Yours Completely (Billionaires and Brides 1)

“I'm so sorry about that,” Jace whispered, once they were clear of Rosalind. He released her hand and turned to face her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Because Rosalind's a bitch,” Jace replied. He faced her, his eyes searching hers. “She has no sense of decency. You're better than she is.”

“I'm fine,” she assured him with a smile. Warmth filled her chest. He cared about her. “Thank you.”

His face relaxed into a comfortable smile. “Care for another drink?”

She barely had time to answer before he had a glass pressed into her hand.

“To the best date I could have brought to the wedding,” Jace said, holding up his glass.

Ella giggled. “You didn't really bring me, you know. I was kind of already here.”

Jace playfully narrowed his eyes at her. “Fine, to the best wedding liaison a man could hope to have decide to let him dance with.”

“I'll toast to that,” she agreed, loving the way he made her heart feel lighter. Tonight couldn't get better.

Chapter Sixteen

Jace wished he had come up with a better toast. It sounded so fake and terrible, yet it was all his love-struck brain could seem to come up with. He just wanted to see her smile again. His world was perfect when she smiled at him the way she was right now. He wanted her to tell him all her secrets, and maybe even tell her some of his.

“Tell me about the inn,” he said, trying to think of something that would make her feel comfortable. He remembered how her face had lit up at the barn when she started to talk about her work, so he thought it would be a good place to start.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Everything.” He guided them to a quiet area of the garden and sipped on his champagne, watching her beautiful face.

“Um, well... I guess I should start at the beginning.” She smiled and fiddled with the stem of her champagne flute for a moment. “My father bought this place when his parents died. Used his whole inheritance on it. He had these amazing dreams, especially for the times. A couple of years later, he met my mother, and together they made this amazing place.”

“They're the two people in that photograph of the gazebo you sent with the invitation to hold the wedding here,” he said, thinking of the image that brought him here. It was that picture that had led him to show his sister this place.

She nodded. “That was them. It's one of my favorite pictures of them. I was born about nine months later.”

“They looked very happy,” Jace added.

“They were. Their happiness shone through this whole place. People used to come for miles around to stay here. It was 'the place to be' for anyone who was anyone. They even hosted the wedding of the vice president's daughter.”

She paused to take a sip of her champagne and Jace could feel that the story was about to darken.

“Then my mother died. I was only two at the time, but my dad took it really hard. Without her, he couldn't run this place like he used to. Things got scaled back, but it was still doing well.” She glanced up at him, making sure he was still interested.

“A young daughter and a business? That would be hard for anyone,” Jace said. She smiled, glad to see he was actually paying attention.

“When I was twelve, my dad decided that I needed a female in my life and that he needed a partner. I told him we really didn't, but I think the idea of raising a teenage girl scared him. He missed my mom and wanted someone like her.” Ella looked down at her champagne. “Then, one day he went to Vegas for a conference and came back married to Delores. How she convinced him she was like my mom, I'll never know.”

Jace had heard this story before from more men than he cared to count. It was classic gold-digger money hungry woman meets wealthy man.

“Things were good for a few years. Delores loved playing the wealthy wife and she didn't do much around the inn. I spent most of my time at school or learning how to do things around here. I never really had to deal with Delores or Allison very much, despite my dad's attempts to make us into a family.” She played with the champagne flute, twirling it in her fingers and watching the liquid spin inside of it. “Then, one day, his heart just gave out and he was gone.”

The simple ache in her voice made him want to wrap his arms around her. “I'm sorry.”

She shrugged, as if the motion could move the pain of his passing from her, but the weight of it still hung heavy around her. “That's when I found out that the inn was willed to Delores until my twenty-second birthday.” She shrugged again, the weight of the world still on her shoulders.

Jace nodded. He could imagine how it all went down. His own father lost twenty-five percent of his company to wife number two because she'd convinced him that a pre-nup was a sign he didn't love her. A woman with a mission, especially one as wily as Delores, would find a way to get anything.

“I'm sure you can imagine Delores's shock at finding out that the inn was the only property to my father's name and that it wasn't exactly the easy money she thought it would be.” She looked up at him and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “He'd barely been supporting her spending habits before all the medical bills and funeral arrangements happened.”