After The One (The One Series Duet) (8 page)

Spinning me around, he sat me on the flat surface of the marble island. Wedging my legs open, my dress slipped up high on my thighs and he positioned himself between them. We were eye-to-eye.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I cocked my head to the side. “You’ve located a quill pen for us to write poetry with and be really pretentious about it?”

He let out a short chuckle. “If you write me anything in a quill pen, I’d hear it in a tone.”

I nodded profusely. “Like a high society…rich dignitary type of tone.”

“Yeah, exactly.” He smiled, running his hands over my hips. “And the fact that you knew what tone I was talking about is the reason you don’t need a quill pen.”

“You get me.” I giggled, watching him watching me. I touched his handsome face. “What’s going on, baby?”

Uncertainty flashed in his eyes before he started to speak. “You know Beverly has alerts on anything that comes up related to me…or you, right?”

I nodded slowly, unease giving me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

His hands patted my hips while it appeared he was bracing himself for what he was about to say. “Well…one of those reality TV gossip sites reported that we were engaged.”

My eyebrows flew up. “Oh shit…”

He nodded. “Yeah, but it’s okay for now,” he assured me. “It’s just that one site so it hasn’t gotten any traction, but this means that Robert Brady will probably find out sooner than we were hoping, so we have to make a plan.”

My heart felt heavy because the fantasy plans we’d made in bed the night before were just that—a fantasy. The reality was that in order to marry the man that I loved in the timeframe I wanted while all of our closest friends and family were still in town, we’d have to get married on television.

Unless…

“What if we marry in secret?” I murmured softly, even though I knew the risks.

Julian’s head tilted as he stared at me. He brought his hand to my head, smoothing it over my hair that was slicked back into a coarse bun. He let his fingers trail a path from my temple to my cheek and then down my neck. His touch was light and feathery, stirring up all types of feelings within me.

“You want me to violate the terms of the contract?” His voice was as soft as his touch.

I did, but I didn’t. I did because I wanted our wedding to be ours, but I didn’t because I knew it would be a huge financial setback and a legal and PR nightmare.

I shook my head. “I don’t want you to do anything in violation of the contract.”

“What do you want?”

“To marry you.”

He gave me a look. “What do you want?”

“I want to marry you in a beautiful dress in front of our family and best friends. I want Chele King to sing ‘Always The One’ acappella as I walk down the aisle to you. I want it to be intimate. I want it to be us. Just us.” I looked down temporarily before making eye contact again. “I don’t want to do it in front of hundreds of strangers. I know it’s how we met and how we got together, but marriage is sacred and I want it to be ours. So if there’s any way we can avoid doing it on live TV, I would love that…but I’ve read the contract. Your team has read the contract. I don’t think it’s possible.” I paused. “What do you want?”

He swallowed hard. “I want you as my wife. Last night, we talked about getting married on New Year’s Day with the hope that I can get out of my contract.” He stared at me for a long while and the subtle twitch of his eyebrow alerted me to his nervousness. He licked his lips. “Let’s say we can’t get out of the contract, what then? What do you want to do?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he interrupted before I could answer.

“But before you answer, just know that I know I’m willing to do whatever you want to do. It kills me that I might not be able to give you the wedding you’ve always wanted. If you want to postpone, I’ll—”

Pressing my lips against his, I stopped his flood of words with a kiss. “Julian, stop.” I searched his eyes until I saw the uncertainty receding. “You are going to give me the marriage I’ve always wanted; that’s what matters.” Ignoring the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, I made a conscious decision to do what was best for our family. “We’re not going to postpone. Just like we said last night, we’re going to start the year as Mr. and Mrs. Winters.”

Relief smoothed out the crease between his eyebrows as he sighed. “Thank God.”

Capturing my lips with his, he kissed me with a tenderness that caused me to feel faint. My body heated, my brain flooded with emotions, and my heart skipped a beat. I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him closer as he leisurely explored my mouth with his own. The kiss was gentle and reverent.

I felt loved.

Pulling out of the kiss, we stared into each other’s eyes. “January first,” I breathed, a bit of wonder in my voice. “We’re getting married in less than a month.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “You sure you don’t want to push it to February or right before I leave in March, give us time to plan?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter if it’s January first or March first. Unless there’s a way out of the contract, we still couldn’t have the wedding we talked about last night.” I let my fingers play along his chiseled jaw. “So why delay having you as my husband?”

“So we’re doing this?” Julian questioned, eyes crinkling happily.

Scooping me up into his arms, Julian helped me off the island. “We’re doing this,” I giggled, unwrapping my legs from around his body and placing my feet on the ground. “So I guess I need to find a dress.”

“You do that. I have to make a few calls before dinner.” His lips brushed against mine. “I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

I watched his sexy ass leave the kitchen.

“I love you,” I called out to his retreating back.

“I love you, too.”

He went to handle his business and I handled mine. Two hours later, we were sitting side-by-side on our laptops in the den as we listened to music and planned our wedding.

Although they were unable to find a loophole to get us out of any kind of contractual obligation to
The One
, his team of lawyers found a wedding planner named Peri Moore who was available and able to execute in a few weeks’ time. We spoke to her briefly and told her our wedding colors were a twist on the classic black and white. She assured us we were in capable hands and that she would handle everything.

Well, everything except for the fashion and the music.

Julian and I made it clear that we were going to take care of those things and let her know what we decided when we met with her in a few days.

With that out of the way, we contacted the rest of our wedding party and then worked on random wedding tasks. I’d just gotten off of the phone with Koko, who had received my email about her maid of honor dress, when Julian’s phone rang.

“Hello?” he answered.

We were sitting close enough that I could hear a man’s voice, but I couldn’t make out who it was.

Julian pulled the phone from his ear to look at the number again. “This number is private. How did you get it?” he asked sharply. Although it was subtle, I heard the intimidating shift in his tone.

I didn’t even pretend not to be listening as I turned my head to look at him.

“Beverly has my calendar. There was no reason for you to bypass her.” He was quiet for a minute, listening. “We can discuss this at another time.”

I eyed him and could feel the tension rolling off him. He didn’t raise his voice, but the rough tone indicated that he was not pleased with the caller. He clenched his jaw and that worried me, but the fact that he hadn’t made eye contact with me worried me even more.

“I’ll give you one hour. Yeah. Friday night. I’ll have Beverly get back to you with my availability.”

Julian hung up the phone, tossing it on the couch cushion. He let his head drop back.

“What’s wrong?”

“That was Robert Brady.”

My stomach lurched. “What did he want?”

Julian lifted his head and looked at me. “He said he wanted to congratulate us on our engagement and it felt too impersonal to have his assistant call mine and he didn’t want to go through Beverly when he could just call me directly.” He shook his head hard once. “Arrogant asshole.”

I moved my laptop and then moved his off of his lap. He wrapped his arm around me as I curled into his side. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“No, I’m sorry. We should be celebrating on Friday, but instead, I need to meet with him and deal with this.” He rubbed his hand against my skin. “I’m going to make it up to you though.”

“No need. I’m coming with you.”

Julian laughed. “I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but we are going to settle this thing once and for all. Maybe seeing us together will change his mind and his heart. Maybe he’ll let you out of the contract once he sees that this is real and doesn’t need to be exploited.”

A ghost of a smile graced Julian’s lips as his eyes explored mine.

I felt myself beaming at him. “I love the way you look at me.”

“And how is that?” His quiet question pulled at my heart.

I never answered him earlier,
I remembered, the familiar rattle in my chest present.

“You look at me like you’re promising me the world,” I answered faintly.

His chest rose and fell twice as my words hung in the air. “Zoe…” He brought his forehead to mine. “I look at you like you are my world,” he uttered so quietly, I felt the words more than I heard them.

