If I Trust You (If You Come Back To Me #4) Read online

  While they were hurrying down the hallway a minute later, Nick spied a reporter standing in the lobby in the distance, talking on his cell phone. He rapidly put his back to the wall and Deidre followed his example. She stifled some giggles as they cautiously made their way to the doorway leading to the back stairs.

  “Shhh,” Nick hushed, but he was grinning, too.

  They ducked into Nick’s suite on the fifth floor, both of them breathless with laughter and the exertion of climbing the stairs. Deidre gazed around the large, luxurious suite and found the bathroom door.

  “I’m just going to pop in here and freshen up a little,” she said, laughter still lingering around her mouth.

  When she came out a few minutes later, Nick was standing behind the granite wet bar.

  “Champagne?” she asked, her eyes going wide.

  “Yeah. I thought it was appropriate,” Nick told her, a small smile shaping his mouth. His longish bangs had fallen on his forehead as he uncorked the bottle. He really was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. How she could have ever considered him cold and heartless was beyond her.

  She smiled as he came around the bar and handed her a flute of champagne.

  “Did you mean champagne was appropriate because it’s Christmas Eve?” she asked.

  He shook his head, holding her stare. He waved her over to a seating area where they both sat on a plush couch.

  “What’s the appropriate occasion then?” Deidre asked.

  Nick shrugged and her gaze dropped over his broad shoulders. He looked good enough to eat wearing a well-cut black suit, crisp white dress shirt and a silver-gray tie that almost matched the color of his eyes.

  “For a couple of things, I guess.”

  “Such as?” Deidre prompted.

  “First, to say I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Nick.”

  “I was too amazed and pissed off about the idea of John Kellerman coming here to sabotage everything, I couldn’t even think straight. I missed the opportunity to set things right with you the other night.”

  “I couldn’t think either,” she said. She studied the bubbling fluid in the flute, too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I was too busy panicking. I was more than mad. I was scared. I was scared of what it meant if you—the person who was closest to Lincoln—doubted the soundness of his mind when he’d convinced himself I was his daughter.”

  “Sometimes the people who are closest have the most trouble seeing the truth about the other,” he murmured.

  “I was afraid of other things,” she said quietly. “I was scared you’d been keeping secrets from me...manipulating me.”

  He put his arm around her and stroked the skin on her shoulder just next to her dress. She suppressed a shiver of pleasure at his touch.

  “I thought I told you never to be scared when it comes to me,” he said.

  She gave a small smile. “I guess it temporarily slipped my mind. Once I got to Chicago and I started to see things more clearly, I realized you were hardly acting like a person who was using me. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  He laughed, low and rough. “If I had been smart, I would have known there was one thing I could have told you that day at Cedar Cottage that would have reassured you that I wasn’t plotting against you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Deidre froze.

  “You...you have?”

  “I think I’m concussed I fell so hard,” he said dryly under his breath.

  He sounded so starkly earnest, Deidre couldn’t help but smile.

  “So the thing of it is, it would be pretty stupid of me to take you to court or hassle you or do anything that wasn’t in the service of your complete happiness, wouldn’t it?” he murmured. Her breath stuck in her lungs when he leaned forward and kissed her with warm, firm lips. “I only want you to be happy, Deidre. Please believe me.”

  “I do,” she whispered.

  “I know the fact that we’re Lincoln’s coheirs has muddied up the waters. I know people like Nick Kellerman are going to raise their eyebrows and hiss about our relationship. But I don’t care. Lincoln was wise to split things between us fifty-fifty.”

  “I still don’t want to run DuBois Enterprises, Nick. That’s your job. Lincoln knew no one could do it better than you. He trusted you, and so do I.”

  “You still have half of the controlling interest. That’s never going to change. If you ever decide to take the helm with me at DuBois, I’ll be more than happy to share. You can change your mind whenever you like—our marriage won’t change that.”

  She smiled and kissed him again fervently.

  “There’s something else,” Nick said quietly next to her lips. He withdrew his arm from around her and took her champagne glass, setting it on the table beside him and leaning back on the couch. Deidre met his stare.

  “I know being Lincoln’s daughter meant the world to you,” Nick said. “But the fact of the matter is, I don’t care whose daughter you are. I just want you to be my wife. Marry me, Deidre.”

  She felt him place something in her hand. She stared in numb disbelief at the signature light blue Tiffany jewelry box. Her hand shook as she opened it. Teardrops skittered down her cheek when she saw the stunning pavé ring with the sparkling large diamond set in the middle.

  She looked at Nick and saw the question lingering in his eyes.

  “Yes,” she whispered emphatically.

  His mouth tilted in a smile. He reached for the box and removed the ring.

  “It fits perfectly,” she said when he slid it on her finger a moment later.

  “I got lucky. I bought it in San Francisco while I was there. I’ve been carrying it around, waiting for the best time to give it to you.”

  “You have?” Deidre asked in amazement. She thought of his intense lovemaking when he’d returned home early from San Francisco. He’d known...even then.

  “I kicked myself numb after what happened with John Kellerman for not giving it to you sooner. Then everything went to hell, and you left town, and I wondered if I’d lost the chance.”

  “But you didn’t. I love you, Nick,” she said feelingly before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. A moment later, they separated, both of them slightly breathless. Nick grinned at her unabashedly.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, laughing because so much happiness was inside her that it was brimming over. “Won’t everyone at DuBois think it’s foolish of us to mix business and romance?”

  “Maybe,” he said shrugging. “People will hear the news of our engagement and assume you turned my head. Once they catch a glimpse of you, they’ll know why, and shut up after a spell.”

  Deidre gave him a repressive glance.

  “It’s true. I told you before—I’m a man, not a job. But there’s no reason whatsoever our getting married has to affect the running or prosperity of DuBois Enterprises. Lincoln always kept DuBois a private business. It was his dream to make it a family-run one. Now his dream will come true. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” he said quietly. “You?”

  “I feel the same way,” she said in a whisper, every trace of her doubt vanished.

  Nick picked up their champagne glasses and handed one to her.

  “Let’s make a toast. To Lincoln.”

  “To Lincoln,” she murmured. She tapped her flute to his and they both drank.

  “I’m beginning to realize you were right about Linc. At first, I thought he was mad for mentioning you and me in that letter—for suggesting that two people who were virtual strangers might share the happiness that wasn’t meant to be between your mother and him.”

  “And now?” Deidre asked quietly as he removed her flute from her hand a
nd set it back on the table. He took her into his arms and kissed her damp cheeks. Deidre lifted her head and their mouths brushed together.

  “Now I think he might have been the wisest man on the face of the earth for throwing us together.”

  Her blissful laughter was cut off beneath Nick’s all-consuming kiss.

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 978 1 472 09464 3

  IF I TRUST YOU

  © 2012 Beth Kery

  Originally published as One in a Billion

  Published in Great Britain 2014

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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