Flirting with Felicity (22 page)

A week ago, Felicity would rather have walked across hot
coals than enter the headquarters of the
Seattle Gazette
.
Yet, here she was, standing in the lobby about to give Destiny Carrow the news
story of the year.

As if thinking about her had conjured her up, Destiny came
toward her in reception, stopping before her onetime friend. “What do you want?”
Destiny asked with barely concealed contempt.

Felicity straightened. “Is there somewhere private we could
talk?”

“I doubt you have anything I would want to hear.”

Felicity struggled to keep her tone light. “It concerns Blake
Bancroft and the Bancroft Hotel, but if you’re not interested . . .” Felicity
turned toward the door.

She took three steps before Destiny called, “Wait.”

Felicity looked back over her shoulder. A frown marred
Destiny’s flawless features.

“Come with me. We can talk in here.” Destiny led her to a
room not far away. She waved Felicity into a chair, then folded herself into
the one opposite her. The newly promoted reporter crossed her long legs and
fixed her interviewee with a hard stare. “This better be worth my time.”

“It will be,” Felicity replied, “but before we get to that, I
need to ask you something.” Before Destiny could object, Felicity plunged
ahead. “How did you find out about Blake’s deepest fears? He told me in
confidence.”

Destiny smiled. “I followed you and Blake around all over
Seattle. When you came back to the hotel, I decided to book a room. After that,
I had access to all levels of the hotel, including the rooftop garden. You and
Blake thought you were alone, but the walls can have ears, especially at night
and with a listening device. It was easy enough to hear what you said.”

“Eavesdropping is illegal.”

Destiny shrugged. “Sue me.”

Felicity’s gaze narrowed. “Blake just might.”

Destiny’s face paled. A moment later she released a long,
tired sigh. “What have I done to you and Blake? To myself? I’m a better person
than this . . .”

“Yes, Destiny, you are.”

“What if I printed a retraction?”

“I’d say it was a start,” Felicity conceded. “But I guess I’ll
never understand why you allowed yourself to be manipulated by Reid in the
first place. Was this new job really worth your own integrity?”

“I thought so at the time.” Destiny paused, then brought her
gaze to Felicity’s. “I’m sorry about my terrible review of your restaurant.
Every word of it was untrue. I’m also sorry that I put a job ahead of our
friendship. It was wrong of me to do that, I realize now.”

A look of remorse shadowed Destiny’s eyes. Felicity knew the
reporter well enough to acknowledge the words were sincere, even if they might
have been motivated by the reality of Reid going to jail. Felicity dug deep
inside herself, forcing the anger over Destiny’s actions away. Being mad at
Destiny for making it look like she had betrayed Blake wasn’t going to help any
of them move on with their lives. She dredged up the words she knew she must
say. “I forgive you.”

Destiny’s eyes widened. “Why? I don’t deserve that.”

Saying the words made Felicity feel lighter. Forgiveness was
the right path to take. “Can we start over, Destiny?” Felicity asked, ready for
a return to at least a measure of the closeness they once shared. “No more
secrets between us, no more hurt feelings, and definitely no more jealousy.”

An odd expression came over Destiny’s face. “You would trust
me again after what I did to you and Blake?”

“I’m willing to give it a try. Are you?”

Destiny nodded, then sat forward as if she suddenly remembered
why Felicity was there. “So what’s your news?”

Felicity allowed herself a small smile. This was the Destiny
she knew, the one she’d been friends with. Perhaps there really was hope for
that again. Drawing a breath, Felicity said, “I’m giving the Bancroft Hotel and
the Dolce Vita back to Blake. There will be no court battle. I’m walking away.”

“Why?” Destiny asked, her tone an octave higher.

Felicity paused for a long moment as she considered telling
Destiny the truth; that she loved Blake more than she wanted the hotel or the
restaurant; that sometimes you had to let go of something to find your way to
something else. But the eager look on Destiny’s face dissuaded her. She didn’t
trust her old friend with her heart just yet. She barely trusted herself. “Because
I found another way to protect my employees.”

“Which is?” Destiny asked.

“Do you want my story or not?” Felicity said, with a hint of
annoyance.

“Oh, I want it.” Destiny grabbed her phone. “Do I have your
permission to record this?” she asked a moment before initiating a recording
app.

Felicity agreed.

“You’ll give me the exclusive?”

