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Dane watched her carefully.
Allyson’s emerald green eyes went wide. While she went shopping for her wedding dress, those dazzling eyes of hers had made him choose the emerald ring in the jewelry store in town last night. Emeralds weren’t a traditional stone for a wedding band, but one look at the gem had reminded him of her and he just had to get the ring for his new bride.
Right now there was a delightful blush on her cheeks, and as she chewed her bottom lip he wanted nothing more than to kiss her.
When she had walked across the sand to meet him for the ceremony earlier, he honestly had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. On her black bobbed hair was a circle of shining seashells, her cream dress had skimmed over her perfectly curvy body, and her newly tanned skin glowed. She had been as radiant on the beach as she was now.
He had no idea what he’d done to deserve someone as beautiful as Allyson, but he was going to spend the rest of his life making her happy. He also knew he’d loved her a long time. He’d just had been too stupid to realize it.
“It’s a lot to take in,” she said finally.
She’d always been hesitant to fully accept his lifestyle. Allyson was practical, and enormous amounts of money probably made her uncomfortable. But it was now his job to make her feel comfortable. To make her feel welcome in his world. To remind her it was her world now, too.
She was his wife now. His heart started beating like crazy. Allyson was his. Everything he owned was now hers, too. Not that he cared. If he lost everything tomorrow and still had her, it was more than enough.
“It is,” he conceded. “But I want you to understand that you’re not some guest. It’s not my money. It’s our money.”
“Easier said than believed,” she said, and gave him a small smile. “I guess I’m just worried.”
“About what?”
“What your family will say, what your upper-class friends will think. You know they won’t accept me.”
“Then to hell with them,” he said forcefully. He narrowed his eyes and went on. “The ones who won’t accept you will no longer be my friends. Not everyone in the world of money is stuck up. You’re amazing and they’re going to love you.”
“How do you know that?” She took a bite of her pasta.
“Because I love you. And it’s impossible for good, sensible people not to love you.”
She rewarded him with the most beautiful laugh. The sound filled the room. He could spend the rest of his life listening to that sound. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?”
He flashed her a sly smile. “Of course. The man who ended up with you would have to be pretty extraordinary, don’t you think?”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.” She smiled. “Everything here seems surreal. Like a fairytale. What if it’s different when we get back? I...” She took a deep breath. “This is our honeymoon. I don’t want to think about it yet. I just want to enjoy you.” She grinned wickedly and then turned serious. “And things will work themselves out, right?”
“It’s okay for you to take your time,” he said, part of him wanting that wicked smile to return. “There’s no rush to understand everything right away.”
“I do wonder if I need lessons of some kind.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Lessons?”
“You know, like how to set a table properly for a dinner party, or what the protocols are for fancy events.” She shifted in her seat. “I’m not trying to change myself, but if I’m going to be your wife, and if I’m going to represent Prescott Global, it’s important that I understand how certain things are done.”
He mulled it over. “I see what you mean. That’s fair. We can arrange for some private lessons when we get back to New York, but don’t think you have to change who you are, or how you dress, or speak, or anything like that.” He tilted his head slightly. “I though you didn’t want to think about this.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I just don’t want to make a mess of things.”
Dane reached across the table to squeeze her hand gently. “You never could. Anyone who says otherwise is either a fool or jealous. Besides, you learned a lot working for me for three years.”
She nodded. “That’s true; I hadn’t even thought of that. I have experience dealing with wealthy people.”
“Allyson, you charmed your way into a merger with the Handels. You might not know everything, but you know a hell of a lot.”
“Do you think anyone will believe us this time when we tell them we got married?” she whispered conspiratorially.
“I wonder if we should tell everyone right away, but even if we did would they believe us?” He chuckled. When they’d been faking their relationship, he could never have imagined they would get married for real. It was hard to believe Allyson’s brother’s wedding was just over a month ago.
