If the Shoe Fits (34 page)
Authors: Megan Mulry
Sarah presented Devon with an antique set of drafting tools that she’d found at auction. He rubbed his strong hands almost reverently along the smooth wood of the case and admired how each tool was perfectly set into its own recessed area. He leaned forward and kissed her. “Thank you, darling.”
Sarah never tired of those throwaway “darlings” and “loves” at the end of his sentences.
Devon reached under the sofa and pulled out a plain white cardboard box, and Sarah felt a thrill burst through her. Devon had presented her with a gorgeous emerald ring for their engagement, but oddly enough, this simple white box felt like the first real present he’d ever given her.
“I’m so excited,” she said.
He looked a bit guilty. “I don’t know if it’s all that great. Max told me that in his experience, jewelry is always the way to go.”
Sarah smiled again and leaned in to kiss him. “I love it already. Whatever it is. If you chose it, I love it.”
Devon pulled her to him again and kissed her thoroughly, his hand rough at the back of her neck. “I can’t wait for you to be my lawfully wedded wife.”
Flushed and distracted by the unexpected intensity of the kiss, Sarah asked, “What difference does it make?”
He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. “I don’t know, but it makes me feel like you’re really going to be mine… I’m a bit possessive, in case you hadn’t noticed…”
“Mmmm.” Sarah let her eyes drift shut while he continued to touch her. “I like the sound of that. Being yours.”
She opened her eyes again and looked into his eyes, and then, with childlike longing, at the white box. “So? May I open it?”
“Yes. Sorry. Here you go.”
There was no ribbon or wrapping paper, so Sarah pulled off the top slowly, trying to draw out the suspense. She saw the black-and-white pattern of the silk before she saw the entire shirt and quickly put the top back on the box, as if Pandora herself were about to escape.
“Devon?” she whispered.
“Was it a bad idea?” He ran both hands through his hair. “Damn it. It was a bad idea.” He shook his head, hating himself. “I should have listened to Max—”
“Stop. Just let me look at it.” Sarah opened the box all the way and set aside the top. She pulled back the white tissue paper that was folded inside and stared at her mother’s vintage Yves Saint Laurent blouse. It had been sewn back together as she’d once imagined. Sort of.
Instead of her angry vision of rough, coarse black yarn making a monstrous scar against the delicate chiffon, someone had taken meticulous care to join the torn pieces together in an old-fashioned German seam. Black thread had been perfectly rendered and painstakingly sewn to make the pattern of the tear as beautiful as the blouse itself, like a tiny vein of experience running through it.
“Who did this?” Sarah looked up, her eyes shining with love and gratitude.
Devon looked ashamed. “I did it.”
“You what?!” She started laughing and crying and crawled into his lap. “You sewed this with your own hand?”
He was kissing her neck and telling her how much he loved her. “Yes.”
“When? How? I want to hire you!”
He smiled at her and kissed her tears. “You like it, then? It’s not too weird?”
“I love it, Devon. It’s so perfect. It’s so you. So weird and beautiful and precise and secretive and
loving
—just the best present I’ve ever received in my whole entire life.” She kissed him hard. “
You
are the best present.”
A week later, the tropical trade winds that blew year-round between Bequia and St. Barts puffed a soft breeze through Sarah’s legs, pressing the fluid silk charmeuse of her mother’s wedding dress lightly against her thigh, her grandmother’s veil catching on the gentle current. Her toes wriggled in the powder soft sand, all her senses alight. She turned to Devon and he tried to take her in, in that moment of sheer, unadulterated bliss, her eyes sparkling more than the diamond necklace he had just placed around her neck a few moments before, his grip on her waist firm and possessive.
The vicar was about to begin the ceremony when she whispered in her lover’s ear, “I never would have imagined that I—of all people—would get married without shoes!”
Megan Mulry writes sexy, stylish, romantic fiction. She graduated from Northwestern University and then worked in publishing, including positions at
The
New
Yorker
and
Boston
Magazine
. After moving to London, Mulry worked in finance and attended London Business School. She has traveled extensively in Asia, India, Europe, and Africa and now lives with her husband and children in Florida. You can visit her website at
www.meganmulry.com
or find her procrastinating on Twitter.
A Royal Pain
Megan Mulry
A Life of royalty seems so attractive…until you’re invited to live it…
Smart, ambitious, and career driven, Bronte Talbot started following British royalty in the gossip mags only to annoy her intellectual father. But her fascination has turned into a not-so-secret guilty pleasure. When she starts dating a charming British doctoral student, she teases him unmercifully about the latest scandals of his royal countrymen, only to find out—to her horror—that she’s been having a fling with the nineteenth Duke of Northrop, and now he wants to make her…a duchess?
In spite of her frivolous passion for all things royal, Bronte isn’t at all sure she wants the reality. Is becoming royalty every American woman’s secret dream, or is it a nightmare of disapproving dowagers, paparazzi, stiff-upper-lip tea parties, and over-the-top hats?
Praise for
A Royal Pain:
“Laugh-out-loud funny with super sexy overtones.” —
Catherine Bybee,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Wife by Wednesday
“Take one sparky, sailor-mouthed American girl and one handsome English aristocrat. Put them together and watch the sparks fly. Sizzling fun!” —
Jill Mansell,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Nadia Knows Best
For more Megan Mulry books, visit:
Thinking of You
by Jill Mansell
When Ginny Holland’s daughter heads off to university, Ginny is left with a severe case of empty nest syndrome. To make matters wor
se, the first gorgeous man she’s laid eyes on in years has just accused Ginny of shoplifting. So, in need of a bit of company, Ginny decides to advertise for a lodger, but what she gets is lovelorn Laurel. Yet with Laurel comes her dangerously charming brother, Perry, and the offer of a great new job, and things begin looking up…until Ginny realizes that her potential boss is all too familiar. Is it too late for Ginny to set things right after an anything but desirable first impression?
Praise for
An Offer You Can’t Refuse:
“Realistic, flawed, and endearing, [the characters] make Ms. Mansell’s book shine.”—
Romance Reader at Heart
“A finely tuned romantic comedy.”—
Kirkus
For more Jill Mansell, visit:
