Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) (26 page)

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his
shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can
see…”

Neve stopped. Bridget glanced at her,
surprised to see that the feisty girl appeared to be battling with emotion.

Neve swallowed hard, glanced up at those
watching her, and gave an embarrassed laugh as she wiped her fingers beneath
her eyes to catch the tears that had fallen. “I’m sorry! I’ll never hear the
end of this!” She cleared her throat as everyone went, “Aww!” and then tried
again.

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can
see…

So long lives this, and this gives life to
thee.”

Her voice ended on a husky note, full of
emotion, and Bridget was sure there wasn’t a dry eye amongst them.

Collecting the paper, Neve came around the
podium and stopped to give Bridget a hug.

“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered into
Bridget’s ear. “It’s only what you deserve.”

Still fighting tears, she sat back down,
taking Rhett’s white handkerchief and then leaning against him as he put his
arm around her.

Bridget turned back to Aaron, who gave her a
hopeless look. “I’m going to end up bawling my eyes out at this rate,” he
grumbled, and she hid a chuckle and turned to Edward as he stood back at the
podium.

“Now we move onto the vows,” Edward said.
“Please face each other, and Aaron, please repeat after me. Bridget, I take you
to be my wife.”

Aaron looked into her eyes, holding her
hands in his. “Bridget, I take you to be my wife.”

“And Bridget, please repeat after me.
Aaron, I take you to be my husband.”

She swallowed hard. “Aaron, I take you to
be my husband.”

Edward turned back to Aaron. “Repeat after
me. Bridget, all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.
I will love you and cherish you, as long as we both shall live. This is my
solemn vow.”

Aaron repeated the words with him, and it
was no good, she couldn’t stop the tears any longer. They ran freely down her
face, and the only thing she could do was soak them up with the handkerchief
that Mateo pulled from his pocket to give to her, which for some reason only made
her cry more.

Edward asked her to repeat the words to
Aaron, which she did while trying to compose herself, and then he asked for the
rings.

Mateo produced them from his pocket,
looking relieved as handed them over. Aaron ruffled his hair before turning
back to her with a smile.

“Aaron,” Edward said, “please repeat the
following. Bridget, I give you this ring as a symbol of how much I love you.
You are the person with whom I choose to spend the rest of my life.”

Aaron did so, pushing onto her finger a
pretty gold band that sparkled in the sunshine.

Bridget then repeated the words and gave
him the other ring, suddenly knowing what he’d meant all those months ago when
he’d said how wonderful it was to place a ring on a partner’s finger to tell
everyone in the room that he or she belonged to you.

“Aaron and Bridget,” Edward concluded, “you
have made promises before us all. May these rings be a symbol of your vows. As
the tides ebb and flow, so too, do the fortunes of life. Only a deep and
abiding love can withstand the tides of change in two lives. May your love be
profound and enduring. I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He smiled at
Aaron. “You may kiss the bride.”

The bride! She was married!

Aaron pulled her into his arms and gave her
a long, sultry look. “Married,” he murmured. “Everyone knows you’re mine now.”

A little shiver ran down her back, and she
flung her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his as everyone cheered.

*

Much later, Aaron stood on the beach
watching the moon dancing on the waves. He held a glass of forty-year-old
Laphroaig malt whisky in his hand, and he sipped from it, enjoying the burn of
the rich liquid, along with the brush of the sea breeze across his face.

Behind him, the music that had been
filtering around the hotel grounds for most of the evening continued to play,
Joe’s band running through their repertoire for about the fourth time as
Bridget and her friends begged them for one more dance. They’d have to stop
soon as it was nearing eleven. His parents had already taken Mateo to their
room—with him protesting all the way—and Callie and Gene had just retired with Ewan,
who’d been asleep for a few hours under one of the tables.

It had been a wonderful evening, with
superb food, great company, and a gorgeous location. He couldn’t imagine
anywhere he would rather have gotten married, and he certainly couldn’t picture
a more beautiful bride.

“What are you doing out here all on your
own?”

It was his wife, pink-cheeked and
breathless from dancing, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Just taking a breather.” He smiled and
held out his free arm. She moved under it, but wrapped both arms around his
waist, pressing herself up against him.

“Hello, husband,” she murmured, and reached
up to kiss his lips.

“Mmm.” He returned it, enjoying the
sensation of her soft body against his, her warm mouth that opened to welcome
his tongue.

When he eventually lifted his head, she had
a dreamy look on her face. The joy in her heart that had been evident all
afternoon had blossomed into a general glow of wellbeing and happiness that
made Aaron want to sweep her up in his arms, carry her off to their room, and
strip off her dress before covering her body with kisses.