“I think we should probably tell, but I do want to wait to tell my family,” she said. “I don’t want to overshadow stuff with Holly and James.”
“You’re not overshadowing,” he insisted. “Holly and James becoming parents doesn’t mean you don’t get to celebrate getting married.”
She blew out a shaky breath. “Monica will probably accuse me of trying to get attention.”
His jaw clenched at the mention of Allyson’s sister. No matter how hard he tried, he still had negative feelings about Monica. It was one of the things that revealed how different he and Allyson were. She had been kind to his mother. Doing everything she could to get her on their side. He, on the other hand, had told off Monica and the rest of Allyson’s family at her brother’s wedding. Now that they were married, he would probably have to make more of an effort to reach out to Allyson’s family.
He pulled his hand away to scratch his chin. “Sounds like jealousy to me.”
“I don’t know how my family will take all this,” she said. “I mean, I hadn’t really told them about the engagement. They knew you and I were dating, thanks to Monica’s scheming, but not about you proposing. I took off and to come back married... not sure how that’s going to go over.”
“I imagine your parents would be happy,” he said, remembering how obsessed her parents were with marrying Allyson off. He hated that she worried about it. The woman deserved happiness, not stress and worry.
“Yes, but for all the wrong reasons,” she said. “They’d be happy I married my rich boss. Not that I’d found the love of my life.”
His brow furrowed in concern. “You don’t think they’ll try to squeeze a bunch of money out of you, do you?”
She shook her head. “Not likely. I mean, they might hint at wanting gifts or try to show off to their friends, but they’d never outright demand money.”
“Deep down, they have to be genuinely happy for you.” From what he saw, though her parents were status obsessed they did seem to love their daughter—in an overbearing and suffocating sort of way. “Maybe now that you’re married they’ll be more relaxed about things.”
“Not with Monica around.” She shook her head. “I’ve got a sinking feeling Monica’s going to be jealous enough to do something drastic. And since she’s hitched her wagon to Katherine Handel, I’m sure she’s plotting something.”
He gave her an encouraging smile. “We’re a team now. We can deal with them.”
She straightened suddenly. “You know what?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Who cares?” She lowered her eyes. “Let’s forget about them for now. You and I deserve happiness. We just got married. It’s our wedding day. We need to be excited and happy. Focus on us.”
That he could do. “We never talked about our honeymoon.”
“That’s funny.”
“Why?”
She giggled. “Because it feels like we were already on a honeymoon even before today’s ceremony.”
Dane smirked. “We do manage to do everything backwards, don’t we?”
“Well, we’ve managed to not get pregnant.” She paused when his eyes grew wide. Clearly not ready to cover that part of the conversation, she quickly continued, “We could stay here in the villa for the next few days until we have to go back to New York.” He could see she dreaded the idea of going home. Here felt perfect. Life was easy, simple. There, everything grew complicated. “If I’m expected to be working at Prescott Global in a senior position, it’s probably best to get that straightened out as soon as possible.”
“It might be tough to keep our marriage a secret from our family if we try to straighten things out at Prescott when we get back to New York.” He drained his glass of champagne. A part of him didn’t want to go back, either.
“I don’t exactly want to keep it a secret,” she said carefully. “I guess I just want to avoid talking about it with them for as long as possible. I’ll check in on Holly when we get back to the city, but I want to hold off on talking to my family. We can tell people at work, though. If my family finds out from the press, then I’ll just have to accept that.”
It killed him to see just how much Holly’s fall still affected her. She felt guilty about being happy, and while he wanted to give her room to feel that pain he wasn’t going to accept that she ought to feel guilty. And her hiding from her parents... well, he didn’t blame her. They were so different than she was. It didn’t matter. If she wanted to avoid telling them and deal with it later, he didn’t care. Allyson had just made him the happiest man in the world. There was no way he was going to let anyone or anything make her feel bad for choosing her own happiness.
