Southern Seducer: A Best Friends to Lovers Romance Read online

  Mom nods. I love you, she mouths.

  I kiss Maisie’s head and follow Mrs. B.

  She leads me to a door at the end of the hallway at the back of the house.

  There’s a curtain over the window in the upper part of the door, so I can’t see outside.

  Putting her hand on the knob, Mrs. B. says, “Beau made me promise I wouldn’t say anything. But we adore y’all.” She cups Maisie’s cheek. “Your family is my family.”

  I take a shaky breath. “Thank you. So, so much.”

  She smiles, eyes kind.

  Then she opens the door.

  The smells of late springtime fill my head. Grass, clean air, jasmine. Everything is green and new.

  A yard stretches out behind the house. It’s overgrown, the grass patchy in spots, but the way the dying sunlight cuts through the pines—

  It’s magical. There’s a gilded stillness in the air. Brings back that familiar ache in my torso. The one I felt when Beau was around.

  My eyes catch on a large wooden farm table in the middle of the yard. It’s set with glass hurricanes, candles flickering inside, and mason jars bursting with blooms: I recognize lilies, roses, peonies. All in soft shades of ivory and pink.

  Milly’s touch. I see it, too, in the blankets draped over the chairs that surround the table and the lanterns that hang from the old oak beside it.

  But the lane of rose petals that lead from the back door to the table—

  That’s Beau.

  Somehow, I know that was his idea.

  I’m shaking again.

  Mrs. B. puts a hand on my back.

  “John Riley,” she calls.

  I look at her, surprised. Beau doesn’t like it when people call him that.

  Mrs. B. just nods at the lawn.

  I look, and he appears, coming out from behind the oak tree.

  Beau is wearing jeans and a button-up, and he looks so handsome and so wonderfully familiar my eyes flood with tears.

  I’ve missed him. More than I thought possible.

  His eyes are full. As full as I feel.

  Oh.

  Oh oh oh.

  My feet move before my heart does. The grass swishes beneath my steps.

  I can feel Maisie’s drool soaking through my shirt.

  Beau moves toward me, too, and the way he moves, the masculine roll of his shoulders, the confident glide of his hips—

  It all hits me like a freight train. The memories and the desire and the sense of home.

  We meet under the canopy of the oak, sunlight dappling the ground and his face, raw with emotion.

  “Hi.” His voice is deeper than usual.

  He’s nervous.

  Something inside me overflows.

  Still, I try to keep my feelings in check. He has yet to apologize. Yet to explain himself.

  “Hi.”

  He looks at Maisie. Smiles, not with his mouth but with his eyes. “Hey, Miss Maisie. I missed you.” He looks at me. “I missed you, too.”

  I nod. “Okay,” I say.

  I’m gonna be okay. Whatever happens next, I will be all right.

  “Can I take her for you? I don’t mind holding her.”

  He takes a step forward. I have to strain my neck to look up at him.

  “I’ve got her,” I say.

  His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I know it’s past her bedtime, so I’ll get right to it. I wanted to apologize to you both. For being a stubborn, selfish idiot. You were right. About everything. My future, mostly. I didn’t understand that light could come with darkness. I was ignorant, and that’s on me. But now I see my diagnosis differently. The future I thought I couldn’t give you—life doesn’t guarantee us anything. But I can promise you I’ll bust my ass to give you and Maisie the happiness y’all deserve. I want to be happy with you, Annabel. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like my future is a dead end. I’m hopeful. So I’m begging you to forgive me. Please.”

  I wipe away a tear with the crook of my first finger. “What’s changed?”

  Beau tells me about Nate Kingsley, and his dad going down to the distillery before he died, and the end of the feud between their families.

  He tells me he sees it now, how his dad was capable of good things even though he met with a bad end.

  Beau says he believes he has the tools to seek out a different end for himself.

  I listen, and I cry.

  I cry because I’m so happy for him.

  I cry because I’m angry he has to go through this.

