Chapter 11 — My Boyfriend, Their Billionaire

Grant met us at the door with an expression that suggested he had finally arranged the world to his liking.

"Richard is waiting," he told me. "I'm glad you both came."

His gaze lingered on Jamie.

Jamie smiled politely and kept his hand against my back.

The house glittered. Flowers crowded the tables, waiters carried champagne between people whose smiles became more careful near the main dining room.

Richard stood when he saw us.

Miles came forward to greet me, and I resisted the urge to congratulate him on surviving his brief career as Jamie's father.

That conversation could wait until we weren't surrounded.

Richard took my hand.

"It's good to meet properly."

"It would have been good a little earlier."

He looked at Jamie.

"I agree."

Jamie sighed.

"You're getting along too well."

We sat beside each other. Across the table, Sloane looked at my dress as though it were a personal insult. Ethan sat beside her, quieter than anyone else in the room.

Grant's father welcomed Richard, praised his investments, and carefully raised the subject of his son.

"A wedding, we hear."

"I hope so," Richard said.

Grant looked at me.

I sipped my water.

"His choice is an impressive young woman," Richard continued. "I've had the pleasure of meeting her parents. They care more about her happiness than any arrangement between families."

Grant's smile became thinner.

Richard turned toward me.

"Vivian. I'd be very happy to welcome you into ours."

The room paused around the sentence.

Sloane was the first to recover.

"She lives with Jamie," she said. "They've been together for weeks."

"I know."

"He works for her. He's an actor."

"I know that too."

She looked at Grant for help. He leaned forward.

"There may be some private history you haven't been told."

I set my glass down.

"I've told him exactly whom I'm with."

Grant's eyes narrowed.

"You should consider your choices carefully."

Jamie looked at him.

"She's been doing that. You just don't like the result."

Sloane laughed sharply.

"You don't get to speak to him like that."

Richard turned toward Jamie.

"Julian," he said, "how much longer are you going to let them discuss your future as if you aren't here?"

The name moved through the room without finding an owner.

Then Jamie stood.

"Apparently a little too long, Dad."

Grant's hand froze beside his glass.

Sloane looked at Jamie, then at Richard, and the color began to leave her face.

"Julian Ashford," Jamie said. "Jamie Cole professionally. I imagine you've had enough time to decide what you think of me without the surname."

Nobody laughed.

Miles stood beside Richard, calm as ever.

Grant tried to speak. "We weren't aware—"

"You were aware she said no," Jamie interrupted. "You were aware your niece injured me. You were aware an agent's family was threatened over a signature. Which part required my surname to become unacceptable?"

Grant looked toward Richard, seeking a different conversation.

Richard gave him none.

"Vivian's parents are safe," he said. "The men near their hotel have been identified. The authorities have the messages connecting the approach to the people who arranged it."

Grant's father turned toward his son.

"What messages?"

"This isn't the place," Grant said.

"You chose the place," I told him. "You thought I'd have to explain why I was refusing a wealthy heir to stay with a disposable actor."

I stood beside Jamie and took his hand.

"I chose him before I knew. That part hasn't changed."

Sloane had stopped looking at my dress.

Ethan watched our hands, then lifted his eyes to mine. He didn't ask me for anything. I was grateful for that.

Jamie turned toward me, and the severity left his face.

"You really knew?"

"We had a lengthy conversation in my living room."

"I mean before tonight. You knew they would do this."

"Of course."

He smiled, a little helplessly.

"And you still wore that dress."

"I like being properly dressed when people embarrass themselves."

Tessa laughed from the other end of the table. The sound loosened the room enough for several guests to breathe again.

Richard lifted his glass toward me.

"You haven't answered my invitation."

I looked at Jamie.

"Your father isn't the one who should be asking."

He stared for one second before understanding reached him.

Then he took a small box from his jacket.

"How long have you had that?" I asked.

"Long enough to have revised the speech six times."

"Use the shortest one."

He laughed, went down on one knee, and opened the box.