My heart stopped and my breath caught in my chest.

I kissed him my ‘I love you’ and as his lips enveloped mine, I felt his ‘I love you’ in return.

Even though there were case files I needed to review for work, I spent the rest of the night on the couch with Julian. He alternated between building wedding playlists and writing lyrics for potential wedding songs. I jotted down boutiques I wanted to check out for wedding dresses and then I found the bridesmaid dress for my bridesmaids.

I need to call Keisha and Lenny tomorrow. I have to tell them I’m engaged before they read it somewhere. And I need to ask them to be bridesmaids.

Keisha Hall was a close friend from college and we also went through law school together. She’d taken the bar exam when I originally was supposed to take it and landed an awesome job in San Diego.

Lennon Oliver, better known as Lenny, was a close friend who worked at Breakers Bar with me. She moved to L.A. to be an actress at eighteen and then by twenty-one she’d changed her entire life plan. At the time I met her, her life goal was to be a bartender in a cool bar and give unsolicited advice.

I didn’t see either of the women as often as I used to due to our schedules and the distance, but whenever we talked, it was like no time or distance or life change had occurred. We always picked up right where we’d left off because our friendship stood the test of time.

I sighed.

Hearing the news of my engagement from anyone but me would hurt them.

I’m just going to send them a text telling them and then I’ll talk to them on the phone tomorrow.

Julian laughed as I finished up my second text message.

Putting my phone down, I looked over at him and smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“Omar.” He shook his head as he chuckled again. “I asked him to be my best man and he said he would think about it because he had plans.”

My eyes widened. “He has plans?” I asked, surprised. “I thought everyone was coming over here for New Year’s anyway.”

Julian’s thumbs were flying as he typed out a response. His lips were turned up in a wicked grin. He hit send and then looked at me. “Those are the plans he’s talking about.”

I giggled. “He’s ridiculous.”

“He said he wants to decline the best man position just so he can walk down the aisle with Keisha.” He paused with a light snicker. “I told him if he won’t be the best man then he is getting demoted to ring bearer, and he said his day just freed up.”

“Omar and Scott crushing on Keisha is hilarious to me. It’s like a bad rom-com.”

Julian made a face. “Who says rom-com?” Tossing his phone to the side, he tickled me. “No seriously, who says that?”

I laughed, scrambling to get away from him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough as he held me down and tickled my sides.

“What was that you said again?” Julian taunted me as he held his fingers above me.

I laughed preemptively as I struggled to get away from him. “Rom-com!” My throaty voice was high and pitchy as I defiantly answered his question.

He licked his lips before they spread into the sexiest smile. His fingers quickly snuck under my shirt and danced across my skin. “Oh really?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I squealed my apology as I thrashed around.

“What kind of movie is the whole Omar-Keisha-Scott thing?”

“Romantic comedy!” I laughed so hard, tears were streaming from the corners of my eyes.

Pulling me into his lap, he eyed me as I caught my breath.

I smiled at his smile. “What?”

“It’s good to be home.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Julian asked me as I yawned for the third time on Friday night.

The work week had flown by and I had gone nonstop the whole time. The case files I didn’t review on Tuesday night ended up costing me the rest of the week. I thought it was going to be something I could glance over in an hour for another lawyer, but because I hadn’t done it, my assignment got switched to review another case file. Unfortunately, my new assignment was for one of the partners and the ‘glance over’ was actually the task of getting the preliminary information necessary for a hearing. Although I didn’t stay at the office late to complete the assignment, I worked at home for a couple of hours while Julian handled the preparations for our Christmas celebration. The late nights and early mornings wore me out, but being able to kick off a long vacation by slipping on a sexy dress and going out with my sexy man made it worthwhile.

Julian pulled into the valet parking line. “Say the word and we’ll reschedule.”

I smiled sleepily at him and squeezed his hand. “This week has been exhausting, but I’m fine. I promise. Once we get in there, I’ll be good.”