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She swings her legs over the bed and pushes to her feet. I’m about to keep arguing but she’s hovering completely naked inches away from me. What were we talking about again? Tax evasion?
“Give me twenty minutes,” she says, moving toward the bathroom.
I’d give that ass twenty years.
Forty.
Sixty.
A fucking baby if she wants it.
I groan and throw myself back on the pillow.
She’s completely wrecked me. There’s no other explanation, because as she’s “freshening up,” future babies aren’t even the most ridiculous thought rumbling through my head.
I’m going to follow her to catering.
I’m going to follow her anywhere, because I belong with her. I belong here.
I’m important to her, and if she sees me as a risk worth taking, I have to fight like hell to start seeing what she does.
In what universe do I wake up with Larinda Scott in my arms?
This one. A universe where I’m Val Andrews. A damn good producer who’s trying his best to be a damn good human being.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.
29—HERSHEY (CATERING)
VAL
Larinda slips her palm into mine as we approach the door to catering. Plenty of voices can be heard, so we know the room is packed. How is she so calm about this?
Despite my pledge not to check my phone, I did. As expected, it flooded with notifications, and that’s when I shut it off again because I’ve committed to following Larinda’s lead on this, and there was no way that was happening if I spent an hour being publicly and privately eviscerated.
I get it. I’m a fraud, a cheater, a gold digger, a horrible human being for breaking up the fairy-tale romance of the country music royal couple. I am the devil incarnate because I’m a poor nobody and not Jarvis McKinnley.
“I love you,” she says, squeezing my hand.
“I love you too,” I say, squeezing back.
“I choose you.”
“I choose you too.”
We exchange a quick smile, and I try to breathe through the violent pounding in my chest. I don’t even know why I’m scared. She’s the one who’s poised to lose everything over this. I had nothing for my entire life. Going back to nothing is, well, nothing. But maybe that’s the problem. It’s not me I’m worried about. When you love someone, their pain is infinitely worse than yours. I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive watching her get crushed because of me.
But it’s her life. Her career. Her choice. And I meant what I said. I will support her no matter what she decides.
We step through the door, and the room goes silent. Over a dozen sets of eyes land on us, then drop to our joined hands. I force myself to breathe through the thumping in my veins.
It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Even if you end up back at your sister’s kitchen table with nothing, so what? You still have this amazing person.
I do. And that’s everything.
I grip her hand, and she grips back.
Steve is the first to push up from his table.
