricken with it. “And now,” Ace says, “I’d like you all to give Dusty and me a moment. There are some things she and I need to discuss in private. We’ll meet you in the Sky Bar in a while.” “At ten in the morning?” Noah asks, to no one in particular. “They serve coffee,” Penelope points out, and with that everyone shuffles out of the room, some still swooning, others with much stormier looks on their faces. Once they’re gone and the door is closed, Ace sits next to me and pulls my chair so I’m facing him, between his spread knees. His blue eyes are soulful. “I’m sorry to spring all that on you like this, but I wanted to take the everyone-thinks-I’ve-sl ept-my-way-into-my-job element out of the equation once and for all. It’s not something you need to worry about anymore.” Ace takes my hands. “I think I’ve loved you since the minute I saw you, Texas. I’m obsessed with you—in a good way. In a way that’s real and monumental and has basically transformed me from someone who only thinks about work to someone who only thinks about you. And how I might be able to get you to stop running from me.” “I don’t want to run from you, Ace.” “But still, you do. Every time.” “It’s my default mode. My brain tells me to leave before you get a chance to. It’s easier. That way, my heart can remain intact. I’m sorry, Ace.” “I get it, Tex. Your father was the kind of man who could leave. Who did leave.” I hold onto his hands more tightly because the words unfailingly hit that de ep reservoir of emotion in me that’s my earliest and most primal wound. “Tex?” “Yeah?” “I’m not that man. My father was a tyrannical bastard but he was always extremely present, which is going to be the new normal for you. Well, at least the present part. I’ve spent a long time doing my best to tone down any tyrannical bastard tendencies that might have rubbed off. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this: I’m the guy who stays, whether you want him to or not.”
His handsome face is blurry now. “You are?” “Yeah. I am. I can’t guarantee that everything will be perfect every second of every day. Life isn’t generally like that. I can be an arrogant prick and I’m stubborn as fuck. I like getting my way. But I can guarantee that I’ll be honest with you. And I promise you I won’t leave.” My face is wet with tears. “You won’t?” “Nope. You’re stuck with me, gorgeous. Now, I want you to bear with me for this next part.” Ace lets go of one of my hands. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box. “I meant what I said about Tiffany’s. When you’re ready, I’m going to take you down there and you’re going to pick out any ring you want and I’m going to get down on one knee and ask you to marry me. You’re moving in with me tonight and we’re going to take it st ep by st ep until you start to trust me and believe me, without freaking out about it every st ep of the way. We’ll get you some therapy if you think it would help. Whatever it takes. Until then, I bought this ring when I bought your bracelet. I knew you needed time, but I don’t need time, Texas. I just need you as close to me as you’ll let me get. So, this is a promise ring.” He slides the giant ruby onto a very significant finger. “I’m going to fix those broken pieces inside you, Tex, you’ll see, with love and lust and by making every dream you’ve ever had come true.” Oh my god. “You’re going to have your own driver and I’ve cleared out the penthouse apartment of the employee building. It’s got three bedrooms. It’s empty, and it’s yours. That way, you’ll have a safe place to run to if you need to. Emma can even move into it if you want so you have your support team there when you need her. So there’s nothing to be scared of.” Wow. He really, really gets me. “Because you know what, Texas?” “What?” “I’m fucking all in. I’m not just in love with you, baby girl. I’m fanatically, ecstatically, addictively in love with you. And to be honest, I never even thought about falling in love before. It wasn’t really on my wish list or my radar. I was always too distracted with work and with making money and with proving myself to my father. But none of that feels so important anymore. Because I can tell you this: I fucking love being in love with you. It makes everything make sense. Everything suddenly has a reason. And you know what that reason is, Tex?” “What’s the reason?” “It’s you, baby. It’s you.” He takes my face carefully in his warm hands and wipes my tears. “Please, honey, let me try.” So I do the only thing I can do. I crawl onto his lap and into his arms and I kiss him. “I want to. I want to try. I can. I will.” “You do?” His question is so de ep and so hopeful. “Yes. So much.” “Fuck yes.” Our connection started as a physical one and, like always, we can’t resist each other’s pull. Our kisses turn slippery and hungry and my heart aches at the sweetness of it. His hands are under my dress as I unfasten his pants and we can’t get close enough fast enough. “I hope they don’t drink their coffees too fast,” I gasp. “They know not to bother us.” He positions me, pushing my panties to the side, swiping the head of his cock insistently, parting me, sliding thickly inside. I whimper because he feels safe and heartbreakingly good. My tight body gives so wetly and so willingly as he holds me and drives de eper inside me. I slide down onto his steely girth as I inhale his warm breath, kissing him as he plays my tongue with his. He’s inside me in every possible way and I can’t get enough of him. I’m already starting to come. “I love you, Dusty Rose,” he rasps, a hitch in his voice. “Trust me. Believe me. I love you so fucking much.” And so I try it on for size and it’s easier than I ever expected, because it’s Ace. “I trust you, Cash Maddox. I believe you.”
