“But I did.” Bill took Carrie’s hand and held it tightly. “I didn’t give Jessica any options. One night she agreed to have dinner with me and the next thing she knew, I was making her part of my life. Isn’t that right, Jessica?”
“If you mean that you were wonderful…” Jessie smiled shakily. “You sent me flowers every day. You phoned all the time.”
“Sure. I figured if you were right for me, all I had to do was convince you that I was right for you. I guess I thought, well, if we were a great team in the office, we’d be terrific as husband and wife.” He cleared his throat. “Obviously, I was wrong.”
“Bill.” Liam cleared his throat, too. “I don’t expect you to forgive us—”
“Good.” Bill stood straight and tall, and looked directly into Liam’s eyes. “Because I haven’t. You want the truth, Malone? I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you. Accepting what’s happened is one thing. Forgiving it is another.”
Liam nodded. “I understand. Let’s—let’s give it some time, okay?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, “let’s do that.”
He stepped back, still clasping Carrie’s hand, and the door swung shut. Liam stood motionless for a long moment. Then he swallowed hard, turned to Jessie and took her in his arms. She was weeping, and he drew her close and kissed away her tears.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Poor William. He’s so hurt.” She sniffled, and Liam dug out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “He was right, you know.” She smiled through her tears. “We were a great team in the office. We should have left it at that.”
Liam smiled, too, as he took her in his arms again. “You liked being assistant to the CEO, huh?”
“Yes.” Despite her tears, she tilted her chin in defiance. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those male chauvinists, Malone, who doesn’t like the idea of his woman having a job.”
“To begin with,” Liam said gently, “you’re not going to be my woman, you’re going to be my wife.”
Jessie sighed. “I like the sound of that.”
“And you’re right, I don’t like the idea of you working for some guy.”
“Now, wait a minute, Liam—”
Liam kissed her. “Working with some guy,” he said, smiling into her eyes, “an equal partnership kind of thing, well, that’s different.”
“What are you talking about? Do you mean you’re thinking of starting some sort of business?” She snuggled against him. “Oh, that would be lovely. But you don’t have to do it for me. I know you like to bounce from place to place, and if that’s what you want, it’s what we’ll do.”
Liam wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and tilted her face to his. “I have a lot to tell you, sweetheart. About me, about my life…” He could feel his heart lift. “Let’s just say I’ve got some irons in the fire that can use your skills and, no, we’re not going to bounce from place to place, unless that’s what you really want.”
“I just want you,” Jessie whispered. “Only you, my love.”
“Always,” Liam said softly. “For all the rest of our lives.”
EPILOGUE
THEY WERE MARRIED less than a month later, in the solarium of the handsome house they’d bought on one of the beautiful San Juan Islands in Puget Sound.
Jessie had wanted to be wed in the garden, because a garden was where they’d met, but Liam convinced her to take pity on their guests and have the ceremony inside the solarium. The northwest was still in the grip of a chilly spring, but that day the sun shone. The first of the spring crocuses had pushed their heads through the snow and Jessie had decorated both the house and the solarium in the same soft lilac color.
She wore white silk; Liam wore a black tux. A guitarist played softly in the background. There was champagne and caviar, oysters and Dungeness crab, and on top of the five-tiered wedding cake, in place of the figures of a bride and groom, there stood a small globe that Liam had given Jessie at breakfast.
It was made of crystal and, inside it, a tiny porcelain bride who looked suspiciously like her, and a porcelain groom who more than resembled Liam, embraced before a bright green palm tree standing on white sand, set against a tropical cardboard sea.
Jessie had wept with happiness.
“Turn it over,” Liam had said gently. She did, and as the sand turned the placid scene into a hurricane, she saw the inscription engraved on the bottom of the globe.
Let The World Tilt, it said.
Now, the ceremony that would join them forever was moments away. Their future stretched ahead, brightly shining. There had been some difficult moments as Jessie’s friends made peace with the fact that she’d fallen in love with another man on what was to have been her wedding day, but she and Liam were so much in love that no one could fault her, or him, for following the dictates of their hearts. And they were filled with plans, plans that Liam had already put into motion. He was CEO of Flamingo Resorts; she was Chief Financial Officer. They worked together, played together, loved together.