Chapter 8: : Chapter 8

I’m never leaving my bedroom again.

Maybe I’m not ready for adulthood or college or big decisions. Maybe I’m just a stupid, eighteen-year-old kid. What was I thinking, trying to scheme Gunner into a relationship? He doesn’t want a child for a girlfriend. Sex is one thing, but going public when his persona is so important to his multi-billion-dollar company? I was naïve to think that was ever a possibility.

Still wearing my bikini, I roll over and bury my face in a pillow. It’s wet from my tears and I dive headlong into another crying jag now, the sound muffled.

I miss Gunner.

I love him so much.

Even now I could be carrying his baby. What a scandal that would be. I’m sure if I’m pregnant, it’ll be kept hush hush and I’ll be shuttled abroad somewhere until I can deliver the baby, passing it off as a distant relative or something. Or maybe Gunner will want full custody. Who is going to fight him when I’m the teenager who tricked him into sleeping with me? Into…everything. He never cared deeply about me. It was all in my eager imagination.

And I deserve this. To be alone and humiliated.

I lied to him.

I manipulated him into a sexual relationship with me after he explicitly said no.

But I just thought…I swore if we just had some time together as adults, the love inside me would be contagious. It’s so big and mighty. How can it not be?

While Gunner was away on his business trip, I started to doubt my dreams. I started wondering if being with Gunner, as his real girlfriend, was far-fetched. It made me so depressed, so nervous, I stopped answering his calls—and then when I saw him at the country club, I immediately called myself a moron for not spending every single second possible with him, in any capacity I can get. But the consequences of those lies were beginning to come to a head, making him doubt my intentions. Making him doubt me. I waited too long to tell the truth and there is nothing I can do to fix the damage I’ve done.

He must hate me.

Or he’s laughing at me, thinking my love is nothing more than a crush.

And worse, I’ve made things awkward between Gunner and my father, to say nothing of how I’ll ever look my father in the eye again after he caught me and Gunner having sex. Paul will probably hate me—and who can blame him? I’ve let my infatuation, my obsession with this man turn me into a liar. A girl who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

I bolt upright in bed when my phone starts to vibrate on the bed beside my hip. Reaching down, I pick it up, wincing when I see Paul’s name on the screen. I’m definitely about to get an earful, but it’s going to happen sometime, isn’t it? Might as well be now.

With a blown-out breath, I answer the phone. “Paul…I’m sorry. I—”

“Can you come downstairs?”

I swipe at my red nose. “So you can yell at me in person?”

He sighs and it turns into a quiet laugh. “Just come down here.”

The call ends and I stare at the device in trepidation a moment, before climbing off the bed and slipping a white summer dress over my bikini, sliding my feet into sandals. I catch a glimpse of my tear-stained face in the mirror on my way out, but no amount of makeup is going to fix it. There is no one waiting in the foyer, so I open the door myself and come face to face with my best friend on the marble staircase.

“Hey,” I say miserably.

Paul shakes his head, a hard gleam in his eye. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” My voice is unbalanced. “It started out as a crush on your dad, but then it just…snowballed. And then I couldn’t breathe unless I saw him at least once a day—”

“Gross. Look, is he the reason you’re friends with me?”

My chest seizes with disbelief. “What?” I reach out and grab his arm. “No. No! Oh my God, of course not. You’re my best friend because I adore you. I would never use you like that. I’m sorry…I’m sorry you’re doubting me—”

“Shut up, I’m not,” he interrupts, rolling his eyes. “Not really. I just had to make sure you love me as much as you should.”

“I do.”

“Just in very different way than you love my father.” He shakes his head. “It’s going to take a long time for me to get used to saying that.”

My heart sinks down to my knees. “I don’t think you’ll have to get used to anything. He’s never going to want to see me again.”

Paul places a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Don’t be so sure.” He tugs me toward the steps where his car is waiting below. “Come on, weepy face.”

I sputter in confusion. “Where are we going?”

He doesn’t answer, simply opening the passenger side door and gesturing for me to get in. Hope starts to flicker inside of me, but I douse the flame immediately, afraid how crushed I’ll be if Gunner isn’t on the other side of this car ride. Still, without any keys or even my phone, I move as if in a trance, getting into the car and fastening my seatbelt.