We’re gripping each other and kissing like our lives d epend on it, and it doesn’t take long. We both shatter at the same time, my pleasure milking his as the gushing throb of him takes me higher. Like Ace said, life makes no promises. It has a way of throwing curveballs. But as long as we’re willing to catch them, maybe sometimes we can. I hold him close as my body worships him lovingly, over and over. “I love you, Ace.” What surprises me is how good it feels to finally say it.
Epilogue If there’s a way to request a certain Uber driver, I don’t know it, but I sort of wish it was Earl who was driving us to our hotel in Waikiki. Just so I could tell him he was right about everything. My new job title is Vice President of Creative Direction. Which sounds... kind of cool. Like he promised, Ace and I sat down with Noah and we talked through my ideas about what I thought my strengths were for the company, what my vision was for the future of my career, and a lot of other stuff that proved to me that both of them really know their shit when it comes to building and running a business. I told them I’d love to learn how to do that too. So we wrote out a job description that covers all the things I know how to do and all the things I aspire to learn, and they created a job for me. It’s not just my dream job, it’s my fantasy job. Everything is so exciting, I can’t wait to get to work each morning just to get started. Since I moved in with Ace the night he gave me the ruby promise ring, my commute is now with him in the back of his Maybach, driven by one of his team of round-the-clock drivers. Ace also insisted I get my own office on his floor. It’s not huge and in fact used to be one of the smaller meeting rooms on the executive floor, but it has a corner window with a view of the Empire State Building and it’s all my own. I absolutely love it. It’s also handy that it’s right down the hall from Ace’s office (and has a lock on the door and also a desk that’s sturdy enough to hold our weight), because he tells me he can’t go without seeing me for more than an hour. After the meeting where Ace told everyone that we were together, Evan asked Emma if she wanted to have a drink with him after work. I can’t imagine two people having more different personalities, but the two of them have really hit it off. She’s the bubbly sunshine to his reserved coding geek, so it’s definitely a case of opposites attract. I can’t imagine what the two of them talk about, but they’re planning a fourth date this week so it must be going well. Last time I talked to Emma, she told me he was “surprisingly well-endowed for a nerd.” I told her that was way too much information but she only squealed with jubilation at her new discovery. I’m just happy she’s happy. Rylee Winters disappeared uneventfully—partly because Ace’s lawyers made sure of it—and the insider trading fiasco faded out almost immediately. IE’s clients and subscribers appreciated that the management had been honest and forthcoming about the incident instead of trying to hide it. If anything, the discussion around the whole thing has boosted IE’s profile. Business has never been better. Lacey was true to her word. I was suspicious that Ace quietly offered her a bonus to talk me up because everyone in the office has been only encouraging to me about my new role. Or maybe I’ve just finally laid my paranoia to rest. It never helped anyway. Either way, despite the fact that I jumped from a junior to a vice president in the course of under a week, everyone I work with seems to be fine with it. Especially my boss. Lacey and I often meet for a drink in the Sky Bar after work. She told me there’s a rumor circulating that Rylee’s starting her own fund and already has a lot of interest. According to Lacey, she’s dating a Bitcoin billionaire. I wish her only the best. I was never the type to carry grudges, but Ace is thorough about making sure Rylee’s a part of our past and has nothing to do with our present or future. With Ace’s encouragement, I did end up going to see a therapist about my “abandonment issues.” I don’t think I’ll really need to continue with it for long. It seems very straightforward to me. I told the therapist the story, we talked about it, I told her the issue had made it hard for me to trust men, but then I’d met Cash Maddox, who
changed my mind. The therapist’s opinion was that I’ve been through the worst of it and I agreed. With his love, a lot of hot sex and his relentless devotion, Ace cured me, so it would seem. I was paid the reward of twenty thousand dollars for cracking the mystery behind Rylee’s emails. I told them they didn’t need to pay me for doing the right thing, but they insisted it was company policy. So I gave the money to my mom. Sky doesn’t need it anymore. Her recording contract is more than enough to pay for her new loft in downtown Nashville and her new, glitzy lifestyle. She’ll be spending most of her time over the next few months on tour as the opening act for one of the biggest new bands in country-rock music, called the Hay Seeds. Last time I talked to her she was dating the bass player, whose name is Luke. Unlike her past boyfriends, he sounds like a nice guy, with a close family and the kind of integrity you tend to hope for in a partner. He calls when he says he’s going to call. He buys her flowers. He even wrote a song about her, that’s now climbing the charts. I’ve never seen my sister happier. Now that my mom’s house is paid off and she has money in the bank, she was able to quit both her cleaning jobs. For the first time since my mom got pregnant with Sky when she was seventeen, she’s started painting again, something she used to dream about being able to do. She even sold a watercolor to a local gallery. At my insistence, my