Felicity smiled. Yes, this was the Destiny she used to know. “Of
course, that’s why I’m here.”

“Then it looks like we have a story to break, my friend.”

A week later, Blake paced across his luxurious
office on the seventieth floor of Bancroft Towers in the heart of downtown San
Francisco. He clutched an unopened letter that had been hand delivered by his
own lawyer, Marcus Grady.

“Have you read the newspaper lately?” Marcus asked.

“No. I have no desire to read anything more about the sordid
details of my love life or anything else. I’ve a business to run.”

“Yes, and lives to ruin,” Marcus replied, his voice laced
with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Marcus raised a brow. “Aren’t you going to read what Felicity
wrote in her letter?”

“No,” Blake replied, studying his friend’s angry face
instead.

“Read it,” Marcus demanded, wearing an expression he usually
reserved for his toughest clients.

Blake frowned as he ripped the envelope open and withdrew a
piece of white linen stationery embossed with the Bancroft Hotel emblem of a
shield bearing the letters B and H across the top. “So she wrote me a letter,”
he said without reading the words.

“Would you like me to read it for you?” Marcus said, standing
and plucking the letter from Blake’s slack fingers.

My
dearest Blake,

When
you love someone, you have to be unselfish enough to give them what they want.
There is no need to go forward with your lawsuit. The Bancroft Hotel and the
Dolce Vita are yours to do with as you desire. As owner, you will have the
right to withdraw any historical protection the building has received.

Your
gift of the building and establishment of a nonprofit for the Hungry Hearts
program was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. The program is doing
so well, and sponsors are flooding to donate. I’ve even been able to hire all
my former employees into secure positions with Hungry Hearts as soon as you are
ready to take ownership of the hotel
.

And
if it helps you to know, Destiny overheard us talking on the rooftop. She’s the
one who betrayed your secret, not me.

I
hope you are well and that life brings you much happiness. My most sincere
thanks for your gift, and I wish you only the best in your future endeavors.

Always
yours,

Felicity

“Sweet, huh?” Marcus scoffed. “Proud of yourself? Stealing a
hotel away from someone who needed the money a whole lot more than you.”

“This was never about money.”

“No?” Marcus asked. “You could have fooled me.” He slapped
the letter on the desk beside the two of them. “Open your eyes, Blake. That
girl was the best thing that ever happened to you.”

Blake refused to react to Marcus’s anger. His mind was still
fixated on the first words she’d written. “
When you love someone . . .
”

“How do you live with yourself sometimes? You forced her into
a corner and she folded, exactly like so many of your business opponents do.
It’s all yours. Everything reverts to you at midnight tonight. My compliments
to you on another acquisition, but at what price?” Having said his piece,
Marcus stalked out the door, leaving Blake behind to stare at the handwritten
letter.

At what price, indeed. A heartbeat later he picked up his
cell phone and dialed Peter. “Have the plane readied, then pick me up. We’re
flying to Seattle tonight.”

It was dusk when Blake entered the Bancroft Hotel. He
searched the familiar lobby, and when Felicity wasn’t there, he moved to scan
the restaurant, expecting at any moment to see Felicity’s platinum-blonde hair
and enchanting face as she talked with her patrons. Instead, he came face to face
with the hotel’s manager.

“Come to gloat?” Edward said, glowering at him from behind
the maître d’s desk.

“Where’s Felicity?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s gone.”

“Gone for a walk, or left the hotel for good?” Blake needed
the man to be specific as uncharacteristic desperation threaded his veins. She
couldn’t be gone. Not yet. Not until he’d had a chance to talk with her, to
explain.

Explain
what?
What a fool he’d been? That he should have trusted her?

Her laughter rang through his mind. A memory of Felicity wearing
only his shirt and standing on the deck of the yacht with the wind gently
tossing her hair slammed through him, bringing a white-hot slash of pain to his
chest. He tightened his fists so hard the nails bit into his palms. He tried to
think about something else, without success.

“Please, Edward. I need to speak to her. Tell me where she
is.” The words were not a demand. They were the plea he meant them to be.

The hotel manager’s steely gaze softened somewhat. “How do I
know you won’t hurt her more than you already have?”

“You don’t. None of us has that kind of insight into the
future. Where is she?” he repeated with calm determination.

“She made me promise not to tell you.”

“A hint then, anything.”

