His brow furrowed in confusion.
"You love me. You love Teiko. And you love The Fix."
"True?" He said the word, but his tone and his expression turned it into a question.
"I told you I'd never expect you to stop loving her. And you damn sure better not stop loving me. But if you think that I want you to leave The Fix behind, you're sorely mistaken."
"I can't ask you to pick up and move to Austin."
She nodded. "Yeah, you can. You need a whole building. I just need my camera." She made a face. "Well, and Marianne. But she can be my West Coast office, and I can fly here when I need to." She grinned. "See? I hook up with you and suddenly even my career has more cachet. And you forget that my daughter's there."
He chuckled. "Fair enough. Although Eli will be disappointed."
Her brows rose.
"He was looking forward to learning to surf. I figure he'll get over it."
"So we'll go back?" She couldn't wait. She missed Elena and the friends she'd made at The Fix more than she'd anticipated. And though she loved Marianne, they'd still talk every day by phone or by text. And her friend would love being in charge of Eva's West Coast division.
"We'll go back," he agreed. "But in a few days."
"Oh?" She lifted her brows. "And what exactly will we be doing in all that extra time?"
He laughed. "That, yes. But I also want to walk around San Diego with you. Visit the places we used to go. I want to stroll hand in hand with the woman I love, and I want to soak up this town. Mostly, I want to remember us."
"Us," she repeated. "I like the sound of that."
"So do I," he said, then kissed her. A long, sweet kiss full of passion and promise. A kiss that sealed the past and opened the door on a future.
Their future. Together. As a family.
Epilogue
Megan Clark paced the reception area of PCM Enterprises, still unable to believe she'd made such a boneheaded mistake. And she had absolutely no one to blame but herself.
Well, herself and Parker Manning's idiot assistant.
But, no. Megan couldn't pass the buck to the other woman. This had been her project, her baby, her stupid, lame-ass mistake.
All she'd wanted to do was prove to the folks at The Fix that Jenna hadn't made a mistake in hiring her. That she actually had a brain and could help out with all of the various tasks at the popular bar. Most important, she wanted to help out with the marketing, because that was Jenna's area, and Jenna had taken a risk and offered Megan a job, even though The Fix was on a tight budget. And even though Megan knew buckets about makeup but next to nothing about marketing.
Still, she was the one who'd come up with the idea to start advertising the entrants in the Man of the Month contest instead of just the winner. Get people excited to see who was competing against each other.
And she was the one who'd wanted to up the game a bit where the entrants were concerned. Yes, most of the guys who entered were total hotties, but very few of them were local celebrities. Which meant that very few people were paying attention. But
if they could get some of the local television guys or wealthy business owners ... basically anyone who made the news or the tabloids regularly, that would be a total plus. Especially if the guy was a social media draw.
And Parker Manning was about as social media centric as they came.
He came from a Texas oil money family, but he'd lived in LA for a while. He'd dated actresses, dabbled in producing, and been front and center with two successful companies that he'd turned around and sold right after they hit big.
Rumor had it he'd tripled his net worth within a year, and the starting number in his family trust fund had been none-too-shabby.
Everyone at The Fix had agreed that he'd be a great guy to have on the contest slate, and since he and Megan had run in the same circles in LA, she'd assured Jenna she could land him.
In fact, she'd not only run in the same circles, she'd actually crossed his path. Once, he'd even asked her out, making clear that he was very, very interested. She'd been tempted. He had a bad boy reputation, so he wasn't a guy she'd want to date, but back in LA she'd been wilder and stupider, and there'd been a definite tug in the area of her nether regions.
She hadn't accepted his offer, though. That was about the time she'd started dating Carlton. And he'd made it very clear that she was his exclusive property.