  I cry because I’m so in love with him, and I feel lucky to be a part of this extraordinary man’s extraordinary life. No matter what the rest of it looks like.

  “But there’s still that uncertainty,” he says. “My possible diagnosis is the same.”

  “But it’s your attitude about it that’s different now,” I say. “And that changes everything.”

  He nods, reaching out and thumbing a tear off my cheek. “I’ve decided that instead of moping about my future, I’m going to be open about it. Samuel and I are working on putting together a foundation that supports research and provides resources for former athletes like myself. We’ve hired a PR company to help us brainstorm how to market it. Make the biggest impact. We’re excited.”

  “You’ve been mobilized,” I breathe.

  “That a good thing?”

  “Yeah.” I’m choking on my words now. Too much happiness. “I kinda love it.”

  He looks me in the eye. “I love you, Bel. I should’ve said it the night we first kissed at the dock house. Hell, I should’ve said it the night we met back in college. I’ve been in love with you since day one.” My heart nearly leaps out of my mouth when he gets on one knee. A velvet box has magically appeared in his hands. “Which is why I’d like to ask y’all a question.”

  As if she knows something big’s about to go down, Maisie lets out a high-pitched squeal. I laugh. Beau smiles.

  “Annabel and Maisie Rhodes, I can’t predict the future. But with all my heart, as long as I live, I’ll love you both, honor you, support you in everything and anything. Will you be mine? Walk with me into tomorrow and face whatever it brings together? Will you marry me?”

  He opens the box. When I see what’s inside, I start to cry all over again. Pure happiness this time.

  It’s a silicon teething toy, shaped like a diamond ring.

  Beau takes it out of the box and holds it up to Maisie, who promptly takes it in both her hands and shoves it inside her mouth.

  I look at him. “I’d say that’s a yes from Maisie.”

  “And from you?” He reaches behind him. “Be my wife, Bel.”

  He holds out a book, and the breath leaves my lungs when I see the title.

  “You mentioned Sarah Dunant’s Borgias. So I bought a copy. Loved it. It’s signed, see, by the author”—he opens it to the title page—“and it’s yours if you want it. So is this.”

  He flips to the middle of the book, where a diamond ring is settled into the binding. The ring is so sparkly and so gorgeous, I’m almost blinded. The large oval center diamond is set on a band of rose gold that’s studded with more tiny diamonds.

  It’s perfect. But it’s not the ring I’m after.

  It’s Beau.

  Crying, laughing, I take his face in my free hand and lean down and kiss the shit out of him.

  “Yes,” I breathe. “I’m so in love with you, Beau.”

  “Bel,” he says, climbing to his feet with his lips still on mine. “Honey. Annabel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, honey.”

  Shouts and whistles sound from the house. I break the kiss long enough to see our families plus Larry on the back porch, watching with big smiles on their faces.

  Mom and Mrs. B. are hugging.

  They’re both crying.

  I turn to Beau and hold out my hand. “Should we put on a show?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask that.” He slides the ring onto my fourth finger. “I didn’t have t
ime to get it sized,” he says when he sees it’s a little small. “We’ll have to take a drive into Asheville this week.”

  “It’s perfect. Really.” I meet his eyes. “Ready?”

  Beau leans down to plant a noisy smooch on Maisie’s cheek.

  “Ready.”

  I hold up my hand so everyone can see the ring.

  Then Beau cups the back of my head with his hand and glides the other around my nape.

  It’s his turn to kiss the shit out of me.

  I hear Samuel say aw, yeah.

  Get a room, someone else says. Rhett, I think.

  “Y’all are so hot together!” Milly calls.

  I melt into Beau’s kiss.

  The kiss I get to taste for the rest of my life.

  When I’m dizzy, and my legs feel like rubber, I pull back to rest my forehead against his.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he murmurs. Breathless, like me.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re wondering where we’re going to live. And what you’re going to do about your job.”

