I opened my mouth, but nothing came forth.
“Richard?”
I turned around and looked at him. “Tom,” I said, standing up to look at him in the eye. “I’m in love with your daughter.”
There, I’d said it. Now, what would he do?
His face was frozen. He didn’t say anything at first. I couldn’t discern what he was thinking. I knew this look – it was the same face he had when negotiating a million-dollar deal. A ruthless, unfriendly and emotionless face.
“You should have stopped it.”
That question was too sudden, too out-of-context that it made me pause and I furrowed my eyebrows.
Then the truth hit me like a ton of bricks and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You knew?”
His facial expression didn’t change and I got my answer. Damn, he knew.
With that new information, the slight apprehension which had been choking me because of the respect I had for him seized, slowly being replaced by anger, and I took a step towards him. “What the hell, you have people following her?”
“You won’t understand.” He said coldly, “You don’t have a daughter.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I narrowed my eyes at him. It didn’t make sense. Tom wouldn’t actually have people follow his daughter. Unless…
“Is her life in danger? Does she have enemies?”
“She doesn’t. I do. But that is not the point. You should have stopped it.” His eyes flashed.
The atmosphere was getting heavier now, charged with suppressed anger from both sides. But at this point, I didn’t care.
“Tom, I’m going to give it to you straight.”
I knew that the only approach that would work – that someone like Tom understood best – was the business approach. From the deals we’d handled together in the past, I knew that he was a black and white kind of guy, no grey areas. It was one of the reasons I respected him so much.
“I love your daughter...” I paused, searching for the right words to say, “In the morning when I wake up, the first thing I think of is her. At the office, her. In the car, her. At night, before I sleep, it’s her. And even if I manage to get some sleep, I dream of her. It’s crazy. I can’t explain it, but I can’t deny it either. I’ve never felt like this for anyone and with every minute that passes without having her in my arms, I inch closer to madness. In fact,” I paused, inhaling through the cloud of emotions in my chest, “After we’re done here, I’m going to get her and claim her as my own. And I honestly don’t care what you do. Kill me if you must, but I will love her.”
Tom was silent, regarding me in a way that would have been intimidating to others. I respected him, but I wasn’t afraid of him. And I meant every single word I said.
“I’m sorry for breaking the pact. But I’m not… I repeat… I’m not sorry that I love her.”
Abruptly, I heard a whimper behind me, a gasp so soft I wouldn’t have heard it if the room was not deathly silent. But I did hear it and it was unmistakably feminine.
Eyes widening, I whirled around, my mind going a thousand directions in that nanosecond only to become still as my eyes landed on the object of my dreams. My woman. My love. My all.
Rachel Ivy.
Taking a step from behind the curtain covering a window, she revealed herself, her lip quivering, eyes watering. She was wearing a small red dress, so beautiful it almost ached to look at her, but I’d rather die than take my eyes off her for one moment.
Never again will I do that. Never again would I deny what was so glaring that I called myself a fool a thousand times for not realizing it.
“You jerk.” Her voice was shaky and I didn’t know when I left my position, bounding across the room. In the next moment, I had her in my arms.
I didn’t know how she came to be here or the background story to this unexpected turn of events. But I didn’t care. She was right here in my arms, right where she belonged.
That was all that mattered.
Epilogue
Tom Ivy
Taking a sip from the glass of scotch in my hands, I peered at the couple wildly whirling and laughing all over the dance floor and I sighed inwardly. What a mess.
One was my twenty-two-year-old daughter who never even had a high-school boyfriend. And the other was my friend who once promised never to fall in love. Yet here they both were dancing like they just won the ultimate lottery, right after saying their marital vows in front of the clergyman.
Richard. That bastard.
I still hadn’t forgiven him for what he did. Not only had he broken the sacred pact he swore to, he had the audacity to also break my daughter’s heart. I could stomach the first, but not the second. Rachel was all I had, my greatest strength and weakness. My billions had nothing on her, and after seeing her cry for a week, almost turning to a walking ghost, I knew I had to do something.
Too bad she hadn’t liked the idea of kidnapping Richard to make him pay for what he did.
The conversation I had with her hadn’t been easy. But it had been necessary. After getting her to forgive me for having my men watch her, I carefully explained why Richard couldn’t fall in love with her, hoping she’d understand and finally let him go. I should have known my own daughter better.
She’d called the pact ridiculous and threatened to look for Richard herself if I didn’t tell her where he was. And that was how I had been roped into calling Richard, pretending to have another club meeting so that he’d come.
He was damn lucky it all ended well at last