Edward shook his head, and his eyes hardened to steely gray. “I
keep my promises.”

Blake frowned, even though he understood and respected the
man for his loyalty. Felicity, he’d learned from their time together, did that
to people. She earned their trust and their respect by giving the same things
back. “I understand,” Blake said as he turned and headed from the hotel.
Absently, he walked right past Peter and the car, heading down the street. He
wasn’t even sure where he was heading until he caught sight of the gray-green
water of Puget Sound.

With only the creamy yellow light of the street lamps to
guide him, he walked along the waterfront. Felicity had said she came here when
she needed to think. Perhaps the salty air and the quiet lapping of the waves
against the piers would provide answers or at least bring him solace.

He headed toward the bench she’d said she liked, when he saw
her and her recognizable platinum blonde hair, shining beneath the light of the
stars overhead. She’d come back to this place to think. He held tight to the
hope that her thoughts were of him, but that might be wishful thinking.

He stood there for a time, simply watching her, allowing his
pulse to settle, gathering the nerve to do what he’d come to do. As he stared
out at the water, he wondered how two people who’d shared such intimacy were
supposed to find their way back to each other.

“Felicity?” The word was carried away by the breeze. The only
movement in the night became the ceaseless rhythm of the waves slapping against
the dock. The wind picked up and pushed the waves harder against the pilings.
The noise covered his approach.

It wasn’t until he stood beside the bench that Felicity
started. “Blake, you scared me!”

“May I?” he asked, motioning to the open seat beside her.

She nodded, and he slipped onto the bench. “How did you find
me?” she asked, watching him warily as she clenched and unclenched her fingers.

“I followed my feet, and they led me here.”

She smiled faintly. Her eyes lifted to his, filled with an
emotion he’d never seen there before. One she’d never let him see as fully as
she did now.
Love.

“Did you mean what you said in your letter to me?” he asked.

“About giving you the hotel and restaurant?”

“About loving me?” he asked with a raw ache in his voice. He
watched her with an almost unbearable sense of desperation. He’d never wanted
anything as badly as he wanted her to say the words he longed to hear.

She blinked up at him. Her eyes appeared as luminescent as if
the stars danced in their depths. “Yes, God help me, I meant it.”

In that moment, he put a name to the emotion he’d been
fighting for so long. It was love. That knowledge filled him with both wonder
and fear. Did he truly deserve to feel something this big? The answer was
surprisingly a resounding yes. The guilt he’d been carrying around with him
since his parents’ deaths eased, and he breathed easily for the first time in a
very long while.

“How’s your dad? I read that his therapy is progressing and
that he’s saying an occasional word.”

“You read the articles?”

“Not at first, but eventually I was so desperate for the
sight of you that I read them all, many times.”

“That will make Destiny happy to hear she has at least one
reader.” Felicity laughed. The sound filled him with a satisfaction that had
been missing in his life every day that he’d been separated from her.

“She has many more readers than that, I’m sure. I liked the
article she wrote today about the Bancroft’s acceptance into the Seattle
Historic Preservation Program.”

Her smile was apologetic. “I knew they would approve the
Bancroft for acceptance, and I apologize if it makes your tasks with the hotel
harder from this day forward, but the hotel deserved to be honored for her
past.”

“I agree.” He reached out and cupped her cheek. “How did you
ever stay so optimistic in spite of your past?”

“I’m pretty stubborn.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re a good person, and every day
that I spend by your side makes me strive to be more like you.”

“Is that why you started the Hungry Hearts program?”

“You started it. I’m simply a donor.” He slipped his arm
about her shoulders.

“You’re my very best donor, then,” she said, leaning against
him.

“I like the sound of that.” Warmed by the feel of her body
against his, he stared up at the night sky, feeling as though he’d been given
the greatest of gifts this night. He reached for her hand, held it in his own
with uncertain fingers, afraid that this moment might soon blow away in the
cool night breeze just as his words had. If she vanished from his life, he’d be
left with nothing. He’d waited his entire life for this moment without really
knowing it.

“You’re trembling,” she whispered as she returned her gaze to
his.

“You do that to me.”

She tightened her fingers around his and scooted closer.

Wrapped in silence as they watched the moonlight dance upon
the water, Blake realized tonight Felicity had given him back his dreams. With
her, anything seemed possible, even those things he’d never allowed himself to
want. A family. Children. A wife.