  I pull back and look up at him.

  I let him take the baby. She snuggles into his chest. Maisie on Beau’s hip just looks right.

  So very right.

  “I’d be lying if I said those thoughts hadn’t crossed my mind, yeah.”

  “I can kill both those birds with one stone.” Beau loops his finger through Maisie’s toy ring, holding it up to her mouth. “How’s about y’all come live with me on Blue Mountain? That way, your commute will be very short to the job I’d like to offer you. We’re looking for a strategic partner. Someone with brains and guts and ideas. Someone who knows the finance side of things but is also creative and great to work with. The family and I, we’ve decided to develop this part of the mountain.” He gestures to the yard around us. “Any interest?”

  I stare at him. “But I thought you didn’t want to touch the house.”

  “I’ve changed my tune.” He grins. This handsome, Brad Pitt grin that’s got me giggling like a girl. It feels nice, the levity. “I know how much your career means to you, Bel. I also know you’ve talked about a second act. Something outside the corporate sphere.”

  “I don’t know a fucking thing about property development or hospitality.”

  “You didn’t know a fucking thing about motherhood. But look how much you’ve learned. Look how you’re crushing it.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m crushing it. I’d say I’m surviving it most days.”

  “You’re surviving, which means you’re crushing it in my book. You did that. You can do this.”

  I’m smiling hard, and I don’t know what to say.

  “Don’t tell me it will allow me to work from home a couple of days a week.”

  “It does.”

  “Definitely don’t tell me you’ll provide quality, on-site daycare for me and any employees I might hire.”

  “Damn you drive a hard bargain.” His grin deepens, teasing. “Childcare—Annabel, that’s a given. We’d love your ideas on making that a reality for all our employees.”

  “Salary?”

  “Name your number.”

  “Benefits?”

  “Best in the business.”

  He wraps his free arm around me. I curl into his body, inhaling his scent.

  “Too good,” I say. “You’re too good at this single-mom seducer game, Beau.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “Stay for supper?”

  “But it’s not Sunday.”

  “So? Let’s start our own tradition. Right now. Dinner at our place Saturday nights.” He gestures to our families, and they spill out onto the yard, heading for the table. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to cook. That’s what Samuel’s for.”

  “Use and abuse me.” Samuel’s holding a brightly colored Dutch oven in his oven-mitted hands. He sets it on the table with a grunt and lifts the lid, revealing—what else?—gnocchi. “Consider it my engagement gift to y’all.”

  Maisie starts crying.

  I laugh, glancing up at Beau. “You sure you wanna do this?”

  He lifts her above his head, love written all over his face as he gazes up at her.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  We eat Saturday supper at the table, surrounded by our favorite people in the world. Maisie falls asleep in Beau’s arms. Mom gets too tipsy on champagne and falls asleep on Larry’s shoulder.

  The sun sets. The air is warm. The man I love is next to me, making sure my plate and glass are never empty.

  Home.

  I’m home. And damn does it feel good.

  THE END

  Epilogue

  Annabel

  One Month Later

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Beauregard. Or should I say good evening?”

  I open my eyes to see Beau standing beside the bed. He’s got a small glass of champagne in one hand and a bottle of lube in the other.

  He’s shirtless. Sleep rumpled.

  Delicious in every sense of the word.

  “Evening, Mr. Beauregard.”

  Grinning, he offers his goods, and says, “I wasn’t sure which one you’d want, considering we’ve pretty much slept in until cocktail hour.”

  “Can I have both?”

  “Honey, it’s your wedding weekend. You can have whatever the hell you want.”

  “Good.” I pull my arm out from under the covers and yank down Beau’s sweats. He’s not wearing underwear—yes—and his dick comes out to play, already hard. “’Cause I want it all.”

  His stomach muscles tighten as I give him a slow, firm tug.

  All mine. This—his cute bubble butt, the biceps for days, the adoration softening his blue eyes—is mine.

  I can’t believe I got so lucky.

