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Dallas
Rita and I are walking along Eighth Avenue in Boise, headed to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse for our one-year anniversary. She’s wearing a slim cocktail dress, like she did that night we fell into each other’s arms, but this one’s emerald green and is a lovely, striking compliment to her deep, auburn hair.
We go into the lobby of the Zion’s Bank building, where it all happened so long ago, and get on the escalator that goes to the second floor where the restaurants are.
“Avoiding the elevator?” I tease, even though no one takes the elevator to the second floor with this escalator right here.
She gently leans against my body, slipping her arm around my waist. “I handle elevators just fine now.”
“Because I cured you.”
“Something like that,” she says with a smile. Not to take credit or anything, but that isn’t the only thing I cured her of. Ever since I asked her to take a leap with me, she’s been all in.
And amazing.
The few misunderstandings we’ve had have been a breeze to handle, because we talk it out with love and trust.
I was right. She was afraid to get into a real relationship, but she was a fast learner, too.
She runs her fingers down my tie. “You look so good, all dressed up.”
“Not like a stuffed shirt?” I tease.
She shakes her head and gives me a sexy grin. “Not when I know exactly what’s stuffing that shirt.” She glances down. “And those pants.”
I smile and slide my hand around her waist, pulling her closer to me. “Come here, you.”
I give her a kiss that gets my heart thumping against my chest. I’m so ridiculously in love with this woman. Even though the last year has been full of firsts and adventures—new jobs, a new city, and Rita’s new books—the overriding theme of it has been one thing:
Falling deeper and deeper in love with the most amazing woman I’ve had the privilege to know.
We pull apart just in time to get off the escalator, and hold hands as we go into the restaurant and are led to our table.
We’re seated by a window, where we can look out over one of Boise’s most charming downtown streets and it’s here that we end up enjoying the best—and most expensive—steak in town.
We laugh and talk about memories we’ve shared so far: our trip to Yellowstone and the thigh-burning climb to the top of the white Mammoth hot springs, the crazy manager at one of the condos we were looking at before we found the one we’re in now, and the insanity of trying to clean spilled paint off the broad wooden floors.
It could’ve been a stressful mess, but thanks to her, it was flat hilarious.
I’ve seen Rita sick, angry, playful, stubborn, saucy, and downright swoony.
I love all of it. The whole package.
And my heart has been thumping against the little box in my breast pocket all night, just at the thought of making that whole package truly mine.
The waiter clears away our dinner plates, we place our dessert order, and I take Rita’s hand into mine.
“Happy anniversary,” she says, her blue eyes glittering at me.
“Happy anniversary. I have a gift for you.”
“We already exchanged gifts,” she says, simultaneously stern and pleased.
“This one is special.”
I release her hand, pull the velvet box out of my pocket, and carefully slide it in front of her.
Her eyes lock on it, her lips parting in surprise. She slowly reaches for the box, opens it, and I slide out of my seat.
“Dallas...” she whispers, the tips of her fingers on her lips.
I get to one knee and her eyes come to mine.
“Rita, life has been such a beautiful adventure with you. An adventure I never want to end. You are everything I’ve always needed, and more than I ever dared hoped for.”
Her face softens and her trembling hand squeezes mine.
“Will you make me the happiest man alive? Will you marry me?”
She bursts into that mix of crying and laughing only females are capable of. She slides off the seat and wraps her arms around my neck, kissing me over and over again.
She grabs the box and hands it to me, holding out her hand in happy anticipation.
“You haven’t said ‘yes’ yet,” I tease.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she says, laughing and hanging onto me and kissing my neck and crying all at the same time.
The highlight of my entire life. Easily.
The restaurant erupts in applause and I startle. I forgot all these people were even here. I look back into Rita’s eyes and nearly forget about them again.
I pull her into an embrace, and she tucks herself into my neck. I cradle the back of her head, my fingers wrapped in her soft hair. The most precious person in my world.
“Now I’ve got you,” she says, and I laugh.
“You do.”
And she does.
Forever.
––––––––
Fall in Love with the Rivers Family...
Rita Becker is the intrepid, off-screen gossip columnist mentioned in the Beautiful Rivers series, a collection of steamy contemporary romance standalones ...
Begin with Connor and Whitney’s whirlwind romance. Can she capture the heart of this wandering Rivers brother? Find out in BEAUTIFUL MINE.
Let’s not forget the beautiful Rivers sister. When Lizzy crosses paths with “Brett Freaking Carmichael”, the son of her nemesis, she learns there’s more to this heart-stopping single dad than she first believed. Get swept away in their sexy, heartfelt love story, BEAUTIFUL FALL.
Not to be left out, the Rivers’ beloved cousin Corrine falls for the mysterious Mason Reeves, a man with tragic ties to the family clan. But family secrets aren’t the only things standing in the way of their happily ever after. Experience all the feels of their stunning love affair in BEAUTIFUL DARK.
Be sure to find out who tames the eldest Rivers brother. Fall in love with Rayce and Emma in BEAUTIFUL DEEP, a powerful tale of passion, love, and redemption.
