The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

“I love you, Clover Lee.”

“I love you more,” she said, rising up on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I think that’s something we’ll be debating forever, honey.” Dipping his head lower, he kissed her and thanked the fates and God and anyone else who was up there for getting him here because the big picture he’d been looking at all these years had been only a narrow glimpse of the possibilities of what could be. With Clover, he saw so much more.

Epilogue

Three Years Later…

The crowd at the Carlyle family cocktail party had changed. Instead of unmarried socialites and champagne glasses, it was family and…champagne—it was still the Carlyles after all.

Sawyer looked around, unable to stop noticing all the details that made his life so much more than it had been before. Clover stood next to him, her hair shining in the setting sun. Laura Lee and Phillip were laughing at something Hudson said while his fiancée rolled her eyes and chuckled. He’d always known his brother was hiding something, he’d never have guessed just what it was because he’d never looked close enough. Big brother fail for sure. Details mattered and thanks to the woman by his side he wouldn’t be missing those any more. Clover’s best friend Daphne was there, too, still looking a little jet-lagged after the girl’s trip to Nepal they’d taken. And then there was Helene who was chasing little Michael with his chubby toddler legs around the grand piano. Mikey, as they called him to differentiate Sawyer’s son from Sawyer’s father who Mikey was named after, had a handful of birthday cake mashed in his right hand and was running full speed ahead, just like he had from the day he took his first step. Like his father, there was no walking for that kid.

“You know, I think if my dad had lived to see this he would have changed his favorite view,” Sawyer said, curling an arm around Clover’s waist and drawing her in close. “I know I have.”

She smiled up at him. “There’s nothing quite like seeing your mom with apple crumb cake handprints on her Dior skirt.”

“I don’t think she’s even noticed.” The woman who’d spent her adult life scaring most of Harbor City’s society had become putty in the hands of her grandchild.

“Well, if she didn’t notice that I’m wearing these,” Clover lifted her hiking boot clad foot “then we can definitely say she’s baby crazy.”

“Maybe we should take advantage of that by letting her watch Mikey while we take a trip to South America,” he said, the plan already coming together in his head. “There’s a group in Peru that’s setting up a women’s business collective. I hear they need a negotiator to work out a deal with some international distributors.”

“Let’s do that next month,” she said, her eyes sparkling with that something that had sucker punched him the first time he’d set eyes on her.

“I know that look. That’s usually one that has me agreeing to things I never thought I’d say yes to.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “I think we need to work on a project to keep Mikey from getting lonely.”

“You want to take him with us?” He wasn’t against it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that wasn’t what she meant at all.

“Nope.”

Understanding dawned. “Number two?”

She winked at him. “Let’s make that happen.”

“But what about all the travel I promised you before we got married? You’ve only gone through one of the seven pairs of hiking boots I’d hidden away.”

“There will be plenty of time for that.” She raised herself up on her tiptoes, bringing her face within kissing distance of his. “A whole lifetime.”

How could he say no to that? “Deal.”

He dipped his head and kissed her, knowing he’d been out-negotiated again and not caring at all because he’d still won. They both had.