Moonlight Kisses Page 19
Ignoring him, Victor went into waiting area. The Beyoncé doppelganger stood, towering over his stepfather. Cole continued to stare as the two talked, trying to work out in his head where he’d seen the woman before. She wore a leather pencil skirt and pumps. Very large pumps on very big feet.
Loretta snorted. Cole turned to find an uncharacteristic grin on her face, and then looked back at the woman his stepfather was practically fawning over.
Good Lord, that was no woman, Cole realized. It was Freddy Finch!
“You’d better stop Victor before he tries to ‘put a ring on it.’” Loretta’s gravelly laugh filled the office.
“Freddy,” Cole called out, eating up the space between his secretary’s desk and the waiting area in two long strides.
“Mr. Sinclair,” Freddy slipped from the falsetto he’d been using with Victor into his masculine voice. “They’re shooting my first YouTube video for Espresso today, and I thought I’d stop by and show off your sister’s handiwork.”
Freddy spun around, and Cole watched his stepfather’s jaw slacken.
“You look great, man,” Cole said. “Tia outdid herself.”
“Freddy isn’t short for Fredricka, is it?” Victor asked.
“I’m afraid not.” Cole shook his head, his own bruised heart going out to the older man.
“Well, I’m off.” Freddy leaned over and kissed Victor on top of his graying head. “Thanks for the offer. If I were a woman I’d definitely take you up on it.”
Still wearing a stricken expression, Victor headed for his office, only pausing at Loretta’s desk. “Not. One. Word.” He growled at the secretary and went into his office, closing the door behind him.
Frowning at a grinning Loretta, Cole went into his own office. He clicked the mouse to rouse his computer and slid behind his desk. At least the Espresso Granny problem would soon be resolved.
Cole felt confident that, once Granny’s makeover videos hit YouTube, Freddy and Espresso would be an internet sensation.
Loretta’s gravelly cackle sounded from the outer office. Cole exhaled. She’d enjoyed a good laugh at Victor’s expense, but enough was enough. He marched out of his office to tell her to knock it off, but stopped short in the doorway.
Sage.
Clad in a red minidress with indecently high heels, she stood at his secretary’s desk, holding an open green-and-white box bearing the logo of his favorite doughnut shop. Cole struggled to maintain his cool while his pulse skyrocketed.
Loretta plucked a glazed donut out of the box. “He’s in there,” she said, so focused on the doughnut, she didn’t see him standing in the doorway. “Go on in.”
Sage turned toward the door. She blinked at the sight of him and began gnawing at her bottom lip. Cole watched her incline her head toward the box. “I brought you breakfast,” she said, tentatively. “But I had to bribe your secretary with one of the doughnuts to see you.”
“Come in,” Cole said.
Sage picked up a bouquet of yellow flowers from Loretta’s desk. They looked exactly like the ones he’d brought her. “These are for you,” she said, as she walked through the door of his office.
Cole took the flowers and closed the door behind her. “Thanks,” he said, looking at the bouquet in his hand. “It’s good to see you.”
“Have a doughnut?” she asked.
Cole shook his head and an awkward silence that had never existed between them before ensued. They just stood and stared at each other.
“Sage.”
“Cole.”
They both spoke at the same time.
“You go first,” Cole conceded.
Sage looked down at the box in her hand. “I’m here to ask for a do over. I want to turn back time to the last night we were together so I can say the words I should have said, if I hadn’t allowed fear and insecurity to steal my voice. My heart has been paying the price for it ever since.”
Cole took the box from her hand and placed it and the flowers on his desk. He faced her. “I want that do over, too,” he said. “So I can rephrase the question.”
He rested his hands lightly on her arms and their gazes connected. “Do you trust us, Sage? Do you trust how much I love you?”
“With everything in me,” she replied. “And with everything I have.”
Pulling her into his arms, Cole kissed her. A soul-deep kiss that was both a healing balm for the heartache they’d caused each other, and a promise to face whatever came at them in the future together. When they finally came up for air, Cole reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved her engagement ring.
“How did you know I’d come here today?” Sage asked.
“I didn’t. I’ve carried it with me every day since we broke up, praying I’d be able to put it back where it belonged.” He slid the ring onto her finger and then kissed her hand.
“The only time I want that ring to move on your finger is when it’s time for me to add your wedding band,” he said. “Is that clear, General?”
Sage stared at the ring a few moments, then back at him. “Whatever you say, Admiral,” she said.
Epilogue
“I still don’t believe it.” Cole said.
Sage leaned back on her new husband’s naked chest after spending their first few hours as man and wife in the bedroom of his town house, enjoying their absolute favorite chair.
“That we’re married?” Sage held her hand up to look at her engagement ring, to which Cole had added a diamond-and-ruby-encrusted wedding band this afternoon.
“No, that I would have given you the biggest, most extravagant wedding this town has ever seen, and you chose the judge’s chambers at the courthouse.”
Sage shook her head. “I told you, all I want is you,” she said. “Besides, after we get the Espresso-Stiletto merger underway, we’ll be spending an entire month in Italy for our honeymoon.”
Cole nuzzled her neck. “I can hardly wait.”
Sage tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Do you regret not making our wedding day a big splashy affair?”
“Maybe just a little.”
“Really?” Sage asked.
Cole shrugged. “Then I’d have a video of the expression on the judge’s face after you promised to love, cherish and bring it for as long as we both shall live.”
“A vow I intend to keep,” Sage promised again. “I just hope you can handle it.”
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460381144
Moonlight Kisses
Copyright © 2015 by Phyllis Bourne Williams
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