Best Man with Benefits (Wedding Dare, #4, McCade Brothers, #3)(57)

The last bit came out in a breathless rush, but he heard every word. His heart swelled with a combination of hope and relief. Then she swayed again, this time visibly enough to cause people to gasp, and his relief gave way to alarm.

He sprinted the last few feet, stepping on a few toes and taking a few elbows in the process, but he reached her and wrapped a supporting arm around her waist.

“I’m okay,” she said, but he kept his arm around her and pulled her close.

“I’m sorry, too, Sophie. I should have told you about the favor to Colt. The thing is, as soon as I started spending time with you, it had nothing to do with Colt, or a sense of duty, or the damn favor. It was all about you—and me wanting to be with you. The fact is, there’s nowhere I want to be except with you.” He eased back and waited for her to look up at him. “Sophie, I—”

“I love you,” she blurted, right into the microphone, and the three words echoed around the room. “I do,” she put her hand to her head, as if to try to keep it from floating off her shoulders. “I love you. And I trust you. And I’m trying to find some courage…”

A collective awww came from the audience.

“I love you, too.”

That knocked the dazed look right off her face. “Are you sure?”

He smiled at her and watched the pulse at the base of her throat flutter. His heart rate kicked up a notch in response.

“Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure.” Then he tipped her chin up and cupped her jaw. For a moment he simply stared into her eyes, watched her pupils expand so he could be sure she was all the way with him. Then he kissed her, long, and slow, and deep, until she melted into him and kissed him back. The room erupted into catcalls and applause.

He could have stood there forever, kissing her, but at some point a voice in the back of his head reminded him they were making out in the middle of a wedding reception. Reluctantly, he drew away.

“So, I’ve got this wedding to attend, and I hear there’s going to be dancing, and I kind of hoped you’d be my date.”

“Yes!” She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him again.

The DJ piped up from across the room. “Okay folks, I guess love is in the air, which means it’s time to get this party started…”

The room responded with cheers.





Epilogue


Twelve months later


The mountaintop restaurant offered dramatic views of Boulder at sunset, but Sophie barely noticed the spectacular scenery outside the floor-to-ceiling windows because she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the man sitting across the candlelit table from her. Logan wearing a dark suit and his favorite necktie proved too difficult a sight to resist.

He caught her looking and smiled. The little groove beside his mouth appeared, but despite his outward calm, she sensed an undercurrent of tension. It had been there all evening through dinner. Rare, these days, because he’d slowly but surely revamped his role at Defy Gravity over the past year, liberating himself from the day-to-day demands of running the business.

The business continued to thrive, which Sophie took as a testament to his carefully selected management team, and she sent a silent thank-you to Regan for helping locate the right candidates for several of the roles.

All of which meant work stress probably didn’t account for the way his eyes darted around the restaurant or how his hand tapped out a restless rhythm on his knee.

“Is everything okay?”

“Hmm?” His gaze snapped back to her from somewhere over her shoulder. “Sorry, yes, everything’s fine. I’m just looking for our waiter. Did you enjoy your dinner?”

She nudged her nearly empty plate and cocked a brow at him. “If I’d enjoyed it any more, it would have been indecent.”

“Indecent is exactly how I like you.” She had his full attention now and the slow smile he unleashed on her sent several indecent thoughts through her head. “This place is no Leo’s,” he went on, mentioning their favorite local spot in Los Angeles, “but since we were here in Boulder, and this is kind of our anniversary, I wanted to take you somewhere memorable.”

These days he split his time between his home in Boulder and her apartment in L.A. She did the same. Work kept her busy, but she could do it from practically anywhere, so she found herself in Boulder just as often as home.

Her work flexibility was especially convenient this week. When Colt had called her to say the doctors planned to induce Kady’s labor tomorrow, she’d been happy to hop on a plane to Boulder. Kady wanted her friends and family at her side during the delivery. Make it a party, she’d said. Distract me. Everything looked good, baby-wise, so Sophie planned to be in a delivery room tomorrow, welcoming her brand-new niece or nephew into the world.

Logan’s eyes shifted beyond her again and she sensed rather than saw their waiter approaching. “Speaking of anniversaries—”

The chime of her phone interrupted him. From the ringtone she knew it was Colt. “I’m sorry.” She dug into her handbag. “I’d better take this. Give me one second.” She sent the waiter a quick smile of apology and engaged the call. “Hi, Colt.”

“Hey, Sophie. How soon can you get to the hospital?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“We’re on our way. Kady’s in labor.”