Billionaires in New York Boxed Set: Billionaires in the City Books 1-3 Laura Burton (books to read this summer .TXT) 📖

“right.” But being with Emily felt natural—who he’d been missing all along. Even in all the chaos, the lies, the politics… Emily made him feel grounded, safe, and sure.

“I want to make this work,” he said as he took her hand. He held it to his chest and stared at her imploringly. There was no time to wonder if she would freak out and reject him. Or if he was being too forward. They got married, didn’t they? She agreed to that. They’d spent more time together in the last few weeks than he ever had with his family. Yet, it wasn’t enough. He wanted more time with her. He never wanted to be away from Emily again.

“Do you think we can?”

David crouched and lifted her up in his arms. She cried out in shock from the cold, and laughed as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?” she asked through giggles. David carried her easily, walking back toward the house.

“Isn’t it tradition for a man to carry his bride over the threshold?”

“Wait––wait. Put me down,” Emily ordered. David lowered her and she stood eyeing him carefully. “You mean it? You want to be married to me, for real?”

She sounded hopeful. David thought his thumping heart might burst out of his chest.

Yes, for real. I’m never letting you go.

“If you will have me.”

Emily grabbed David’s neck and pulled him down. He happily allowed it, and Emily captured his lips with a kiss. All the barriers that had kept them apart, came crashing down as the two of them explored each other. They broke away gasping and Emily grinned at him.

“You were saying something about a threshold?”

David picked her up again, the two of them laughing and he practically ran back up to the house.

David woke up in a state of confusion. What day was it? Why was he aching in places he didn’t know could ache? Why was he ravenously hungry? Where was his shirt? He rubbed his eyes and sat up in the four-poster bed and looked around the room. Had he been dreaming? Was last night an extension of his previous fantasies?

Weak sunlight poured in through the white curtains and he stared at the black gown, water-stained and creased, laying on a chair by the window. He blinked away the sleep in his eyes and looked at the bathroom door as it opened. Emily walked in, her cheeks were rosy and her hair was completely wild. Curly, wavy, and frizzing at the hairline. She paraded around barefoot in a blue shirt that came to her knees.

“Hey, that’s my favorite shirt,” David said with feigned indignance.

“Oh I’m sorry, I had no idea.” She sauntered over to the bed. “Do you want it back?”

“Yes, I do,” David said, he no longer cared about his aches and pains. Emily placed her hands on her hips and gave him a mischievous smile.

“Well, you’ll have to come and get it.”

David threw the sheets off and crawled across the bed like a lion.

“Challenge accepted.”

Emily squealed as he wrestled her back onto the bed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Truth Comes Out

Emily walked her fingers up David’s chest as she lay propped up on an elbow.

“What did you think of me when we first met?”

She watched David heave a big sigh and wipe the sweat from his brow.

“I thought”—he sat up and Emily cozied up to his chest with his arm wrapped around her—“that you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”

Emily snuggled closer into David. They basked in the glow of their love, finally the world was right. They were together, nothing could tear them apart. She planted kisses in a line up his chest. She wanted to kiss him, every part, for all her days. Falling in love had never been so sweet. So tender. She thought she might smile until her dying day.

“I thought you were the tallest man I’d ever seen,” she quipped back.

David hummed. “We should go downstairs and get some breakfast.”

“Oh, someone has been working up an appetite,” Emily said coyly. David nodded, his face was still red.

“I’m starving.”

Emily rolled over and huffed as she looked up at the impossibly high ceiling. “I wish we could stay in here forever.”

“It would get pretty boring,” David said.

Emily rolled onto her side and looked him, offended. “Oh really?”

David’s face turned a deeper shade of red. “Erm, I’d die of starvation?”

Emily rolled her eyes at her new husband. “Let’s get food sent up to the room.” She didn’t want to see anyone else, especially not Edward. Was his face bruised and what story did he tell the rest of the family?

“This isn’t a hotel, you know,” David said with a laugh. She tilted her head at him.

“Yeah, but I’m sure your staff wouldn’t mind bringing food to the room.”

David sighed and got up out of bed. “We should go. We missed the whole party,” he said as he got dressed.

“You didn’t seem to care last night.” Emily fluttered her lashes at him as she flashed her pearly whites. David bent over and rested his palms on the bed. Emily crawled up to him and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

“Hmmm,” he murmured as he kissed her back. “As much as I would love to spend the day in bed with you, darling, we need to make an appearance. I want to check in on my grandmother.” David’s words dulled Emily’s excitement; she had forgotten why they were there. His grandmother was dying. She nodded and dragged herself out of bed.

“Okay, I’ll take a quick shower.”

Emily held David’s hand as she followed him down the grand staircase to the side door that opened out to the dining room.

“Good morning, everyone,” David said brightly. Emily smiled sheepishly, clutching David’s hand as she looked around the room, which had become eerily quiet. Charles sat at the head of the mahogany table, Edward and Catherine were on either side of him, and several couples joined them, all no