Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12) (22 page)

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Authors: Katy Regnery

BOOK: Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12)

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“Sure of what?”

“Do you love me?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.

“More than anything,” she answered.

“I love you too. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She clutched him tighter. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“I only want to be with you,” he said, “forever, to be exact, but you don’t have to say yes to forever today. Today I just need…well, thirty years or so.”

“Thirty years?” she asked, searching his face as an excited giggle bubbled up inside of her. “What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, holding her a little closer. “I couldn’t bear to see you so sad,
cher
. Not when it was within my power to make you happy again.”

“Within your power…?”

“My father was successful. Very successful and very rich when he died. He left substantial trusts for me and my sisters. A trust that I have mostly ignored up until now.” Suddenly, he leaned down and kissed her—tenderly, lovingly—and when he drew back, his eyes were conflicted: intense, excited, just on the brink of troubled. “But my duchess needed her castle.”

She whimpered softly. “Her…?”

With one hand, he reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, withdrawing a folded piece of paper, which he presented to her. She reached for the paper, unfolding it as he continued. “I bought Le Chateau for you, Jacqueline. I bought you a house, your house—well, I guess, actually,
our
house.”

The paper before her blurred from the tears filling her eyes, and she blinked, letting them fall at will. He’d bought her Le Chateau. He’d bought her everything.
He
was the buyer who had stopped the movers from disassembling her beloved house.

“Gard,” she sobbed, falling back into his arms, clutching the contract in her hands behind his neck.

“I want you to have it…I
need
you to have it. You can buy it from me if you want it in your name, or we can…”

“
From
you?” she asked, leaning back to look up into his face, unable to keep the combination of beaming smile and onslaught of tears at bay. “I don’t want it unless you’re here
with
me.”

His eyes were bright with tears, and he took a deep, jagged breath, nodding at her as he smiled back.

“
Ça va
,” he said, reaching for her cheek. “Then it’s ours, Duchess. Our home.”

She leaned up to capture his lips, holding the contract in one hand and threading her fingers through his hair with the other. He groaned into her mouth, holding her tighter, his tongue sliding against hers, reacquainting itself with her taste and texture as she did the same. Finally he leaned away, resting his forehead against hers.

“You’re happy.”

“You make me happy,” she whispered through her tears.

“One problem solved. We’re not homeless anymore.” As he drew back from her, he looked up at their new house. “There is one other little problem, though,
cher
.”

“There couldn’t be. Life just got totally perfect.”

“No, there is.
Two
problems, in fact. The first is that I’m mostly broke now. My trust is just about empty, and I own this big, ’ole house in Pennsylvania. The second is that I don’t have a job anymore, because Felix decided he needed full-time help. So I was just wonderin’…do you know of anyone who might have some long-term, full-time work for me in Pennsylvania?”

She knew her smile was blinding. She knew it because she could see it reflected in his eyes, in the way they shone with love for her.

“Long-term like thirty years, maybe?”

He nodded, grinning at her. “’Zactly.”

“Because I was thinking I needed some more self-defense lessons…and an estate manager…did I mention I’m making a TV show about cops here in Philadelphia? I am, and I could use an advisor…though what I really need—since you brought up the subject of forever,
mon coeur
—is someone to
spend
forever with.”

“You know what we could do? When you’re ready, we could roll up all those jobs into one, Duchess.”

She nodded, giggling softly before asking, “And call it something like…duke?”

“Or we could just go with husband,” he said, chuckling as he drew her back into the safe haven of his arms and kissing her truly, madly, deeply because…

…sometimes friends do that.

THE END

The world of Blueberry Lane continues with…

The Rousseaus
(Part III of the Blueberry Lane Series)

Jonquils for Jax

The Rousseaus #1

Thank you for reading!

Marry Me Mad

The Rousseaus #2

Coming October 21, 2016

Pre-Order Now!

J.C. and the Bijoux Jolis

The Rousseaus #3

Coming November 29, 2016

Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Marry Me Mad
,
The Rousseaus #2
, and
pre-order now
!

