Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Just one thing, sweetheart,” I say to her.
“What’s that?”
“It wasn’t my intention to bring this up in front of your brother and everyone else, but if I’m going to accompany you on a tour around the world, I’d like to do it honorably. As your husband.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
RORY
My jaw drops.
I was so upset when I found out I wasn’t pregnant.
But now?
If I were, I wouldn’t be able to take this great opportunity. I’d be nearly nine months along by the end of the tour.
It’s definitely time to get a diaphragm. Because I need to go on this tour. I need to see if Jett and Zane are right about me. About Jesse. About the band.
Everything happens as it should.
Perhaps a performing career is in my future. It’s just not the one I thought it would be.
Sometimes, life throws you a surprise.
Life threw Brock to me, and now I can’t imagine my life without him.
Now? Life threw me another surprise. I’m not an operatic mezzo-soprano. I’m a rocker. A rocker through and through.
And it feels right.
All of it feels so right.
“I would love to be your wife, Brock.” I brush my lips against his.
He pulls something out of the pocket of his dark-brown leather jacket.
“I grabbed this earlier. I just had a feeling.”
It’s a red velvet box. A ring box.
My hands fly to my mouth.
“My mother gave this to me. It belonged to her grandmother on her mother’s side.”
I gape at the ring. It’s a pink stone that gleams in the artificial light of the bar.
“It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s a star sapphire, but it’s not as gorgeous as you are,” Brock says. “Not by a long shot. But I’d like you to wear it, and I’d like you to be my wife, Rory.”
I tremble as I hold out my hand, and he slips the ring on my left ring finger.
I gaze at its beauty. “It’s a perfect fit.”
“My mother knew,” Brock says. “Somehow she knew. Her intuition has always served her well in her profession and also as a mother. She knew that you were my one and only, Rory. She knew you were my forever.”
Our lips meet then in a searing kiss, and in that moment, we’re alone.
Jesse and the band, Jett Draconis and Zane Michaels, the bartenders and waitstaff, our fans… They’ve all disappeared.
The bar is empty, and only Brock and I exist.
Our tongues tangle, and I pull him to me tightly.
We kiss and we kiss and we kiss, until—
Applause rings out and breaks the spell.
But it’s okay.
Because I’m here, and Brock is here.
Jesse is here. Cage, Jake, and Dragon are here.
Jett Draconis and Zane Michaels are here.
And Dragonlock is going on tour with Emerald Phoenix.
With the money we’ll make, Jesse and I will be able to help our family. We’ll recover from the fire, and we’ll come back stronger than ever.
Things are falling into place.
Even Brock’s family has solved part of their mystery.
But there’s still a lot more to solve.
I will help. Soon I’ll be a Steel, and I will be happy to help in any way I can.
Brock and I break our kiss.
“I love you,” I say softly.
“I love you too, sweetheart. Forever.”
EPILOGUE
AVA
My mother and father got married on Thanksgiving twenty-five years ago.
Twenty-five years with the same person.
It’s unimaginable to me.
I’m a Steel by birth, but I’ve never felt like a Steel.
I don’t want my family’s money. I like being on my own. I opened my bakery and sandwich shop with my own money—money that I earned, not money from my gigantic trust fund, which, even though I gained control of it when I turned twenty-one three years ago, I’ve never touched.
I’ll never touch it if I can avoid it.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love my family. All of them, without condition.
I just don’t want their money.
I’m kind of the black sheep of the Steel family. Or rather, the pink sheep, if my hair color makes me who I am. So I like pink hair. Sue me. I can pull it off.
My little sister, Gina, thinks I’m crazy. She’s gorgeous, of course. Looks just like our father, Ryan Steel, who’s the pretty boy of the Steel family. Gina has his dark hair and light-brown eyes that are fringed with those ridiculously long lashes.
I look more like our mother, Ruby Lee Steel. I have her brown hair, lighter than Dad’s, but of course I color it. I also have her blue eyes. That’s where our similarities end, though. I’m not nearly as pretty as Mom is.
I’m just me.
Ava.
Simply Ava, who loves to bake and who’s damned good at it, if I do say so myself.
I learned at an early age from my aunt Marjorie, who’s a trained chef. I’m supposed to be meeting with her now, as we’re planning Mom and Dad’s twenty-fifth anniversary party.
It will be huge and lavish and at the main house, where Uncle Talon and Aunt Jade live.