mom decided to (finally) have a dishwasher installed, which meant she needed to do some minor renovations to her kitchen. The contractor who did the work for her, whose name is Jim, asked her out. He invited her to his old house by the river that he’s done up and he cooked her the best meal she’s ever had. Last time I talked to her, he’d just asked her to come again next weekend. My mom even mentioned that Jim doesn’t smoke. She didn’t need to say it for both of us to be thinking it: he’ll never need to go out for a pack of cigarettes. This week is “creative” week at my job. It’s company policy to work from anywhere we choose for one week out of each month. I spent the first creative week in Ace’s apartment, where we barely surfaced. I told him that some of the stuff he got creative with— in bed—might actually be illegal in some states, but he didn’t seem to mind. That week, Ace took me to dinner at his favorite restaurant. Then his limo took us to Tiffany’s, after hours, where the staff brought out all the engagement rings they had. He told me to pick any one I wanted. I chose two rose gold bands that were held together by a row of pink diamonds. As it turns out, it’s the ring that matches the bracelet Ace bought for me, which I now wear all the time. Ace said I can’t have the ring just yet. He kissed me and told me he loved me, and I said it right back. But he didn’t propose to me that night. He said he had something special in mind and that it has something to do with my second creative week. For that, I chose, of course, Waikiki. Ace said he was coming with me and he’d booked us the penthouse suite, the one where we spent our very first night together. He said he couldn’t handle a week without me, especially if I was on the beach in my leopard print bikini. So now, as we check in to my favorite hotel in the world, it’s crazy to think that it was only four months ago that I was here the first time. In every possible way, my life has transformed into something that needed to be conquered or overcome or endured, to something I can only be grateful for. Somehow, Earl was right. And so was Lucas.
Ace holds my hand as we walk along the beach and we find a spot for our towels. “This is where I first saw you,” he says, looking devilishly handsome in his sunglasses, swim shorts and nothing else. The man is a specimen of male perfection that I can never quite get used to. Every day, I’m amazed by him. He’s looking around for someone. “Surfer Boy is gone,” he comments. “Which is probably a good thing because I’d be tempted to throttle the little punk all over again.” Ace is right. There’s a new guy, with brown shaggy hair. Maybe Lucas never came back from his trip to the North Shore. “I’ll be right back,” Ace tells me. He heads to the Beach Bar. I go for a swim, floating for a while in that blue water that’s as warm as the air, wondering how I got this lucky. When I get back to our towels, Ace is standing there, watching me walk up the beach like he’s starstruck. He’s holding two drinks and he hands me one. “One slushy guava cocktail for the most beautiful girl in the world.” I’d raved about them to him once on a rainy day in New York. And then, he sets his drink down and slides his sunglasses up. He takes the light blue box out of his pocket and he gets down on one knee, taking my hand. “Dusty Rose, my Texan girl, I can’t breathe if you’re not near me. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, right here in this very spot, and I don’t think I’ll ever recover from how gorgeous you are, inside and out. I’m fucking besotted with you. I know it’s fast but in some ways it feels like I’ve been waiting a lifetime for you. We can wait as long as you want to get married, but I want you to have the promise I gave you, now, here, on your finger and in your heart. I love you, Texas. I love you so fucking much it takes all my effort just to function as a normal human being and not follow you around like a lovestruck puppy every waking minute of every day. Please marry me, baby girl. Please say yes.” My Ace sort of stuns me with his handsomeness as he stares hopefully up at me. I can see behind his blue eyes that there’s a glimmer of vulnerability in him. He’s worried it’s too soon for me, and that I might not say yes. But I’m not scared anymore. For him, I’m willing to take the risk. Because I trust him. I believe him. Most of all, I love him more than I knew it was possible to love. “Yes.” “Yes?” I smile at him, because he makes me so happy. “Yes, Ace. I’ll marry you.” He slides the ring onto my finger, where it fits perfectly next to the ruby promise ring. He stands and lifts me into his arms. He kisses me like he’s been waiting his whole life to kiss me. The whole beach claps and cheers. I hardly notice them. I’m too besotted with my hot fiancé. “Thank you for fixing me, Ace.” My voice hitches with the overload of happiness he’s somehow infused into every corner of my world. “Thank you for letting me, angel. And for being the love of my life.” He kisses me again. Then Ace murmurs, “Can we please go back to our room now because I’ve got a fucking hard-on for my new wife-to-be that won’t take no for an answer and I don’t want to scare away the happy vacationers.” I laugh and whisper into his ear, “I want to ride your big cock into a gilded sunset, boss.” He swears under his breath, setting me down and wrapping a towel around his waist. He holds our bag in front of his giant erection. “Whatever Dusty Rose Maddox wants, Dusty Rose Maddox gets. Forever and ever.” Then he grabs my hand and pulls me up the beach. With that, my husband-to-be takes me to bed and—between arguing with my overly arrogant lover and having hot makeup sex before the
argument is even finished—we live happily ever after.