In fact…

He put his glass down, then picked her up.

She squealed and clutched him. “What are
you doing?”

“It’s bedtime,” he stated, walking across
the lawn toward the hotel.

She widened her eyes, laughing as she waved
to Neve, Rowan, and the others who were just starting to collect their things
and make their way up to their rooms. “So now we’re married you think you have
the right to just kidnap me, take me to your room, and ravish me?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “So you’d better get
used to it.”

She gave a little, sexy shrug. “Fair
enough.”

He laughed and kissed her. Behind him, he
heard the waves on the beach, the laughter of his friends, and the last strains
of the music as Joe’s brother finished off the song. It had been a wonderful
day.

And it was the first day of the rest of
their lives.

~ The End ~

Coming September 2016

A new sexy contemporary romance series by Serenity Woods

My Christmas Fiancé – Love Comes Later : Book 1

Meg

It’s not easy to reinvent yourself, but my
thirteen-year-old son and I were ready for a new start. Old Maggie had been a
magnet for disaster, but I’d decided that New Meg was going to be suave,
sophisticated… and blonde. I’d landed a dream job at the other end of New
Zealand as PA to three rich directors in a huge gaming firm and found a beautiful
new apartment on the waterfront, and I felt reborn.

Then I wrote an email to a friend
describing in vivid detail what I wanted to do to the sexiest of the
directors—involving melted chocolate and/or whipped cream—and mistakenly sent
it to All Staff. It turned out that New Meg was pretty much just Old Maggie
with different packaging. Some things never change.

Stratton

I’d wanted Meg since she first walked into
my office with her red lips and sexy curves, but she wore another man’s ring,
so I’d steered well clear. My mind had been occupied anyway since discovering
my girlfriend in bed with another man. Natalie was desperate for my
forgiveness—and, I suspect, my money—so I came up with a brilliant plan to hire
a fake fiancée for Christmas to prove to her that we were done.

After sending her hot-as-hell email, Meg
confessed the truth about her past, and it gave me an idea. She would make the
perfect fiancée, and I could protect her from the guy she was running from.
Sounds like the perfect plan, right? It did mean sharing her life, her very
teenage son, and maybe even her room, for two whole weeks, but that was no
problem. I’d always had excellent self-control.

Yeah, I know. I’d forgotten about the
melted chocolate. What an idiot.

Coming soon!

*

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you want to be informed when my next book is released, please consider signing
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The Perfect Gift – Three Wise Men Book 1

Excerpt:

It was early December, supposedly the start
of summer in New Zealand, but clouds had covered the sky for weeks, and spring still
gripped the country with cold, gray fingers.

Brock’s waterfront apartment was as dark,
cool, and unwelcoming as a mortuary. He dropped his keys onto the table by the
door and stood with hands on hips for a moment, hanging his head.

Two years ago, he would have been walking
into his house on the outskirts of Auckland. He could still picture it—the
living room glowing with Christmas lights, Fleur in the kitchen, making mince
pies and singing carols, his dog curled up in his basket, soaking up the last
dregs of sunlight.

Jeez, how much life could change in
twenty-four months. His wife had finally succumbed to the cancer that had
tortured her for years, and then—shortly afterward, as if from a broken heart—his
dog had also died.

Brock was left with a depressing apartment,
a cold bed, and the prospect of a microwave meal to look forward to.

Life truly sucked.

He blew out a breath and massaged the
bridge of his nose. He’d fought against the despair that had threatened to
overwhelm him for two years, but it continued to cling to him, like a piece of
plastic wrap he couldn’t shake off no matter how hard he tried.

Dispiritedly, he walked across to the large
windows overlooking the City of Sails. On a Saturday night, the waterfront was
always busy, and tonight so near to Christmas was no exception, the streets of
Princes Wharf filled with couples and groups on their way out for the evening.
Reflections of the red, gold, and blue lights from the restaurants and clubs shimmered
on the water like sequins. Half of him wanted to go down and join the throng of
partygoers, force himself to shake off his depression. The other half wanted
never to set foot out of his apartment again.

Of all nights, he supposed, the anniversary
of his wife’s death would be the most likely to break through the iron barrier
he’d erected around his heart and emotions. As he wasn’t on call, he was going
to allow himself the luxury of a fair portion of a bottle of Islay malt whisky
and some melancholic playing of his guitar before he passed out on the sofa.
But he wouldn’t succumb to his grief completely. Fleur wouldn’t have wanted him
to. For that reason, if nothing else, he wouldn’t give in.