She turned to him and her eyes searched his briefly, then to
his surprise she stretched up and lightly kissed him on the lips.

He responded, touched by her sweetness, her warmth.

When they came apart a moment later, she pulled back with a
smile. “We should make our way back to the hotel.”

Blake stood, then helped her up. Hand in hand they walked
slowly back to the Bancroft, neither one of them wanting to end the moment, but
knowing they had no choice. He had yet to say the words he’d come to Seattle to
say. He had to wait until the time was right, until he could wrestle away the last
of her reservations.

He had to convince her, not with words but with action, that
he loved her. To show her that with every moment they’d been together, every
time they’d made love, she’d become more entrenched in his soul until he was no
longer certain where he ended and she began.

Blake smiled into the darkness. He knew exactly how to make
that happen.

Two days later, Blake was nearly ready to implement
his plan. He’d blocked off the entire seventh floor of the Bancroft Hotel,
refusing to let anyone but himself in on his secret. He’d cleaned the big, open
room until it smelled like fresh lemons and sparkled like the midday sun.

Grateful he’d learned early in his career as a manager how to
install light fixtures, he’d hung twenty-six vintage 1900s chandeliers from the
ceiling. He’d reworked the units to run on LED bulbs, and now nearly two
thousand twinkling lights cast a soft golden glow about the large room. Blake
turned around slowly, inspecting it all. Everything had to be perfect.

Earlier today, he’d decorated the ceiling above the
chandeliers with ivy and white roses that hung down as though suspended in
midair. The entire room looked magical, exactly as he’d hoped it would. He
checked his watch. He had ten minutes more until his guests arrived.

The day could only be more complete if Felicity decided to
stay with him forever. He faced the biggest challenge of his life: one where he
stood to lose everything, or win it all. There was no in between. Blake
straightened his Armani suit and ran a suddenly nervous hand through his hair.
It was time to find out what her decision would be.

At precisely six o’clock, the doors of the elevator opened
and Felicity stepped into the room. When she came forward, he greeted her with
a single white rose. He paused, feeling more than a little breathless as he
took in the sight of her. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders, curling at
the ends. She’d worn the dress he’d picked out for her, an iridescent white
silk. The fitted bodice clung to the lines of her body, accentuating every
feminine curve. At the hips, the skirt flared out in a graduated fullness until
it draped against the floor.

His gaze traveled back up the length of her body to come to
rest upon her face. “You’re beautiful.”

“What’s all this about?” Her cheeks flushed pink.

His hand cupped her face. “Do you trust me, Felicity?”

She leaned in to his palm. “With my life.”

“Then trust me now. All will be well. You’ll see.”

Blake withdrew a single folded sheet of paper from
the inside pocket of his suit. “I have something for you,” he said as he handed
the paper to her.

She opened the paper, then gasped. She met his gaze. It was
the deed to the Bancroft Hotel. “Why?”

“Because a wise woman I know taught me an important lesson.
She said, when you love someone, you’ll sacrifice anything for them.”

She stared at him, feeling dazed.

“I don’t know what to say? I never imagined . . .”

“Name anything in the world you want, Felicity, and I’ll give
it to you,” he said thickly. “No strings attached.”

His words were like a balm to her soul—a soul that had gone
too long without the warmth and security she’d always wanted and had never
hoped to find. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted is you.”

Blake smiled, slowly, the blue of his eyes peaceful and calm.
“Marry me.”

Felicity’s throat grew tight as her gaze passed over the
decorations strewn about the chamber. Suddenly everything became clear. She
looked down at the gorgeous dress Blake had sent to her room. White was what a
bride wore on her wedding day when she married the man of her dreams.

Felicity drew a steadying breath, trying to hold at bay the
moisture that pooled in her eyes. She wanted a lifetime of the fullness, the
sweetness, the all-consuming joy she’d experienced when Blake had held her in
his arms at the railing of the yacht. She’d wanted those precious few moments
to stretch out forever. It was in that moment she knew she wanted a lifetime
with him. “For how long?”

His brow puzzled. “You want to negotiate?”

She held her breath, needing him to say the words.

“Forever. Is that long enough?”

She nodded. “Will there be a prenuptial agreement?”

He shook his head as he gathered her closer. “I told you I’d
give you anything. That includes everything I own, everything I am. There will
be no prenuptial agreement. Now or ever.”