Throb (33 page)

Yielding a mix of anger and playfulness in his penetrating glare, Cooper takes a piece of paper from his pocket, scribbles something, and arches an eyebrow to me as he tosses it to the center of the table.

Frank and Ben drop out with a huff when I raise. I really want to win, although I’m not sure if the thought of Cooper having to keep the Ranger Rover or what’s inside the folded-up note is a bigger incentive.

The luck I’ve had all evening runs dry as I peek at my crappiest hand of the night—not even a pair amongst the five cards I’m dealt. But I don’t let that deter me at all. Keeping only the two red hearts and discarding everything else, I brush my finger over my old black lucky chip as I lift my three replacement cards.

Watching me intently, Cooper never says anything, but I know he doesn’t believe in any of my lucky charms.

With a knowing grin, he turns over five different cards. A losing hand even if I hadn’t been lucky in my draw and picked up the three tens that I did. I rake the pile in and ceremoniously drop it into my purse. Whatever prize is written on that paper is best read when we’re alone.

“You know, you don’t need to throw your game so I can collect the prize you’re offering. I can beat you fair and square,” I say, coming out of the bathroom after getting ready for bed. One of the things I love best about living here is the unfettered access to his dress shirts. It might be one of the things Cooper likes best too, seeing as I rarely button them.

“Who said I threw the game?”

I shake my head and walk to my purse to dig out what I’ve won. “Not even
you
play cards that bad. But it doesn’t matter. I’m looking forward to collecting my prize anyway.” It takes me a minute to dig the little folded-up square from my bag, my smile already in place anticipating what sort of perverted words I’ll find.

Feeling Cooper’s eyes burning into me, I unfold the note painstakingly slowly, a sort of mental foreplay. I wet my lips in anticipation, but they part finding what he’s written: two words, and not the two that I expected.
Marry me.

I stop breathing. Holding the paper to my lips, I turn and my already full eyes find Cooper. He’s down on one knee, a black velvet box perched in the center of his hand.

I have no idea how my knees don’t buckle when I take the two steps to walk to him. My beautiful, confident, loving man smiles up at me before he speaks, and in the moment, he shows me how vulnerable he is. A side I rarely see from a man who goes after everything in life like he’s on a seek-and-destroy mission.

The hand not offering the ring box reaches out to me, and I place my trembling hand in his. “Kate Monroe. Even though I lose every hand to you, at the end of the day, I’m the big winner because you go home with me every night. I don’t need a chip or a four-leaf clover for all my wishes to come true. I only need you. Marry me, beautiful.”

The big day has finally arrived. Parting the elegant drapery just enough to peer out at the crowd on the beach waiting below, I watch as the last empty seats fill with guests. It’s certainly an eclectic enough looking crowd. Cooper’s side is filled with an interesting mix of Hollywood royalty—studio heads, directors, actors—sitting alongside lighting grips, secretaries, and security guards. Noticeably absent is one man I’d hoped to convince Cooper to invite, but he wouldn’t budge in the least.

Miles isn’t here. It saddens me the two couldn’t reconcile. They’re basically the only family left for each other. I know Miles is the one who did all the damage, but somehow I still feel guilty that it was my actions that gave him the ammunition for the gun he held to Cooper’s head.

A few more people trickle in that I don’t recognize, then a familiar face leisurely swaggers in. A few women do a double take, although he doesn’t seem to even notice. He looks great, tanned and relaxed, with his trademark long hair pulled back into a ponytail. I smile, thinking how only a year ago seeing Flynn Beckham at my wedding was unthinkable.

But Cooper slowly warmed to him. Flynn definitely earned points by coming to see him, helping us reconcile after the show. But it was our staged public break-up that solidified that the bachelor wasn’t such a Dickhead after all. As part of the deal we made so I could win the prize, Flynn and I had agreed we would say my returning to school and his leaving for tour was hard on our relationship and we were parting ways friends. But the media loved him and he knew they’d be horrible to me, blaming me for our demise with made-up stories. It also meant Cooper and I had to continue to keep our relationship quiet.

I called Flynn the day after Cooper and I reunited to thank him. The next day, Flynn took Jessica out to a very public lunch and then kissed her for a full five minutes while cameras snapped away in a frenzy. After that, I was free and Flynn was deemed a playboy who broke the girl-next-door’s heart.

“Your brother was out there at seven this morning, practicing,” Mom says, coming up behind me and looking out the window over my shoulder. Cooper had a wide wooden platform constructed that leads from the inside of the restaurant to the altar set up on the beach, so that Kyle would be able to walk me down the aisle in his wheelchair. All he needs to do is push a button to start and stop motion, but that’s not always a feat he’s capable of.

