Sweet Victory: A Novella (His Wicked Games #2.5) (10 page)

Something’s niggling at my mind, though. I’m not sure I should say anything at all, but I want to hear the whole truth. From him.

“What happened after your father’s death?” I say. “I mean—she said you didn’t want her here. That you sent her away. That doesn’t make any sense.”

He stiffens slightly, and I know the answer to my question even before he opens his mouth.

“I didn’t take our father’s death well,” he says softly. “But you know that part already. Louisa took it hard, too, but in a different way. We fought—a lot—and it just made it harder. On both of us.”

One of his hands presses against the small of my back while the other tangles itself in my hair. I lean into him.

“She’d been working over in Thailand when he died,” he continues, his voice flat and even. “And she’d been enjoying the work. She always had a very strange relationship with the world in which we grew up. She wasn’t interested in the trappings or the money. If anything, she felt guilty for it.” He releases a heavy sigh. “That’s why she gravitated toward those volunteer organizations. I wasn’t try
ing to push her away. I thought… I thought it would be easier for her, to go back to the place where she was happiest. Where she felt fulfilled. She didn’t care about the money or where it went. I thought I could deal with that part of things on my own. She told me she would stay, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I practically forced her on the plane.”

I tighten my arms around his waist. I hate hearing him like this, his voice full of regret and guilt and grief. He loves his sister, but love doesn’t magically make all complications disappear. Half the time
, it makes them worse.

“She’ll be back,” I say, but the words ring hollow. “And if she isn’t…”

“If she isn’t, then I’m no worse than I am right now.”

“If she isn’t, then I’m here for you. No matter what happens. We might not be related by blood, but I’ll be your family.”

He seems a bit shaken by my words, almost as if he’s afraid to believe them.

“I want nothing more,” he says softly. He’s got that look again—the one so full of emotion that
it makes me feel like I’m melting.

His fingers trace my face, moving along the lines of my jaw and lips and cheeks and brow. There’s no easy way to erase the pain in his heart—and maybe there will always be a hole where his father and sister are—but I refuse to let him believe that the hole is all there is. If I have to spend every day for the rest of my life trying to convince him, I’ll do it. I want him to be happy, in spite of his family. I want him to know unconditional love and support and trust.

And as we hold each other, I see the hope in his eyes. It’s only a flicker at first, a faint light behind the shadows that cloud his gaze, but it grows brighter the longer he looks at me, the longer his fingers caress my skin.

“We should finish our game,” he murmurs after a moment.

“Now?” Our little challenge is the last thing on my mind. It suddenly seems so silly, so frivolous next to everything else we’ve been dealing with tonight.

But Calder is adamant. “I think now is the perfect time.”

I shake my head, still confused. “I don’t even remember whose turn it is.”

“How about this,” he says softly. “I’ll give you two minutes to search the apartment. You find the gift, it’s yours.”

“And if I don’t?”

He gives a wicked smile but says nothing.

I’m about to question him further, but he shakes his head and says, “The seconds are ticking away. I’d get started if I were you.”

There’s no point throwing away this opportunity—though I’m loath to leave his arms. If he wants to keep playing, then I won’t deny him.

I turn back toward the room, surveying the dozens of boxes that need investigating.

“A minute and thirty seconds,” Calder says.

I move.

If our apartment was a mess before, it’s nothing compared to the disaster area I now leave in my wake. I throw open every cardboard box in the room and sift through the contents. I stick my arm down inside every overstuffed garbage bag of linens or sweaters. I unzip every suitcase and check all of the compartments.

Calder, meanwhile, stands in the doorway to the kitchen and watches me with amusement.

It isn’t long before every packing container in the living room has been searched. I don’t find anything even remotely resembling a present, so I decide to move on. I start to move toward the guest bedroom, but Calder stops me.

“It’s in this room.”

I glance around. I’ve searched everywhere—every box, every bag, every packing container we crammed in this place.

“Is this a trick?” I ask. I look back over at him. He’s still standing by the door, but his own gaze is fixed quite obviously on the chair to his left. There are a couple of throw pillows stacked on the seat, and one of his coats is draped across the top. There’s nothing that could hold any sort of gift.

Unless…

I stride over to the chair and grab the coat. My hand grasps for the pockets. The first one is empty, but when I reach in the second, my fingers meet a small wrapped box.

I pull it out. It’s small and square and fits perfectly atop my palm. It’s wrapped in shiny silver paper.

“You found it.” Calder’s voice is strange. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

This is it
. Suddenly all that weirdness I noticed in him tonight makes sense. He was anxious. Nervous. About the thing that rests in this tiny little box.

My heart beats so loudly that I feel like the entire room is pulsing. Calder is right next to me, and I
swear I can hear his heartbeat, too.

Inside I find another box—but th
is one isn’t wrapped. It’s small with a satiny finish and a clamshell hinge. My hand shakes as I pull it out.

“Calder, I—” My voice sounds so tiny, so timid. I can’t breathe. My fingers go numb.

But Calder takes the box from me. He lowers himself to one knee, the box resting on his upturned palm.