Discover Heart of Glass...
Keep reading for an excerpt from Jordyn White’s secret crush, friends-to-lovers story, Heart of Glass.
I moved three thousand miles to get away from my best friend, Luke Fraser.
Gorgeous.
Funny.
Intelligent.
He was the whole package.
Did I mention he was married?
I couldn’t take the heartbreak of wanting something I couldn’t have, so I bailed.
I had convinced myself that I was over him, until he ended up in my town for a six-week art commission.
One look was all it took for my heart to break all over again. I wasn’t over him. Not one bit.
But things have changed, and not for the better.
Recently widowed, Luke is carrying darkness and secrets.
Everyone tells me to stay away. Even him. He’s a mess. Broken. Incapable of giving me what he says I deserve.
But regardless of what I deserve, there’s only one thing I need.
Him.
Excerpt from Heart of Glass
Mia
Such a stunningly beautiful place for one’s heart to be ripped out.
We’re gathered on the sprawling lawn of the new expansion of the Swan Pointe Botanical Gardens, at a reception hosted by the Rivers Paradise Resort. The area has been set up with high cocktail tables, a full bar, and buffet indicative of the resort’s five-star reputation.
The highlight of the expansion—for the moment—is a round platform in the middle of the huge pond. The platform’s circumference is about four car lengths. Its base is nothing but cement.
A blank canvas. Waiting for some magician to come along and make it something worthy of notice. The centerpiece of the entire space. The reason we’re all here.
The source of my current troubles.
“There you are,” my sister Cat says, approaching with her fiancé, Marcus. “You didn’t bail after all,”
“I considered it.” I give first her then Marcus a hug.
We look like sisters, except instead of keeping her hair dark like mine, she goes for the blonde hair, dark roots look. She has more edge than I do, so it totally works on her.
The two of them look amazing, actually. He’s in a dark suit, no tie, the top two buttons undone and she’s wearing a red dress with an uneven hem. Such a gorgeous couple.
Even though they’ve only been back together for six months, Marcus was such a constant presence in our lives when they were first together that it’s easy to feel like he never left.
Especially because they look at one another with an overflowing love that makes my heart melt, and maybe break a little.
It made me so happy to see things work out between Cat and Marcus, a couple I’ve always felt were meant to be together. But why can’t I have that for myself?
“You look beautiful,” Cat says pointedly.
“Thanks, so do you.” She does, too, as always. “Are you sure this dress doesn’t make things obvious?”
“Not at all. You’re a beautiful woman at a fancy event. Why wouldn’t you look amazing?”
Cat insisted I needed to look and feel my best tonight, and I guess I agreed even though there’s literally zero point.
I’m in a dress we picked out just for the occasion. A mulberry-colored form-fitting gown with two-inch wide straps and a swooping back.
When we went shopping for it, Cat declared it made me look, “Sexy as fuck.”
That should have made me put the dress back.
But it didn’t.
The dress really isn’t helping me feel any better about things. Because this dress is not going to change the fact that my dating life is a disaster.
The last guy I went out with, someone I met on a dating app, spent most of the evening talking about his ex-wife. No, make that ranting. It didn’t start out that way, but eventually that’s what it turned into.
I don’t know her and I don’t know him, and I don’t know what actually happened between them. Maybe she’s as horrible as he said, but he didn’t come off looking too good either.
The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
It’s been a week and I’m still miffed about the whole thing, because I haven’t exactly been handling the ups and downs of single life very well recently. I know exactly why, too.
“Have you seen him yet?” my sister asks.
Him.
Both the reason I’m here and the reason I don’t want to be anywhere near here.
I shake my head. “I haven’t really looked though.”
“Are you nervous?”
I take a deep, steadying breath. “Well... yes. But it’ll be fine, right? I mean, it’s been two and a half years since I’ve seen him. It’s been so long, it won’t be like before, right? It should be fine. Right?”
“Riiight,” Cat says slowly, giving me a knowing look. “Let’s get you a drink.”
We head to the bar where I get a glass of Chardonnay. Cat is trying to distract me with talk of work—she wants me to meet one of her interior design clients because he’s a potential collector for my gallery.
This strategy to divert my attention wasn’t a bad idea. I love my work. And tonight is definitely about work; I have no small list of people I need to connect with while I’m here.
But right now I can’t focus on any of that because the crowd is starting to quiet and everyone’s attention is being drawn toward the stage. My heartbeat starts to pick up. I know what’s coming.
I look toward the stage too, and immediately feel I’m hovering above the ground somehow. I grip the delicate sphere of my glass and watch as two men cross the temporary platform set up at the far side of the lawn.
One of them is our evening’s host, Mr. Rayce Rivers. In addition to being one of the owners of our local, world-renowned resort, he likes to spend exorbitant amounts of money on the arts in his spare time.
Which leads me to the man next to him. Luke Fraser.