We drive into the city, the radio playing softly, the air conditioning raising goosebumps on my skin. My best friend has essentially forgiven me for keeping my relationship with his father a secret—I’ve already gotten a better outcome than I deserve. I’m trying to suppress any more dangerous hope from rising to the surface, but the closer we get to our destination, the tighter my throat gets. Especially when we drive right past the hotel where Gunner and I met every night for one glorious week.

“Where are you taking me?”

Giving me a cheeky look, he doesn’t answer. But then he parks in front of Wonderbluss. The art installation center I took Gunner to on our first night together. There is no way Paul could know the significance of this place unless Gunner told him.

My heart pumps wildly in my ribcage, my fingers curling around the doorhandle. “Is he in there?” I sob. “Does he forgive me?”

“Oh, I’d say that’s a safe bet.”

With a shocked and relieved whimper, I throw myself out of the car and go running. I start to open the door of Wonderbluss, but someone opens it for me first. It’s my…father? And my mother is standing behind him. They both look a little shaken, but happily resigned, nonetheless.

And they’re dressed up.

My father is in a suit and tie, my mother in black Versace.

“I made a mess of things,” I say, haltingly. “I should have told you the truth.”

“We all make mistakes—I know that better than anyone,” my father sighs, his mouth ticking up at one corner. “Luckily, not all mistakes lead to ruin.”

I swallow. “I’m sorry you saw…what you saw.”

“How about we just pretend that never happened, huh?” We both laugh a little uncomfortably, stopping when he jerks his head at the velvet curtain separating the entrance from the art installations. “Orange door.”

With a happy, watery laugh, I give my parents hugs and dash toward the curtain, throwing myself through it into the hallway. I don’t bother trying to smooth my hair or get the wrinkles out of my dress. I only care about getting through the orange door. To Gunner. I miss him so much, I barely feel human. I need his hands on me, need to hear his voice.

I expect him to be standing on the other side of the orange door.

But I never could have expected to walk into the hillside of swaying cherry blossom trees to find Gunner in a tuxedo, a pastor holding a bible to his left. Gunner’s head lifts at my entrance, his expression transforming with love, with worship. For me. I can’t believe it.

And taking one step, two, I realize I’m walking down the aisle to my own wedding.

My hands fly to my mouth to trap a sob, blossom petals falling all around me. Hot tears rush to my eyes. I can’t stand another single second of being apart from Gunner—and I run to him, leaping into his arms. Burying my face in his neck and circling my legs around his hips, letting him hold me like a baby while I cry.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Gunner makes a sound of disbelief. “You’re sorry? Josie, I’ve been a goddamn idiot. I should have known there was more to us than an arrangement. I should have trusted my gut, that we were right together, instead of unknowingly pushing you away. You needed love, not gifts. If you’d gone…baby, if I’d lost you, that would have been the end of me.” His hard mouth rakes over my ear, a shudder passing through his big body. “I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life that you went to such lengths to get my attention. Or I never would have admitted how much I love you. How badly I need you. If you lied, Josie, you only did it for us, so there will be no more apologizing. My wife doesn’t apologize for anything.”

Wife.

With my heart performing cartwheels in my chest, I curl my body more securely around him, vaguely aware of my parents and Paul entering the room, standing at the perimeter. “You really w-want to marry me?”

He pulls back and looks me in the eye, stroking a loving hand down the side of my face. “My life won’t be complete otherwise.” His voice shakes with emotion. “I love you so damn much, Josie. You are my happiness. You’re the good in this world for me. You are mine. If I’m not going to bed beside you every night for as long as I live, the devil might as well take me now.”

I can barely catch my breath in the face of my dreams coming true. “I love you, too. I love you with my whole heart.” I plant kisses all over his face. “My Gunner. Mine.”

“Sweetest words I’ve ever heard,” he growls, capturing my mouth in a hard kiss, his forearm sliding beneath my bottom. “Marry us. Just like this,” he says to the pastor, whispering the rest in my ear. “I’m never going to let your feet touch the floor. You’re going to feel like you’re floating for the rest of your life.”

“I already do,” I whisper, framing his face with my hands, the gentle fan blowing my hair around our heads. “I’m already in the clouds.”

We share another long, hungry kiss, unable to stop, even with our audience watching. “Reach inside my inner jacket pocket,” he instructs me—and I do—pulling out a diamond ring that qualifies as a small boulder, rendering me speechless. “Now put it on your finger, little girl, and say the words that will make me the luckiest man alive.”

I exhale shakily while sliding on the ring, then lean in to speak quietly against Gunner’s ear, my thighs tightening ever-so-slightly. “Yes, Papa.”