Page 81 of What Happens This Christmas
To cherish.
And to be with Nick Crane.
Fully and completely.
Never holding anything back.
Forever.
And ever.
An eternity didn’t seem long enough, but it would have to do.
“I think we caused a spectacle,” he said, laughing with me as he looked around at all the eyes on us.
I felt their gazes, but my eyes never once left him as I shook my head and raked my teeth over my lower lip. “I hadn’t even noticed.” People didn’t matter. What they thought no longer mattered. Nothing mattered, and nothing probably ever had, even though I’d taken a while to realize that.
This right here was what mattered. Nick and the moment we were sharing.
Just as it should be. Just as it always would be.
Epilogue
entering your playground
Nick
The same way it was rare to find a bartender who could make an exceptional Ramos Gin Fizz, it was rare to be given an opportunity for redemption, for redefining something.
Luckily for me, not only had I mastered the Ramos Gin Fizz, but I also had been given an opportunity to redefine January second for Candy.
Been givenmight’ve been a bit inaccurate, seeing as I made this happen, but it could be argued that if we hadn’t had our Christmas season, then this wouldn’t have been possible. Either way, I was turning this day that could’ve easily been tainted by the threat of divorce into something I knew would make my wife infinitely happy.
As I sat next to her in the backseat of the town car that drove us to Tribeca, I knew she was busting at the seams to find out exactly what I had up my sleeve, but I couldn’t tell her. Not yet.
Besides, she was busy enjoying the frozen hot chocolate I had our chef find the recipe for. One call to the popular restaurant that made it famous, dropping our name and greasing palms, and he had been able to prepare her one before we left our penthouse. I was a wise enough man to know that nothing should distract her when she was enjoying her favorite treat. Candy had this way of going all in on savoring the decadent flavors and the rich experience she made it.
She rolled her lips, and a soft hum escaped her. Turning the straw to face me, she smiled. “You sure you don’t want a taste before I finish this?”
I grew up in Maine and was resilient to the cold, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the cold treat in thirty-three-degree weather. Yes, I’d indulge my wife and share in it with her on occasion, but it wasn’t something that held the same nostalgic charm for me as it did Candy. I also detested brain freezes. It quite literally felt like my brain was being stored in an ice cube until it defrosted, and I could function properly again. “No, you enjoy it,” I said, coaxing her to finish it before we arrived at our destination.
As her head dipped, I looked at the top of her head adorned in a silky, sheared demi buff mink hat and crystal fox fur trim. It was a present I’d given her years ago to go with one of her coats. The fact that she’d cherished it the way she obviously had made my heart glow. Candy might’ve been materialistic, but she also had a heart of gold and was extremely sentimental. Those were just some of my favorite things about her.
Another might’ve been the way she dominated a straw, pulling it between her teeth, sucking on it for all it was worth with puckered, swollen lips. Was she ever going to be finished with her frozen hot chocolate so my cock could have a fighting chance at not hardening?
No sooner had the driver stopped the car had Candy declared, “Okay, I’m done. Now, what are we doing in Tribeca?” Her gaze shot to her window as she looked up and smiled. “At the pinnacle of style?”
Of course, she’d call what an average person called a luxury department storethe pinnacle of style.Only my wife…
“Indulge me.”
“Sweetheart, you never have to say those words to me when we’re sitting in front of my mothership. Naturally I’ll indulgeyou, but I’d still like to know what we’re doing here.” She looked at her watch. “Two hours before the store opens.”
Unable to resist any longer, I reached out and rolled her bottom lip with my thumb before pressing my lips to hers. “We’re redefining the way you’ll remember this day.”
I got out and walked to her side so I could open the door for her. As her leather boots hit the sidewalk, the general manager walked out with an entire group of people waiting in the wings. “Madame Crane,” he greeted Candy, poised to take her hand. With a nod in my direction, he gently laid his lips on her knuckles in a move I detested, but I’d already told him to give her the royal treatment, so in a way it was all my own fault.
Using that logic, I resisted the urge to punch him in the face, and instead kept my hand firmly planted on the small of her back.