“He puts too much pressure on himself. I wish he would let someone wheel him down.”

“He wants to escort you alone. He’s stubborn. But he can do it.”

Between the experimental drugs and promising therapy, my brother has made progress. But the progress isn’t always consistent and he sometimes grows frustrated. Cooper and I had a custom wheelchair made for Kyle’s birthday last month. I might not let my generous fiancé buy me cars, but chipping in for a ten-thousand-dollar wheelchair is more than okay.

The tick of the clock growing louder, Mom helps me attach my veil. There’s a knock on the door as I take one last look in the mirror. “Who is it?” my mother asks, but the door creaks open before the response comes.

“I need a minute with Kate, Lena.”

“No! Cooper. It’s bad luck.” She tries to shoo him out and shut the door, but she doesn’t really have any idea who she’s dealing with.

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s fine. He can come in.”

Her eyes go wide as saucers. “Really? But it’s bad luck.” She can’t believe what she’s hearing. Oddly, me, the person who doesn’t step on a crack for fear of breaking my mother’s back, is actually okay with seeing the groom ten minutes before the wedding. It’s kind of shocking even to me.

Cooper opens the door and my mother leaves the two of us alone. He eyes me in the mirror I’m still facing. “You look … gorgeous.” I may not be the most beautiful woman in the world, but to him, I am at this very moment. He leaves no room for anyone else.

“Thank you. But you could have told me that in ten minutes.” I turn, placing my palms on the lapels of his swoon-worthy tuxedo. “It must be important if you’re willing to risk bad luck, knowing how I am.”

“You know that none of that’s true. You’d beat me at cards whether you had a lucky chip or not and we’ll grow old together fifty years from now.” He wraps his arm around my waist.

His nose nuzzles in my hair. “You smell good too.”

“Cooper?”

“Hmmm.”

“Did you come here for a reason? Because I am
not
having sex with you ten minutes before we are getting married.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” he says and I see that look growing in his eye. The one that both of us know I can’t resist.

“Cooper …” I warn. “I’m kicking you out.”

He takes a step back, his hands scrubbing the hormone-induced haze from his face. “No. I came to give you something.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He grins. “Get your dirty mind out of the gutter, soon-to-be Mrs. Montgomery. I’ll give you that after the ceremony. In the coat closet, on the way to the reception.” He winks. I wouldn’t put it past him for a second.

“Close your eyes.”

“Seriously, Cooper, we …”

“Just trust me. Close your eyes.”

I do as he asks. I feel him move around the room and then he’s back in front of me. “Open your eyes.”

He’s kneeling down in front of me.

“Lift.” One hand on my ankle, he guides me to lift my foot, then slips off my shoe. His finger goes to the toe and he removes the four-leaf clover I’d stashed there, but never told him about.

“But … I already tempted fate by letting you see me before the ceremony.” Panic starts to rise.

Cooper lifts my bouquet placed at the floor next to him. I hadn’t even noticed he put it there. He hands me the simple bundle of roses with a few silk ribbons cascading from the bottom. “Look underneath.”

Confused, I turn the flowers upside down. Something sparkly affixed to the top of the ribbon captures my attention. It couldn’t be. How could he ever find them?

“Are these …”

He nods. “They’re mine now. But I thought you might need something borrowed.”

My eyes sting with tears I desperately try to hold back. “I can’t believe you got these back for me.” Securely fastened to the ribbon under my bridal bouquet are my father’s lucky four-leaf clover cufflinks, the ones he had made when I was born. He wore them to all four World Poker championships—firmly believing they brought him luck each time he won. Sometime between his last win and next loss at the national championships, he lost them in a “sure thing” bet he made. A year later he died of a heart attack.

“I don’t even know what to say. I love them. You found my father’s lucky charm.”

“I’m glad you love them. But you’re wrong. I’m
marrying
his lucky charm in a few minutes.” He kisses my lips softly.

“You’re going to make me cry.”

“No. I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you smile and giving you orgasms.” He pulls me flush against his body. I have no doubt he’ll do both. This man is a royal straight flush. A field of four leaf clovers. He’s red skies at night. I need no other lucky charm, as long as I have him.

“Thank you, Cooper. I love them.”

“And I love you.”

Ten minutes later, at exactly eleven-eleven, on the eleventh day of November, I married the love of my life. As my husband said when he kissed me for the first time as his wife, “There’s nobody luckier than me.”

And just like that, the game was finally over.

Dear Readers,

If you liked Cooper and Kate’s story, then please check out Flynn and Lucky’s story! BEAT is coming summer 2015!

Dimpled smile of a boy
Hard body of a man
Sings like an angel
Fucks like the devil
I was stuck between a rock(star) and a hard place.

—Lucky Valentino

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