The Last Eligible Billionaire(72)

“No, but she believes I’d do it. That’s enough.”

“Such a terrible threat, Mr. Rutherford.”

Keisha doesn’t matter. Marshmallow doesn’t matter. Being naked at the edge of a forest without my clothes doesn’t matter.

Hayes matters.

And a ruffled but smiling Hayes Rutherford with his cheeks and chin painted with scruff, his hair a tousled, bedheaded mess, and sleepy eyes slowly waking up, might be my favorite version of him.

“It was you or me, and she already has the advantage of seeing some mystery tattoo that I have yet to discover on your body. I have no intention of letting her see it more before I do.”

I smile back at him. “You didn’t look closely enough in Maine.”

“I was quite unaware of who I’d found in Maine.”

“And you were tired and cranky and expecting an empty house.”

He tilts his head into the crook of my neck again and sighs. “I’m tired of being tired and cranky,” he murmurs.

“Are you tired and cranky right now?”

“I’m far more content than I trust.”

I run my fingers through his hair and wiggle my hips, enjoying the feel of his rapidly hardening erection against my belly. I can’t imagine how vulnerable he must feel to confess that out loud. “Don’t question it. Just let yourself have it.”

“Begonia, I—”

“Your clothes, Mr. Rutherford,” Robert says from nearby. “Merriweather called and reported you’ve been requested for interviews with several news networks this morning.”

I sigh. It’s involuntary, and I wish I could stop it, but I can’t.

I’ve been here too many times. Sorry, Begonia, but if I don’t go to my job, I don’t get paid. We’ll have a glass of wine together tonight.

Hayes sighs too, and his sigh feels more weary to me than any of my own could ever be. “Why did Merriweather call you?”

“I located your phone in the freezer, sir,” Robert replies, which I guess is as solid an answer as anything else would be.

Hayes makes a noise.

I cringe. Marshmallow.

“Is that the weirdest place you’ve ever found a phone?” I ask Robert.

Hayes makes another noise, but it’s not like the noises he made when I first met him.

This sounds far more amused.

“Today, ma’am,” he replies.

“Nikolay would’ve told me.”

Robert doesn’t answer. He’s somehow staring at me as if I’m breaking some kind of unspoken rule about speaking to billionaires’ bodyguards while not actually looking at me, as if he doesn’t want to get caught gawking at his boss and his boss’s lady friend hiding their naked bits under a picnic blanket.

“We’ll be back at the house in fifteen minutes, Robert,” Hayes says.

“Certainly, sir. But as a matter of note, your father’s requested a video conference over breakfast.”

I frown. “Aren’t your parents here? I thought Marshmallow took them our clothes.”

“We’re an early-rising, early-working, early-traveling family,” Hayes replies. “Also, never trust Keisha.”

“Unless you’re broke and lost in Amsterdam,” Robert murmurs.

“Or facing down a gang of kangaroos outside Sydney,” Hayes agrees. “Fifteen minutes, Robert.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for the clothes,” I call after him as he heads back toward the house.

Hayes tilts his pelvis, pressing his hard length more firmly against my belly. “I’m quite irritated that your dog stole my condoms. And I would very much like to have been the first person in my family to have studied this tattoo of yours.”

I reach between us, wrapping my fingers around his cock. “Guess I’ll have to make that up to you.”

His eyes slide shut as I find the space and the angle to stroke him.

“Begonia?”

“Yes, Hayes?”

“I will never forget this moment.”

My heart warms even as fear dances at the edges of the glow.

I won’t either.

And I’m afraid it will be over too soon, but not soon enough to keep me from completely falling.





28





Hayes



I’m deep in discussion in my office with my brother’s favorite jeweler Thursday afternoon, a couple days after the night in the meadow, when Merriweather knocks on my door. “Mrs. Werenski, Mr. Rutherford.”

A brown-haired, round-cheeked, very pregnant Begonia strolls through the door.

And I nearly fall out of my seat.

I know this isn’t Begonia. I know this woman is her twin. I’ve seen this woman before, talked with her over video even.

But I had no idea the woman was about to pop, and the sight of a woman who looks so very similar to Begonia carrying a child makes something primal and instinctive and possessive spring to life deep inside me.

I know better. I do.

“Don’t make that face,” Hyacinth says, though she’s not nearly as cheeky as she was on the phone. Her eyes are a bit too wide as she looks around my office and soaks it all in. “Third pregnancies always make you look like you could deliver any minute from the fifth month on. So. Are you making an honest woman of my sister, or what?”