Page 26 of Working for the Heiress

He'd threatened her then, shouted about the family name and her eroded trust fund, how any privilege or access to the life she’d be born into was severed. He wailed that once he started spending his own money to clean up the mess she'd insisted on dragging into the light, there would be nothing left.

He asked if she wanted to starve, alone in the world.

Lili looked across the office at me, and I didn’t say a word, but I didn’t need to. She knew we were a unit now. "That won't be a problem," she said, and hung up.

She sat at the desk for a minute before standing up and looking at me with those brown eyes that cracked me the hell open. "Take me home, Conrad."

I didn’t bother to ask if she wanted anything from her room at the inn. I was taking her home. My home—our home.

I carried her to the truck because her legs were done and she'd earned it, and now she was asleep with her cheek against the glass and her breath making a small fog on the window.

The road was dark and quiet. The mountains were black shapes against a sky that was clearing to stars. I kept my speed down for the turns and I kept one hand on the wheel and every chance I got, I looked at my woman. Mine.

My Lili arrived in this town where I’d been hiding, and she tore the roof off of everything ugly in my life. She gave me her body along with her fierce determination to burn down injustice and she did it all without a second thought. This woman, who went in secret to log flight hours at the yoke and throttle.

This woman who vowed to lend her skills to search and rescue, to be the kind of pilot Wolf had been before everything went to shit. And I was going to take her to him and the other men in Raptor Creek and show them the woman who would make things right.

The house was dark when I pulled into the driveway. I never left the porch light on because there was never any reason to. Now I had someone to leave a light on for and I was never letting it off again.

I turned off the engine and sat for a second in the quiet. "Lili."

She stirred. Her eyes opened, unfocused, and she looked at the house through the windshield and then she looked at me.

"We're here," I said.

"Where's here?"

"Home."

She smiled, sleep-drunk and soft. I came around, opened her door and she slid out but I caught her, one arm around her waist, and hitched her into my arms to carry her to the front door.

The house was there, waiting for her scent to mingle with mine and fill it with a new purpose. Waiting to become a home.

I set her on the couch and quickly lit the fire. It didn’t take long—the wood was already stacked and dry. The heat filled the room quickly and the light went from dark to amber as Lili pulled her boots off and tucked her feet beneath her.

“I walked away from everything,” she said, staring at the fire.

“You going to be okay with that?” I felt the slight tinge of worry that she had regrets. I’d do whatever she wanted to make her feel safe and comfortable in her decision, though.

But she smiled. “I should have said I walked away from everything false and now I have … actually everything. I have you.”

"You also have a pilot's license nobody can take away."

She smiled.

"And you have this house. For as long as you want it."

"Conrad —"

"I'm not done." I crossed the room to her. I knelt beside the couch the way I'd knelt in front of her desk the night before, except this time the fire was warm and the room was mine and I could see her face clearly. "You're not leaving. You're not going back to the inn. You're not going back to Boston. You're staying here. With me."

"Is that a question?"

"No."

I looked at her in the firelight and the words came up my throat before I could stop them. “I love you.”

It sounded too soon. A little insane. We’d known each other for days, but I felt a surety with her I couldn’t explain.