"Vivian, I've wanted a place in your life for years. Now I have one, and I don't want to keep earning it by pretending to be less than I am or more helpless than I feel."

His voice grew quieter.

"I want to come home to you. I want you to come home to me. Will you marry me?"

I touched his face.

"Yes."

The relief in his expression was almost startling. For all his planning, he had still been afraid.

He put the ring on my hand and stood. I kissed him before the applause could drown out the small, uneven breath he took against my cheek.

We left after dinner. Grant tried to draw Richard aside, but Miles gave him the lawyers' contact details and returned to the door with us.

There would be no private bargain to make the evening disappear.

At home, Jamie stopped me near the stairs.

"Say it again."

"I agreed to marry you. I didn't agree to become a recording."

"Once more."

I reached up and loosened his tie.

The words left his face as my fingers moved beneath the collar.

"There's the man who frightened Grant," I murmured. "Where did he go?"

"You know perfectly well."

I kissed the corner of his mouth.

"I'm keeping you."

He closed his eyes and pulled me against him.

The next morning, Ethan submitted his remaining evidence to investigators. It concerned Sloane's drug purchases, distribution at private parties, and people who had used Mercer connections to protect them.

He had been cooperating for weeks. His decision to manufacture an accident remained a separate matter; helping an investigation didn't erase the danger or manipulation involved in that choice.

Through Owen, he told me he was accepting the consequences and leaving acting.

His last message was short.

I wanted you to look back. You shouldn't have had to. I'm sorry. Be happy.

I wished him recovery. I didn't reopen the conversation.

Later, I learned he had joined an arts education program away from Los Angeles, doing the kind of work he had once spoken about without worrying how it made him look.

Mercer's board removed Grant after the threats and financial irregularities became impossible to contain. Sponsors withdrew. Projects were sold. Sloane faced charges, and the people connected to the intimidation of my parents were no longer invisible men someone else had hired.

I saw Grant once more, at a meeting where his replacement negotiated the sale of a project package to my company.

He stood outside the conference room, stripped of the easy certainty he had brought into my office.

"You got what you wanted," he said.

I thought of Jamie waiting downstairs, insisting we celebrate with dinner instead of another late meeting.

"Yes," I said. "But it wasn't you."

Jamie worked on his film, complained about early mornings, and learned that loving me didn't exempt him from having a life of his own.

He still found ways to appear in mine. Flowers beside my laptop. A hand at my waist while I cooked. Messages from location that began with a photograph of himself and ended with a shameless request for praise.

I praised him more often than I admitted.

We married four months after the night at the bar.

Tessa's speech informed the guests that I had taken on a difficult relative voluntarily and would receive no refund. My father cried while blaming the sunlight. Richard hugged his son for longer than either man appeared to expect.

On our honeymoon, Jamie tried to claim my entire afternoon by hiding my laptop beneath his beach towel.

"You're transparent," I told him.

"And badly neglected."

"I answered one email."

"It was a long email."

I put my hand against his bare shoulder and pushed him back into the lounge chair.

His expression changed.

"Should I apologize?" he asked.

"You should stop talking."

He did, though only until I kissed him.

"You like me helpless," he murmured afterward.

"I like knowing you're only like this with me."

He looked up at me, all the teasing gone for a moment.

"I am."

Later, we walked beside the water. He asked about children with a nervousness that made me love him more.

"Someday," I said. "When we decide together."

He nodded, then squeezed my hand.

"Until then, Maisie will remain unbearable."

"She learned from you."

The sun was dropping toward the sea. Behind us, my phone lay unanswered in the bag he carried.

Jamie stopped and turned toward me.

"Any regrets about taking me home?"

I touched the blue stone in his ear, then the curl at his forehead.

"Several. You're expensive, distracting, and impossible to keep off my furniture."

He laughed.

"But you're staying," I added.

The look he gave me was the one I had once failed to notice in a kitchen doorway. The same hope, finally answered.

He kissed my hand.

"Good," he said. "I've become very fond of being spoiled."

I drew him closer.

This time, he didn't have to ask twice.