“Lily,” he says. “You’ve made me happier than I ever thought I could be. You gave me strength when I thought the world was crumbling around me. You made me laugh when I thought there was only grief and pain. You showed me that I could be a better man. And I try to be a better man, every single day, for you.”

My knees are trembling. No, scratch that—my entire body is quivering, as if I’m not physically strong enough for this moment.

“You’ve lit a fire in me, Lily,” he continues. “I’ve never felt anything like this in my entire life, and I know I’ll never feel anything like it ever again. You’ve shown me all the joy and all the passion and all the love that my life can hold, and I want you by my side every day until the very end of it.”

He opens the box, revealing the most beautiful diamond ring I’ve ever seen—and if the sparkle is in any way exaggerated by the tears in my eyes, well, that doesn’t matter.

“Lily Frazer,” he says, “will you marry me?”

I can hardly draw enough air to breathe, let alone speak, but my lips manage to form the word.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes. Yes!”

I throw myself at him, nearly knocking the box right off his hand, but he manages to catch both me and the ring. I lift the ring from the box, and he takes it from me and slides it onto my finger.

I’m afraid to believe this is happening. Afraid that any second now I’ll open my eyes and find myself curled up on the mattress in the other room. But Calder is too warm, too solid to be anything but one hundred percent real. I throw my arm around his neck and kiss him.

“I know loving me isn’t always easy,” he says when I pull away to take a breath. His hands slip into the hair on either side of my head, holding my face in front of his. “I know that I come with a lot of baggage. But I promise, I want nothing more than your love. And your happiness.”

“I think you have that backward,” I say. “I’m the one who causes problems most of the time. I’m the one who always leaps to conclusions and acts without thinking and generally makes a muck of things. I’m impulsive and brash and stubborn and—”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He captures my mouth with his own—once, twice, three times—before releasing me again.

“I love you,” I tell him. “Even now, I don’t think you realize how much.”

“If it’s half as much as I love you, then I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.”

I close my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Maybe my dad and Lou
think we’re moving too fast, but that doesn’t matter. I could never want or love anyone as much as I love the man in front of me.

That’s not to say it will be easy. We still have our respective relatives to deal with—and there will always be aches and fears and shadows of the past—but now we’re making a real commitment to face them together.

“I want to be your family,” he says softly. “And I want you to be mine.”

There are years of pain behind his words, but the love, the
hope
, is just as strong. I feel it too—like a blossom unfurling in my chest. I can’t erase all of his shadows, but I can be his sun and pull him up into the light.

“Don’t cry,” he says. “This is supposed to be a happy event.” He kisses me on either eyelid, then down across my cheeks, following the trails the tears leave.

“I am happy,” I whisper, my voice thick with emotion. “I’ve never been happier in all my life.”

I suddenly can’t get close enough to him, can’t possibly show him how much he means to me with just my lips and hands. It only takes a moment to take off my clothes, a moment more to remove his boxers. We move as one even before we’re joined. Our bodies know this dance, and yet for all its familiarity, I feel every touch, every burst of sensation and pleasure, as if I’m discovering his body for the first time.

Afterward, we lie wrapped around each other. The pale gray light of dawn peeks in around the window on the far wall.

“A year ago,” I say drowsily, “if someone had suggested that I’d one day agree to marry you, I’d have told them they were insane. Just think—if I’d never broken onto your estate, none of this would have happened.”

He chuckles. “That was a fine feat, I must admit. I look back upon that first night with great fondness.”

“You must have thought I was insane, climbing through your gate and making you wrestle me down in the mud.”

“Quite the contrary,” he says. “How could I not admire such audacity?”

“Audacity? More like stubbornness. And stupidity.”

“If you are stupid, sweet Lily, then I’m the eager, willing fool who loves you.” He presses his lips against my hair. “From the beginning you challenged me, and you’ve continued to challenge me every day since. You make me crazy, and you make me feel alive. It hasn’t always been easy, and there were many times I thought I’d lose you, but it was worth the struggle. Winning you was worth it.”

“Winning me?” I tease.

“Yes,” he says, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “And this is the sweetest victory I could ever ask for.”

<<<<>>>>

The Cunninghams’ saga isn’t over yet! Want to hear Lou’s side of the story? She’ll be back in a spin-off series of her own called
Her Wicked Heart.
The first book (of the same name) will arrive in early 2014 and pick up shortly after the end of
Sweet Victory.

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His Wicked Games Series

His Wicked Games (#1)

Truth or Dare (#2)

Sweet Victory (#2.5)

Her Wicked Heart Series

Spin-off series coming in 2014.

Ember Casey is a twenty-something writer who lives in Atlanta, Georgia in a den of iniquity (or so she likes to tell people). When she’s not writing steamy romances, you can find her whipping up baked goods (usually of the chocolate variety), traveling (her bucket list is infinite), or generally causing trouble (because somebody has to do it).

For more Ember Casey news, updates, and extras, check out
http://embercasey.blogspot.com
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Well, you guys have done it again.

Thank you to Dee J. Stone and Anna Vornholt for helping me make this book all shiny and beautiful. You guys always catch the stuff that I miss.