When they got back to New York City, he was doing to do everything in his power to protect her. Their lives were about to start and, somehow, he was going to show her that she deserved to be happy. Deserved to be spoiled and loved and taken care of.
“When we get back, we’ll be starting our life together,” he said, trying to steer the conversation to a happier topic. “Which means we can start house-hunting.”
“I’ll have to move into your fancy apartment in the meantime.” She made a face. “I’m thinking you’re not going to want to live in mine. And I’m going to have to tell my landlord and then move everything.”
“We’ll get movers to do all that,” he said. “And your lawyer can deal with the landlord. You won’t have to worry about anything.”
“Is it really that easy?” she asked before letting out a surprised sigh.
“Sure. Why not?” Why couldn’t it be that simple? He was tempted to tell her to leave everything and just start free. However, that wouldn’t go to go over well, so he bit his tongue and kept the thought to himself.
She took a bite of her pasta. “It wouldn’t make sense for me to bring all my furniture with me to your apartment—”
“Our apartment,” he corrected.
“Our apartment.” She gave him a faint smile. “I’ll have to sell my furniture or give it away.”
“Would you like to redecorate our apartment?” An interior designer had set up his luxury condo, but if Allyson wanted to change it while they went house-hunting he didn’t mind.
She waved her hand. “That would be such a waste of money. We can decorate our new place together once we’ve found it.”
His eyebrow went up. “You sure you want me decorating? Because, if it were up to me, there would be futons or a foam mattress in the corner somewhere.”
“And here I thought you were kind of a snob.” She laughed, and winked at him.
“I’m a guy. Don’t let my fancy apartment fool you. I didn’t decorate the place.” He winked back. “And the futons and foam mattress would be so I could make love to you anywhere, anyplace.” He didn’t miss the blush she tried to hide.
“I would hardly object to the making love. The, uh, house might be a little uncomfortable to move around in, though.” She threw a napkin at him. “But I’d be happy to be the one in charge of decorating—as long as we both agree on the house. I was hoping for a townhouse a little like the one your parents have up in Manhattan.” Her green eyes lit up as she spoke.
He leaned in and flashed her a knowing grin. “Who’s the snob now?”
“Okay, you caught me. I liked your parents’ townhouse,” she confessed. “I liked the kitchen, and all those trees. And the neighborhood was quiet.”
“You want to live near my parents?”
“No,” she quickly replied. “I just want a nice townhouse where we can be a family together.”
“Then we’ll look for a townhouse,” he said with a smile.
She frowned, a concerned expression on her lovely face. “Is that what you want? Because, if you don’t want a townhouse, we can get something else.”
“A townhouse sounds good.” He didn’t care. At all. What he did realize is that she wanted his opinion, too, with making decisions. They were a team. “As long as it’s not close to my parents, I think it sounds like a great idea.”
“We should get something spacious enough for kids.” She sighed happily, her eyes focusing on something just beyond him, as if she was daydreaming about the future already.
The joy on her face shot right to his heart. He wanted her to always look like this. “We should make sure there’s a home office, too.”
“You want to work from home?”
He nodded. “You said you wanted to say at home in the early years of our kids’ lives. Well, I want to be home as much as possible with you and our kids during those years. Besides, if you ever want to work from home, I want you to have that option also. Maybe two desks facing each other?” He spread his hands out wide. “Two nice big desks, about the size of a bed—”
“I know exactly what you’re planning with the desks, Mister Prescott.”
“You mean on those desks, right, Mrs. Prescott?”
They laughed and continued talking about the future as they ate. They agreed to wait a few years, spend time together, before they settled down and had kids. He told her about all the places he wanted to take her, while she suggested places he’d never been.
After they ate they took the champagne out to an upstairs balcony and watch the sun set over the ocean. The sun descended, leaving a fiery glow that made Allyson look even more beautiful and radiant in her wedding gown.
He reached for her hand and kissed it. “Would you like to come inside with me? I’ve got a surprise waiting for you.”
