Page 94 of Snapshot

She buries her head in her hands. “I didn’t want to distract you during your meeting. You said you had a lot of important issues to iron out. But so did I. Avery was the one who called to tell me about the article. She begged me not to read it and she was calling all her PR contacts in the industry to try and have it taken down. Finn was tasked with keeping my parents off the internet. The stuff they said about my dad was vile. I didn’t want him to see it and get hurt. I got so many calls and text messages from friends who were offended I didn’t tell them we were married or dating. I’m not just a prop, Dex. I have a life, too. I gave up my friends and family to come here and support you. Then, you weren’t even here.”

“I…” I can’t finish my sentence because I have nothing reasonable to offer. I wasn’t thinking about what Lennox left behind. My mind was fixed on where we were headed.

“And then I got a text from Alan who asked me to be honest with him… He wanted to know if I had been cheating on him with you the entire time. He and I broke up and I married you not even a week later. Tell me, how does that look? I owed him an explanation, at least.”

I promised myself I wouldn’t feel bad for Pocket Protectors anymore.But fuck.“What did you tell him?”

“In a nutshell, I told him that while I was his, I was his alone. And when we broke up, I became yoursand yours alone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still care about who I hurt.”

“Was being with Alan easier than being with me?”

“Yes,” she says, spinning around, leaning back into my chest. “But I don’t want easy.I want you.I want my whole heart feeling like it’s going to explode every time you enter a room.”

I laugh. “That sounds terrible.”

“It’s not so bad.”

Now that she’s relaxed, I go back to trailing kisses on her neck. “My grandpa worked incessantly. His dad was the same. I never actually knew my own dad. My mom got pregnant out of wedlock. Grandma told me after she passed away that my grandpa threatened to disinherit her if she married that man. I don’t know what was so awful about my dad that my grandpa didn’t want him to be part of our family…but at any rate, my mom was willing to leave the money behind to be with him.”

“Then what happened?”

“When the threat didn’t work, Grandpa offered my dad a check to disappear. He took it. I was curious about the amount. How much is enough to walk away from your kid, you know?”

Lennox bends her arm, reaching backward. She holds my cheek tightly in her hand. “That’s awful.”

“I want to be more like the men in your life and less like the men in mine. I want to be as loyal to my family as your dad is. I want to be as enamored with you as Finn is with Avery. Basically, I promise if you stick around, I’m going to do better. I think that was the whole point of Grandma leaving the company to someone else for a while. She didn’t want me to focus on being a good CEO. She wanted me to focus on being a good man. All I want is to be a good man to you.” I press my hand against herstomach. “If you let me put some babies in here, I promise I’ll be a good dad.”

“Since when do you want kids?” she asks with a scoff. “I thought that was off the table. You always said you didn’t want kids.”

“When did I say that to you?” I ask.

“About five million times over the past few years.” She squeezes my knee under the water.

“No, I asked, when did I say thatto you?” I smile into her neck before tugging on a loose tendril of her hair. “Maybe I just always wanted my kids to come out with purple hair.”

“You sure you graduated from Harvard? Did you miss the class where they explain how hair dye works?”

Reaching around her body, I playfully pinch her nipple. “Are you making fun of me?”

“A little.”

I pinch harder, and she squirms. “Hmm, two things to address now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your sassy little mouth and the fact that you closed your legs on me.” I bite down with pressure on her shoulder and she gasps. “You know how I feel about that.”

26

Lennox

Inever thought asuitwould be my type, but watching my husband all put together in his nice button-down, business slacks, and a matching tie kind of has my stomach flipping. I stare at him in the backseat of our ride, blinking heavily as a wave of desire rushes through me.

“What?” he asks, studying my face.

I flutter my eyelashes at him. “Nothing,” I mumble.

He exhales and sets his phone aside. “Len, we’ll get you a car. When Denny gets back, she’ll call our usual dealer and have them bring some options over. And I know you don’t like being chauffeured around, but I like to work on the commutes. Maybe it means I can get out of the office five minutes faster and home to you.”

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