Escorting the Groom (The Escort Collection Book 4) (21 page)

"
W
here are we going
?" We'd said a quick good-bye to my mother, with Lucas promising to be in touch soon. After we’d both showered and changed clothes, Lucas threw together an overnight bag and hustled me into the car.

"You'll see soon." He smiled and reached over, taking my hand and squeezing it. He hadn't said much, but he'd kept his hands on me since we'd been back together, making me feel wanted, making me feel confused. Even though he said we didn't need to be married anymore, he'd come back for me.

And as evidenced by the grin on his face, he seemed really, really freaking happy that I'd gone willingly.

We drove out of the city. Lucas was quiet but still holding my hand. "Will you
please
tell me where we're going?" I asked.

He smiled at me, flashing that damn dimple. "I have a promise to keep," he said cryptically. If I hadn't been so happy that he'd come back for me and was holding my hand, I would've smacked him.

After almost an hour, Ian turned off at a sign for Hanscom Field. "We're flying somewhere?" I asked.

The dimple peeped out again.

"What?
What?
" The suspense was killing me. Then Ian pulled up right next to a lot filled with helicopters. Lucas donned a pair of aviator sunglasses and handed a pair to me, too. Suddenly, I understood. "We're flying in your helicopter?"

"Next stop, Seal Harbor." Lucas leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "You look hot in those sunglasses, by the way."

He brought me to a beautiful blue copter and ushered me inside. After he harnessed me in and explained the safety precautions, he put on his headset. He started talking to the aviation tech, and I just watched his handsome profile.
So beautiful.
I loved every line on his face. I'd been lying to myself when I'd thought this could ever go back to being just a job.

He said he wanted to protect me. I wasn't sure from what exactly, but I'd never had someone say that to me before. It made me feel safe, treasured, and loved.

Maybe it was finally time for me to be brave, to take a chance. To risk… everything.

"Lucas," I said, as he started up the engine.

"What, babe?"

"I love you!" I shouted over the noise.

He gave me a thumbs-up.

Ugh.
I sulked in silence for the rest of the trip, looking at the beautiful scenery as we flew to Maine. It was very loud inside the copter, so we both had headphones on. "Babe," I saw Lucas mouth at one point, "are you okay?"

I just gave him a thumbs-up.

Later, after we'd flown over miles of green forest, as far as the eye could see, he started to descend. I could see a tiny airstrip coming up with a lone helipad. He headed toward it and landed the copter expertly. After he'd turned off the motor and taken his headphones off, he looked at me with an excited glint in his eye. "Babe?"

"Yes?"

"Welcome to Maine." He opened his door but then turned back. "And babe?"

"Yes?"

"I love you, too."

I felt my cheeks heat up. "Well, thank you for letting me know!"

He came back into the cockpit and pulled me close, crushing his lips to mine until I was dizzy. "Anytime, Mrs. Ford. Anytime."

Unlike on the islands, no driver was waiting for us, just Lucas's old Jeep SUV. He threw our bag into it, and we drove through Bar Harbor on a tiny highway, over a bridge and across a bay. Seagulls and eagles soared together over the dark water. With the windows down, the sea air blowing through my hair, and Lucas at my side, I finally felt something I'd never felt before: truly happy.

Realizing this, I laughed out loud.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I just feel relieved. I thought things were done with us. I didn't know what was going to happen, and I felt like my insides were being ripped out."

He nodded. "I got pretty drunk last night," he admitted.

"I got totally drunk last night."

"I missed you," he said simply and reached over to squeeze my hand.

"I missed you, too." I paused for a minute, watching the signs for lobster pounds and kayak rentals roll by. "What happened with my sister?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do. I don't want any secrets between us."

He groaned. "She came to my office in an, er,
formfitting
dress. She asked me for money. In exchange, she offered to have an affair with me—"

"Argh! She's a word that rhymes with blunt! I'll rip her eyes out!"

"—to which I said a loyal
no thank you
," Lucas continued. "Then she threatened to blackmail me by telling anyone who would listen that you're an escort. So I agreed to pay her," Lucas explained.

"But didn't you know last night that the trust terms were probably void?"

"Yes."

"So why did you care if she said things about me?"

He squeezed my hand. "Because I vowed to love, honor, and obey you. I didn't think I'd be honoring you too much if I let your trashy sister expose you all over social media. I thought you'd want to keep your past private. As do I—for personal reasons, not monetary ones."

"Thank you." I felt choked up. "How much money did you give her?"

Lucas shrugged. "Not that much."

"
Lucas
—"

"Five million dollars."

I started to splutter. "Five million!"