So he switched on a few lamps throughout
the apartment to give it a warm glow, changed out of his suit into a sweatshirt
and a pair of tracksuit bottoms, put some folksy jazz on his iPod, and stared
into the fridge for a whole minute as he decided what to have for dinner.

His heart told him to cook something
healthy, while his tired brain demanded he stick a frozen ready meal in the
microwave. He compromised by taking out of the freezer a portion of spaghetti
Bolognese he’d made a few weeks ago, and reheating it. While he waited for the
microwave to ping, he tipped half a bag of prepared salad onto the plate and
poured a glass of red wine. After adding the pasta to the plate when it was
done, he took it and the glass to his favorite chair by the window.

For a while he just ate, looking down at
the lights and the people, letting his mind and body settle after his busy day.
The Bolognese wasn’t bad and the wine warmed him through, and he began to relax
for the first time that day as the alcohol threaded through his veins.

After a while, he leaned forward and picked
up his laptop from the table, balanced it on the arm of the chair, and opened
it up.

As chief consultant pediatrician at
Auckland Hospital, he always had a batch of emails waiting in his inbox, but as
he scanned through the twenty or so messages currently sitting there unread, he
decided they could all wait until the next day.

Shoveling another forkful of spaghetti into
his mouth, he paused the cursor over the icon of a crown on his desktop. He
debated whether to load up the forum for We Three Kings, the charity side of
the business he ran with his brothers making medical equipment for children.
The website had online forums and chat rooms for concerned parents to talk to
each other about their sick kids. They could also ask questions of the group of
doctors who volunteered spare time to help out. Barely a day went by when Brock
didn’t go on there, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy tonight.

At that moment, a message popped up on
Skype.

Yo bro. Wassup?

His lips curving, Brock clicked the call
button and waited for his brother to answer. The button went green, and Charlie
King’s face appeared on the screen. As always, he wore an All Blacks rugby top,
and his longish hair looked as if he hadn’t brushed it in a week. Which,
knowing Charlie, he probably hadn’t.

“‘Yo bro, wassup?’” Brock quoted. “You
sound like a parent singing along to his son’s rap music.”

“I was trying to sound cool,” Charlie said,
taking off his glasses to clean them.

“It didn’t work.”

Charlie slid his glasses back on. “There’s
always a first time.”

Brock gave a short laugh. Their upper class
English mother had been determined her boys would speak “properly.” As a
result, although they all had a hint of a Kiwi accent, their diction was more
refined than rough. Add the fact that Charlie had no interest in anything to do
with popular culture and didn’t even own a TV, and it made the notion of him
sounding cool amusing to say the least. Luckily, Brock thought, his brother had
about forty-five IQ points on most people, otherwise he would have been a
hopeless case.

Charlie took a swig from the bottle of beer
in his hand. “What are you up to?”

“About to down half a bottle of a forty-year-old
Laphroaig.”

Charlie snorted and opened his mouth to say
something, but at that moment Skype pinged again showing another caller. “Hold
on,” Brock said, “I’ll add Matt to the call.”

Another window popped up with their younger
brother’s face. “Evening,” Matt said. His hair also looked as if he’d just
rolled out of bed, but Brock knew it would have taken his brother thirty
minutes to achieve the same look of casual indifference that Charlie managed
with no work at all.

“I’m about to convince Brock to save his
forty-year-old Laphroaig until we meet up,” Charlie told him. “He said he’s
going to down it himself tonight, but after the first two glasses he won’t
remember the rest and it’ll be a waste.”

“Damned straight,” Matt said. “Stick to the
ten-year-old and save the forty for Christmas Eve.”

Brock grinned. “Fair enough.” Their father
had instilled in them all a love for a good Scotch. Brock was hosting a party
on Christmas Eve in a vain attempt to encourage some Christmas spirit in
himself, and he guessed it was as good a night as any to share the whisky with
his brothers.

“So how’s it going?” Matt settled back,
sketchpad in hand, and began to doodle as they talked.

Brock shrugged. “Only just got in.” He
checked the clock in the corner of the screen and his eyebrows rose. Ten p.m.? He
hadn’t realized it was quite that late. No wonder he was hungry.

“That’s late even for you,” Charlie
commented.

“There was a case in emergency that took a
while to sort, and then I had to hand over to the night staff.” Because he
specialized in respiratory diseases, the emergency staff called Brock whenever
children came in with breathing difficulties. Kids always seemed to get sicker
in the evenings, so it wasn’t unknown for him to be there until well after
dark.

“What are you doing now?” Charlie asked.

