Page 172 of Axel

“I’ve prepared something for you,” I share, escorting them upstairs. “The room at the end of the hall. It has a red and a black tie on the door handle. Leave the red tie on if you want privacy. Hang the black tie if others can join you.”

They’re excited. They’re in love. They finally have hope, and I’m happy for them.

I stop in front of my bedroom with a red tie hanging from it. “This one’s for me.” I flit my hand, shooing them down the hallway. “So y’all have fun.”

Me? I’ll work on my laptop and prepare PR statements. Then I’ll investigate the rental properties. The ones Halstead’s LLC used to own. After his deadly, freak boating accident on Lake Tobesofkee, where he lost his hand and life, the rumor is his rental properties will be put up for sale, and I’ll help The Queen buy them.

Yep, everyone else is having an orgy tonight but me.

Typical.

Pushing the door open, I’m greeted by the familiar darkness and the night ocean beyond the wall of glass doors.

I reach to flip on the switch that turns on the bedside lamps, and when I do, I jump at the man sitting in the corner chair.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

RUBY

“What are you doing here?”

I glance around the bedroom, my eyes shocked by the vases brimming with lilacs, irises, hydrangeas. Every purple flower you can imagine. They’re everywhere.

Even lilac petals blanket the bed.

“I couldn’t leave you alone on a night like this,” Axel answers. “I meant it. I’m proud of you. I want to celebrate you.”

“Okay… But… But…” I stammer, smiling. “You could just buy a cake or something.”

“And what would it say?” He beams, rising in his dark suit. “Marry me, Ruby Jones? Be my queen, Ruby Jones?” He reaches me, his hand cupping my cheek. “Please trust me again, Ruby Jones. There’s so much I need to ask you.”

I blink back tears. “Idotrust you.”

“I need to earn it,” he says. “You gave me something no man has ever had. Your heart. Now, I want to give you something no woman has ever had.”

I don’t know what he means as he shrugs off hisblack jacket. Unbuttoning his white shirt, he commands me softly, “Please, sit on the bed.”

Flutters hit my heart. Those beautiful butterflies only Axel can give me. They alight in my chest as I sit on a blanket of flower petals.

After he peels off his shirt, letting me admire the spectacle of his inked body, Axel leans over and unlaces his shiny, Italian shoes. Toeing them off, I watch silently as he stares at me and takes off his pants.

Standing in his black boxer briefs and usual black socks, he’s always a breathtaking sight. If it’s not his stunning, muscular body that has me in awe, it’s his sexy face or his mesmerizing eyes, their ice burning bright tonight.

But he’s not hard. Not like he usually is when he takes off his pants for me.

“I don’t know quite how to do this,” he says. “I’ve never done it.” I’m confused, watching him sit beside me on the bed. “I guess… Um… Let me…”

He maneuvers around me, such that he’s sitting in the center of the bed and I’m on the edge, turning toward him, not knowing what he’s doing until he reaches for his socks.

And that’s when I notice.

His hands are shaking.

It makes my heart start to beat so hard.

“Axel, you don’t have to?—”

“Yes, I do.” He tugs a sock down. “I want to give you something I’ve never trusted anyone to have. This side of me…”

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