"Five million dollars, and I made her sign a contract saying that she'll never come after you again, and that she understands this is all the money she's ever going to get out of me. And I made her sign a confidentiality agreement. I figured it was easier this way. It might even be less expensive, if you take into account the fact that we most likely don't have to buy her Christmas, birthday, and housewarming gifts after what she's pulled."

I leaned my head back against the seat. "That's
insane
."

"You know me"—he grinned—"always throwing money at my problems."

During the rest of the ride through the rugged, beautiful Maine countryside, Lucas told me about what had happened with the trust and the lunch he'd had with Serena. "I think she still has a thing for Robert," he said.

I agreed. "She definitely still has a thing for Robert. She was all drunk and moony about him at our wedding."

"Good to know." If I ever needed to dangle something over Serena's head, which I probably would, it was good to have something to dangle.

We followed the signs to Seal Harbor and finally pulled into a long private drive. An enormous house became visible, with a wraparound deck on each floor. "Wow," I said. "Just… wow."

Lucas brought me into the house, and I was stunned by the spiral staircase and the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace in the living room. There were Oriental rugs, bookcases teeming with books, and bright, gleaming hardwood floors. "This is amazing."

"Come here." Lucas held out his hand for me and led me onto the back deck. Northeast Harbor spread out below us, dotted with sailboats, yachts, and lobster boats. The mountains of Acadia surrounded the harbor. The view was breathtaking.

"I could get used to this," I said.

Lucas pulled me against him. "I hope so."

We spent the next hour on the deck, relaxing and holding hands, each of us nursing a glass of wine. "Martha Stewart has a house up here," he said.

"No way! Have you ever seen her?"

"Yep. Out to dinner one night at this Mexican place. She's as lovely in person as she is on television."

"Wow," I said, "a real celebrity!"

"I'm trying to keep you in the know. Maybe you'll see her up here, someday." His phone buzzed, and he checked it. Whatever he read made him choke on his wine.

I pounded him on the back. "What's the matter?"

Lucas gave one final cough. "I forgot about something—the Four Seasons."

"Huh?"

Lucas took another healthy sip of wine. "Back to the no secrets thing. I forgot to tell you—Elizabeth called me this morning."

My eyebrow shot up. "Why?"

"She said she wanted to, er…
see
me."

I crossed my arms against my chest. "
See
you? Or see you and then something more?"

"The latter. It kind of came out of the blue, but I think she heard about the inheritance and got kind of… excited."

"That witch! I knew she still wanted—"

"I thought that my father should know," Lucas said, interrupting me gently. "So I asked her to send me naked pictures of herself and to meet me at the Four Seasons this afternoon. Except that I'm not there—Ian is. And he just took a picture of her—that's what he texted me. I wanted documentation to prove it to my father, once and for all, that Elizabeth can't be trusted."

Blake held her hand out. "Hand me your phone."

Lucas shook his head, looking very wary. "I don't think that's a good idea, babe."

"The phone,
babe
. Now
.
"

He gave it to me reluctantly. I scrolled through the pictures and immediately wished I hadn't. I hopped up and paced the deck as I looked at them. "The nerve! Disgusting! What is she doing with that
cucumber
?"

"That one's my favorite. Classic." Lucas was laughing until I stopped him with a death look.

I tossed him back his phone. "Rich people are so weird."

Lucas motioned for me to come to him. "Except me."

"Right." I leaned down and kissed him. "Except you."

He looked up at me. "Listen, there's one more thing."

"Ew," I said, eyeing his phone warily. I didn't need to see any more of Elizabeth.

"It's not an
ew
. It's an
ooh
. Hopefully." He got up from his chair and took my hands.

And then he got down on one knee.

"Blake, we came at this in a non-traditional way." He looked up into my eyes.

"You bought me," I said.

"I bought you. The thing is, after I realized that I didn't technically 'need' you anymore and that I was going to let you go—that's when I realized that I really needed you. And that I couldn't let you go."

I squeezed his hands and fought back tears.

"That's what I was trying to tell you at your mother's. You are my total market disruptor. You're the thing that's changed everything for me. I can't go back to the way life was before you. I've evolved. You've evolved me." His thumb stroked my knuckles. "And I love you for it. I
love
you, Blakey."

"I love you, too." I let the tears fall. We weren't hiding anything anymore.

"So, will you marry me? Again?"

"Of course I will. Do you mean it?"

He stood up and pulled me into his arms. "Of course I mean it. I mean it so much, I invited your mother, my dad, Serena, Robert, Jake, my cousin James and his wife, Nikki and your other friends—hell, I even invited Elena—up here this weekend so that we could renew our vows. Because even though you're already my wife, I want you to know that I really want you to be my wife."

