Page 131 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
When I reached the open library doors, I skidded to a stop, blinking in astonishment.
Rayford lounged on the sofa, an amused smile lighting his face. Standing on opposite sides of the coffee table were Taylor and Bianca, squared off like pistoleros about to draw their guns. Bianca was dressed in rumpled pink pajamas with little blue bunny rabbits all over them, a beige raincoat, and a pair of those hideous clogs she wore to work. Her hair was sticking up in wild tufts all over her head.
She looked like an escapee from an insane asylum, and also the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“And another thing!” she shouted at Taylor. “You really shouldn’t wear brown lipstick!”
“Well hello there, sir,” said Rayford calmly. “As you can see, Miss Bianca and Miss Taylor were just gettin’ acquainted.” His smile grew wider. “I tried to tell Miss Bianca you were busy, but she almost broke down the front door, so here we are.”
“Bianca,” I said, my voice raw. “What’re you doing here?”
She turned to me with burning eyes and a heaving chest, the color high in her cheeks. She shouted, “I’m here to stop the man I love from marrying the wrong woman!”
Taylor’s mouth dropped open.
Rayford giggled.
And my heart stopped dead in my chest.
I wheezed, “Love?” before Bianca cut me off.
“Yes, that’s right. I love you, Jackson Boudreaux!”
It sounded like an accusation or a confession of something terrible and terminal, like you’d say, “The tumor is inoperable and I only have a week to live.”
But she kept talking, and my heart rebooted and took flight like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner, but I think I’m just about as stubborn as you are. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you hitch your wagon to some cash-hungry bottom-feeder just to save your inheritance!”
She gestured to Taylor, who cried an offended, “Oh!”
I exhaled, and it was like fire.
Bianca stepped toward me. She squared her shoulders and looked up into my face.
She said, “My whole life I’ve been waiting for someone like you. Only I didn’t know that someone would come with a caveman beard and a bossy streak and a scowl that could peel paint from the walls. And then you came at me with your ridiculous proposal, and then Mama died, and then I lost my mind, so it took me a minute to figure it out.”
She swallowed. When she spoke next her voice was quieter.
“But I love you, Jackson. And I hope you know that I don’t give a damn about your money, because I don’t. In fact I think it would do you a world of good to flush that inheritance right down the toilet and live like a normal person for once.”
She added drily, “I’ve recently been informed by my attorney that I’m a millionaire, anyway, so it’s not like we’d be broke.”
Taylor huffed. “Mr. Boudreaux, will you please tell this woman—”
“Shut up, Taylor,” I said.
She threw her hands in the air and rolled her eyes.
Bianca took another step closer to me, then another, until she was so close I could see the flecks of gold in her beautiful brown eyes. She flattened her hands over my chest.
I thought my heart would explode it pounded so hard.
Bianca said softly, “We went about this whole thing ass backward. Marriage proposals are supposed to come after you’ve fallen in love, not before, but I have a feeling nothing we’re ever going to do will be in the proper order. So what I’m proposing is that you tell this skinny little mercenary with the weird brown lips to go pound sand, and you and me get married.”
Her lips curved into a shy smile. “Because I would like to date you.”
I took her sweet face in my hands. She slid her arms around my waist and hugged me, and I wondered if it was possible for a person to die of happiness. I felt like I might float right off the floor.