  “Like married life so far?” I ask, looking up at him.

  His brow is furrowed, eyelids heavy. I fucking love it when I get him like this—lost to me.

  We’ve been lost all day. We woke up earlier with the sun, then had coffee in bed and stayed there. Napping, fucking, napping some more.

  “Yeah,” he pants. I thumb his slit. “Fuck—yes, my God, best decision I’ve ever made. Spread your legs.”

  Biting my bottom lip, I sit up. And immediately groan at the throb inside my head.

  “Uh-oh.” Beau sets the wine on the nightstand and plants his hands on either side of my hips. “Still hungover?”

  “I only had two cocktails, but I am feeling it. You?”

  He kisses my forehead. “Not so bad, actually. Think I’m still a little high from last night.”

  I manage a grin. “What happened last night?”

  “Well, Mrs. Beauregard, I think we got married.”

  “Did we now?”

  “Yep. In front of fifty of our favorite people.”

  “Sounds like an intimate affair.”

  “It was.” He reaches for the lube, opens the cap, and squirts some onto his first two fingers. “We both wanted to keep it small. You know, keep the focus on you and me and our daughter.”

  Beau started the process to legally adopt Maisie the day after we got engaged. But it still makes my heart twist to hear him say things like our daughter.

  “That sounds sweet.”

  “It was. Very sweet. I thought it was perfect, anyway.” He dips his fingers inside me, running them up over my clit.

  “It was. Perfect.”

  I breastfed Maisie for the last time when she turned six months old. Not long after, my sex drive came roaring back.

  Still, I’m taken aback by the full-body shock that moves through me at Beau’s touch. We really don’t need the lube anymore, but it’s fun to play with.

  That’s what sex with Beau is: fun. A safe space to explore our desires and fantasies.

  We’ve done a lot of exploring over the past month. And we plan to do more of it in the years to come.

  Rolling my hips against his fingers, I put a palm to his chest, and say, “I still can’t believe we’
re married.”

  “Best news ever, right?” he asks with a grin. “Lie down. If you’re not feeling great, let me handle things.”

  I do.

  And he does.

  Lord, does he. Keeping one hand on my pussy, he uses the others to coat my nipples in lube. Drawing them to pebbled points, he thumbs them, one at a time, until I’m gasping, and the throb between my legs drowns out the one inside my head.

  “I want you to be inside me when I come,” I say.

  “Done,” he says, and holding me open with his fingers, he slips inside me. We had sex—a lot of it—last night after we got home from the reception, so I’m a little sore.

  I don’t need to tell him. He goes slowly, gently. The kind of late afternoon sex I live for, where our eyes lock and our bodies sync.

  His fingers are back on my clit, and I come with a small moan.

  He kisses me and comes, too.

  “Good?” he asks, staying inside me.

  “Full,” I say.

  “Whole.”

  “Yes.”

  “I love you, Bel.” His eyes are serious now, searching mine. “Thank you for making me the happiest man on earth last night. This past month, it’s been the best of my life.”

  “Me too,” I say, and I mean that.

  I quit my job right after Beau proposed, moved into his house not long after, and started my new job at Blue Mountain Resort a week after that.

  Even though the resort usually books up for weddings a year or more in advance, Beau worked his magic and cleared a weekend in early June for our wedding. We didn’t want to rush, but we also didn’t want to wait.

  In a way, we’ve been together for almost two decades. It was definitely time to make it official.

  So far, things have been pretty awesome. I love the new job, and Maisie loves going to the daycare we set up on-site in an administrative building not far from the main house.

  That’s not to say it’s been all smooth sailing. The learning curve at work has been steep. I’ve stumbled more than I would like, and feel like a newbie a lot of the time. Tough pill to swallow for someone who’s used to possessing a high level of competence in her field.

  Mom hasn’t been able to move to the mountains, unfortunately. Her job just doesn’t allow it. But she works remotely when she can, and drives up most weekends.