"Oh. Wow." My shoulders shook as I cried. "You're the one."

"That's right, babe. I'm the one. And you're the one for me."

L
UCAS

Turks and Caicos

Three Years Later

"Pull up over there." I motioned toward an inlet.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" the captain asked.

"Yeah, are you sure you want to do this?" my father asked. He was sitting on the boat, next to his new wife, Cindy, who was twenty years his junior—a respectable fifty-something.

At first, he'd refused to divorce Elizabeth, even after I'd shown him the pictures and informed him that she'd shown up at the Four Seasons to go to bed with me. She'd met Ian instead, and much to her chagrin, he'd taken a picture of her as proof.

My father, dirty old man that he was, initially said he thought it was sort of hot… But eventually, I think he realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep up with her and her varied, insatiable, and morally questionable appetite. So now he had a Cindy, and they played golf together. I even thought my mother would approve.

"Yes, I'm sure!" I barked. Blake eyed me nervously but loyal as ever, said nothing.

Serena sniffed. "You don't have to be rude to Dad." Robert wrapped an arm around her and shushed her. "Stop telling me to be quiet!" She laughed as he nuzzled her face and shushed her again. They'd been remarried for almost two years, but they were still acting like newlyweds.

We'd invited everyone to come out to the island for vacation. In addition to my father, Cindy, Serena, and Robert, Blake's mother was back at the house watching the baby, Lou, while she napped. Our two-year-old, Fletcher, was on the boat with us. Jake and Nikki had each respectively begged off for undisclosed reasons. They'd both been suspiciously avoiding our calls since the senate had resumed its session.

James and Audrey said they had three baseball tournaments and a banquet to attend, so they couldn't make it, either.

I'd invited Shirley, who was now my vice president of operations, but she and her husband were currently vacationing in Scotland on the
Outlander
tour.

Thankfully, Chelsea was in Texas, auditioning for
The Bachelor Pad,
and couldn't come either
.
She'd given the last guy on
The Bachelorette
a rose, but they ended up at an impasse. She was still on the hunt for Mr. Right-and-Rich. She and Blake had made a sort of peace, at Blake's mother's teary request, when we'd had Fletcher. I didn't have to like it, but as Blake’s husband, I
did
have to pretend to support her.

I grabbed the spear gun and ignored everyone. "Daddy!" Fletcher, cried, looking afraid of the thing.

I laughed and ruffled his hair. "Don't you worry. Daddy is an
expert
. At
everything
. Just ask Mommy."

Blake came over, taking Fletcher's chubby hand and watching nervously as I climbed down the ladder and precariously balanced the spear gun. "You don't have to do this," she whispered, "Not for me. I've made my peace with Dwayne. That was the day I knew you loved me."

I snorted. "That fish scared you, and I'm going to pay him back. He's been terrorizing French Cay for years!"

Fletcher's face puckered, as if he were about to cry.

"Don't worry, honey. Daddy isn't going to hurt the fish," Blake lied. "He just wants to go see him."

Fletcher shot her a look that cried
bullshit
, but he took after me, so he was smart and didn't say anything. Or maybe it was because he was just two, I couldn't be sure. He watched me solemnly as I climbed down the ladder and adjusted my mask. Then I let go and, clutching the spear gun, went under the aqua waves.

I snorkeled toward the reef. There were thousands of brightly colored fish. I spotted puffers and parrotfish, an eel, and a stingray.

No sign of Dwayne.

He could be dead by now, I reasoned. Barracuda could live as long as fifteen years, but we'd first seen him three years ago. He'd been a legend then. Maybe he'd gone to barracuda heaven.

I looked for a long time, crisscrossing the surface near the reef and occasionally diving down. When I still didn't see him, I had to admit defeat. Mostly because I didn't want to scare poor Fletcher and worry Blake. I reluctantly headed back for the boat. Just as I was about to surface, I thought I saw a flash of silver, but when I turned, it was gone.

If that was you, you old goat… thank you.
Because the afternoon that Dwayne had scared the bejeebles out of Blake was the afternoon I was sure I loved her. I'd had an inkling before, but that was the day I still thought of when I looked back at the beginning.

I still wanted to put a spear through him, though. So I could mount him on my wall.

"No luck," I said, climbing the ladder. I pulled off my mask and handed a relieved-looking captain the unused spear.

"Aw, honey, that's too bad," Blake said, rubbing my arm.

"I might hire someone to come out here and try to find him—" I started.

"But you won't," Blake continued for me, "because you've evolved."

"Right. Thank you for evolving me, Mrs. Ford."

She grinned at me, which still gave me a thrill. "Anytime, Mr. Ford. Anytime."