“Talking to you.”

Matt gave a wry smile while Charlie rolled
his eyes and said, “I meant what are you going to do after you hang up?”

“I told you—down half a bottle of whisky
and pass out on the sofa. I’m not on call tonight.”

Charlie ran his hand through his hair, and
Matt scratched his cheek with his pencil.

Brock smiled. They were concerned about him
but didn’t know what to say. “It’s all right, guys, I’m okay. Yeah, it’s a
crappy day, but I’ll get through it.” He decided to change the subject before
he started sniveling. “Hey, Charlie, what’s this about Ophelia resigning?”

His brother’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know. Who told you?”

“One of the nurses. She gave her notice
yesterday. She’ll be leaving in the New Year.”

Ophelia Clark was in charge of
Te Karere
Hauora
, the department that connected the hospital with the local
community, including the volunteers who ran the hospital radio. Brock had a
sneaky feeling that Charlie had a thing for her, which was confirmed by the
shocked look on Charlie’s face.

“Why’s she leaving?” Brock asked him.

“I’ve no idea.”

“I thought you two talked.”

“We meet at the breakfast cart in the
morning. Job satisfaction doesn’t tend to feature when you’re discussing
whether to have a blueberry muffin or a bagel.”

“I thought you liked her,” Matt said.

“I do.”

“Have you asked her out?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s married,” Charlie stated.

“Not anymore. They separated about six
months ago.”

Charlie’s eyebrows rose so fast that Brock
had to hide a smile. “What? How did I not know that?” Charlie asked.

“Everyone was talking about it,” Matt said.
“I assumed you knew.”

“Is Summer okay?” Charlie was referring to
Ophelia’s daughter, who was also Brock’s patient. The six-year-old girl
suffered from Cystic Fibrosis and came into the hospital for intravenous
antibiotics and other treatment from time to time.

“She’s living with Ophelia, I think,” Matt
said. “I have a feeling she might have jacked the job in so she can focus more
on her daughter.”

They were all silent for a moment. Brock
himself had given Ophelia all the platitudes after he’d diagnosed Summer—the
medical world was progressing all the time, new cures were always being
invented, survival rates had quadrupled over the last century… But Matt and
Charlie were as aware as he was that the average life expectancy of CF
sufferers was only between thirty-seven and fifty in the developed world.

He was hopeful that medical research would
continue to advance that figure, though. Charlie had recently requested extra
funding from Three Wise Men for a new research project into CF, which Brock had
been certain had something to do with Ophelia and her daughter.

“Ask her to the party,” Brock said.

Matt snorted. “It would mean having a conversation
with a woman that wasn’t about muffins. Charlie doesn’t do conversation about
real stuff.”

“Damn straight,” Charlie said.

Brock rolled his eyes. “You’re
six-foot-four, smart, mildly amusing, and rich as Croesus. How come you’re so
bad with women?”

“Practice.”

The other two laughed. “Ask her,” Matt said
with more kindness than he usually had in his voice. “What have you got to
lose?”

“My dignity?”

“What dignity?”

Charlie blew out a breath. “Good point.”

Brock chuckled and promised himself he’d
call Charlie in the morning to talk him into it. “What about you?” He directed
the question at Matt. “Are you bringing anyone?”

Matt’s expression turned gloomy. “Probably
not.”

“Georgia still resistant to your advances?”
Brock knew Matt had his eye on the girl who ran the Northland office of their
business.

“I don’t know about resistant—more like
immune. I’ve tried everything.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a
woman who was impervious to your charms,” Charlie said.

Matt scratched his cheek. “Neither did I.”
Of the three of them, Matt was the only one who could have been considered a
womanizer, and his girlfriends rarely lasted longer than a few months before he
got bored and broke up with them. He’d been after Georgia for ages, but Brock
wasn’t sure whether he was truly crazy about her, or if he only wanted her
because he couldn’t have her.

“Have you asked her to the party?” Brock
queried.

“Yep.”

“What did she say?”

“Nope.”

Brock grinned. “Keep trying.” He sighed. “I
thought it would be reassuring to know I won’t be the only sad loser this
Christmas, but it makes me kinda sad.”

Charlie cleared his throat. “Have you been
on the forums this evening?”

“Not yet. Not sure if I have the energy.”

“You should,” Matt said. “Ryan’s in
hospital again.”

Brock placed his plate on the nearby table
with a clatter and sat up. “Erin’s boy? Shit. What happened?”

“Another asthma attack. Don’t know much
more than that—she left a brief message on the asthma thread. I think she was
looking for you.”