As I take him in, my pulse stutters and my legs start to tingle. Luke isn’t in the typical suit, like every other man here. He’s in a black dress jacket with a dark maroon collar and maroon pocket square. It’s the kind of thing that’s typical in the New York art scene or maybe the red carpet in Hollywood, but not so much in this central Californian tourist town.
It makes him stand out. It says he’s something unique and worthy of notice, though I highly doubt he was purposely trying to make that sort of statement.
Next to him, Mr. Rivers is a commanding presence, as he always is. But Luke holds his own. Maybe I’m already prejudiced because I know him, but it seems to me that he exudes the aura of artistic genius.
His hair is the same dark brown, shorter on the sides and back, and longer on top. He has a short, neat beard, almost just scruff. He’s strikingly handsome, at least to me. Impossibly gorgeous. Though I’m hopelessly biased.
Hopeless period.
Cat’s arm comes around my waist. “See? You’re doing fine.”
I huff. What a crock. I’m not even trying to hide my reaction to him.
It’s no different from before, not at all. Because all I want to do is plop down on the grass, rest my chin in my hands, and stare at that man all day. All damned day.
Luke.
Here.
Back in our shared hometown and not where I last saw him in the dusty bowels of his mentor’s glass studio on the outskirts of Manhattan—where he’d gotten me my first post-college job.
I’d already been secretly in love with him for some time. It happened when I was a senior in high school and my new friend introduced me to her brother visiting from college. Even then, I thought Luke had both the plans and the talent to take on the whole damned world.
He is almost the entire reason I left New York, along with my own failed attempts to conquer the world. After my grandfather’s passing, I returned home to lick my wounds instead.
I’ve been hoping and praying that it’s been long enough that it wouldn’t be so bad to see him again—knowing all along that I was hoping in vain.
I know perfectly well that time makes no difference. Every time I’ve seen Luke, it’s been after a long period apart. It never seems to matter. My heart has been unrelenting in its desire for him.
No matter how off limits he is.
Mr. Rivers approaches the microphone and at his simple, “Good evening,” an attentive silence falls over the crowd.
I am not able to take my eyes off Luke, who has assumed a professional smile. He wears that humbly honored smile all through Mr. Rivers’ announcement, that a certain Luke Fraser has been awarded the commission for an art installation in the Swan Pointe Botanical Gardens.
Of course, I knew this. I’m the reason it happened.
Mr. Rivers, my gallery’s best client, asked me for a recommendation for this installation and I gave him Luke’s name. I almost didn’t. Because I knew it meant I’d be faced with this moment.
I even tried to think of other people I could recommend with a clear conscience: the glass artist in Michigan, the one in Texas, the one in British Columbia.
But in the end, there was only one person who fit the bill.
Now, faced with the consequences of that decision, I try to remind myself of all my valid reasons for giving Luke’s name. The sizeable finder’s fee. The fact that finding an undiscovered gem like Luke would mark an important step up for my gallery. The fact that Luke truly fit every criteria Mr. Rivers was looking for.
The fact that it would help Luke, too.
That was the factor that tipped the scales more than anything else, actually. How could I not want Luke to have such an amazing opportunity?
But now, watching the unobtainable love of my life with blissful anguish, the real reason becomes clear.
I just enjoy torturing myself.
My attention is starting to sharpen on something else, though. Even from this distance, I’m picking up on something underneath Luke’s professional countenance. He seems weighed down. There’s a somberness there that makes me want to go to him and find out what’s wrong.
“Breathe,” Cat whispers.
I inhale, realizing I’ve been holding my breath. “God,” I whisper, “why is this so hard?”
“You’re okay,” she says reassuringly. “It’s only one night.”
“There will be another reception for the installation.”
“Okay, two nights. But that one won’t be for a while.”
“I haven’t even talked to him yet. I still have to go talk to him.”
She nudges my hand. “Take a drink.”
I take a hearty swallow, then nearly choke on it when Mr. Rivers says this: “Mr. Fraser has also been granted a six-week residency here in Swan Pointe.”
“Wait, what did he say?” I spin on Cat, but she’s exchanging a panicked look with Marcus. “He’s building it here?” I ask. “Why is he building it here?”
“I don’t—”
“I can’t do six weeks of this.”
“Yes, you can. You’re just...” Her eyes go back and forth between mine as she tries to come up with something comforting. “It’s just hard right now because it’s been so long and you’re not used to seeing him. But you used to see him every day and you survived that.”
“Barely.”
“Now, now,” Cat says, rubbing a soothing hand down my arm. “It won’t be like before. You won’t have to see him all the time. And when he’s done, he’ll go home.”
Applause erupts around us. The announcement must be over, but I don’t look away from Cat’s face. “They’ll go home.”
She gives me an understanding look as I remind myself, for the millionth time, about the reality of this situation. She nods sympathetically. “That’s right.”
My eyes go back to the general direction of the stage; Luke and Mr. Rivers are descending the steps and some people are already moving forward to meet the artist. But I’m scanning the area for someone else.
Luke’s wife.
His elegant, beautiful, high-class wife. The niece of his beloved mentor. The bane of my existence.
The reason why Luke and I will never, ever happen.