Red and green martinis
, thought Madeleine Rousseau, checking out the colorful cocktails that greeted the guests who arrived at the Winslows’ sailing-themed summer party.
Port and starboard. Clever.

Picking up a green martini, she took a sip as she stepped onto the slate patio. Out on the lawn, there was a full-size movie screen, and the Winslows had rented comfortable theater-style seats that were set up in five or six rows of four chairs each. A movie night under the stars. It was such a charming idea, Mad couldn’t help but smile…until she noticed Cortlandt Ambler hurrying up the marble steps toward her, his unruly dirty-blonde hair brushing his shoulders and blue-gray eyes trained, like lasers, on hers.

The sleeves of his white buttoned-down dress shirt were rolled up to reveal intricate tattoos that covered his forearms, ending sharply at his wrists. Other guests at the party would have to guess if the tattoos rose higher than his elbows, but Mad knew the swirled designs by heart. She knew that they rose to his shoulders, some trailing down his back and others connected to more ink on his chest. Her fingers twitched with a sensory memory of his skin, of hours spent mapping the contours of his beautiful body.

Her lips parted to speak, but her breathing hitched and a lump in her throat trapped all of the words she longed to say.

“Hi,” he breathed, his eyes trailing tenderly over her face.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” she said, her voice perilously close to a sob.

“I wasn’t planning to and then…”

She gulped, willing herself not to cry.

“How are you?” he asked and the familiarity of his soft, gritty voice made her heart throb, made her eyes burn.

She lifted her chin, trying on bravado... “Absolutely fine. How are you?” …and finding it a poor fit.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Mad.” He leaned closer. “How’s your asshole boyfriend?”

“Fine,” she said softly, looking away.

Cort’s voice was tight with anger as he flicked a glance to the double doors that led from the main house onto the terrace. “Is he here with you?”

“He’s at a conference.”

“Another
conference
,” spat Cort.

More and more people were greeting the Winslows, spilling outside onto the terrace. Mad looked around quickly for Jax before turning to face him. “People make mistakes.”

“It wasn’t a mistake, Mad.”

His double meaning was clear and it twisted her heart, but Jax would be here any minute, and with the uncanny insight of a twin, she would know way too much if she caught Mad talking to Cort. Their emotions were running way too high to conceal. She had to get away from him. Now. The sooner the better.

“It was good to see you, Cort. I have to go.”

As she turned to leave, he grabbed her wrist, his fingers gentle but still somehow searing, and suddenly every nerve ending in her body was concentrated in her right forearm. His long fingers wrapped around her slim wrist with ease, and Mad had to bite her bottom lip to keep from sighing. She’d missed him so desperately.

“Mad, please,” he begged her, his voice a mere whisper.

She turned to look up at him, her eyes caressing his face without her permission—the omnipresent dark-blond scruff on his jaw, the high, regal cut of his cheekbones, the long dark lashes that shielded his blue-gray eyes.

“It’s not my fault I was there that night,” he said, his voice an intense growl near her ear as she turned away from him.

Her eyes filled with tears and she knew she would start crying if she tried to speak.

He moved closer to her and she could feel the heat of his body, his hot breath kissing her neck. “It’s not my fault I can’t forget it.”

“Please,” she whispered as her eyes fluttered closed.

“It’s not my fault that I fell in—”

“Skye!” exclaimed Jax, entering the terrace several yards behind them and kissing Skye Winslow hello. “You got the perfect weather for tonight! Have you met Gardener Thibodeaux yet?”

Something surged inside of Mad. Something even stronger than the intense longing she felt for the man who held her wrist…who still held her heart.

“We agreed,” said Mad, jerking her arm away from his grasp and opening her eyes to look up at him. “We agreed to say good-bye and walk away.”

“What if I can’t?” he asked, his voice thick with a heartache she shared but managed to conceal.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Then she turned and walked away from him, heading toward her sister as fast as her feet could carry her.

MARRY ME MAD

(The Rousseaus #2)

Available 10.21.16

Click
HERE
to pre-order now!

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