Chapter 30

Margot

Three years later

I stood off to one side of the stage in the hall, clutching a glass of champagne, bubbling just as much as it was.

“Is it going to start soon?” Nat groaned, next to me. “I mean, I don’t want to sound insensitive, but damn, this is taking forever. Where’s Cain?”

“He’s about to take the stage,” I replied, in a whisper, and took a sip of the bubbly to still my nerves. It didn’t work.

The hall was filled with benefactors, with folks who’d had faith in Cain’s idea and my plan to see it to fruition, and tonight was more ceremonial—a celebration—than anything else, but it was still important. Momentous, actually.

Women and men sat at the tables in the hall, beneath glistening chandeliers, sipping from champagne flutes and chatting amiably to each other, wearing their best. Men in tuxedos and women in glitzy ball gowns in every different shade.

I’d chosen red tonight, because it was the official color of the foundation, and because Cain loved me in red.

I bit my bottom lip. Even now, years after we’d confessed our feelings to each other, I still couldn’t get over it. Life would carry on, it’d be normal, as normal as it could be with Cain around, and we’d sink into our comfortable little love zone together, but at times like these, it rushed back, all of it.

The pain, the fear, the anger, and the insane knowledge that yeah, this was the man for me. He was the only one I could ever want.

“Hey, are you OK?” Nat nudged my elbow, and I slopped a little champagne onto my red painted toenails. “You’re doing that weird thing again.”

“What weird thing?”

“You know, where you stare off into the distance and make that face.”

“What face?”

Nat put up a goofy, dreamy-eyed expression.

OK, so maybe I thought about how we’d fallen in love more than just once in a while. I couldn’t help myself, though. Cain had changed my life. Hopefully, I’d done the same for him.

“Here he comes,” Nat said and primped her pink locks in their updo. She’d matched her hair with a dress in the exact same shade—bubblegum. She looked like a Barbie doll cake-topper, if Barbie dolls had tattoos and piercings just about everywhere. “Thank god, my legs are going dead.”

“We’ve only been standing here for fifteen minutes.”

“That’s forever in my time,” Nat whispered.

The people in the hall ceased their chatter as Cain strode up to the microphone stand on stage, dapper in a navy blue suit, so dark it was black beneath the lights overhead. He glanced to the side and caught my gaze, broke into that genuine I-love-you-more-than-life-itself smile, which I returned just as brightly.

I gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed, “You’ve got this.”

He winked then tapped on the microphone. “This thing on?”

A smattering of laughter passed between the tables.

“Looks like your entertainment for the night has arrived, ladies and gentleman,” Cain said, his voice deep, his lips pressed to the microphone.

This time I giggled—it was the same thing he’d said when he’d crashed that charity event years ago, the first time I’d seen him, all of him, in one shot.

Cain cleared his throat one last time, and the smile on his face straightened out into somberness. “You’re here tonight to celebrate the official opening of the Foster Foundation,” he said, and swallowed. Cain wasn’t great at public speaking, something I’d never have suspected of him.

Apparently, it was one thing to walk into a packed room nude and drunk, another thing entirely to stand sober behind a microphone with all eyes on him.

He looked at me again, and I nodded my encouragement.

“The Foster Foundation is the brainchild of me and the beautiful woman to my right wearing the red dress. I’m Cain Foster, as you all know, and that’s Margot Reed, whom you might not know. She’s the one who helped me put all of this together. To be honest, without her business brain, I’d have been pretty lost planning this.”

Heads turned and all eyes were on me. I blushed—I hadn’t expected him to mention me in the speech. He’d been pretty cagey about it this past week, insistent on practicing it in private and out of earshot.

“Margot Reed saved me from myself. She helped me find the truth hiding inside my soul, and man, without her, none of this would’ve been possible.”

“Oh man, I’m going to cry,” Nat whispered, already nasal and sniffling.

“How she helped me is how we at the Foster Foundation want to help others, specifically those adolescents who come from troubled backgrounds,” Cain continued and glanced down at his notes for the first time. “When I was eighteen years old, my mother passed away from a terminal illness. My life changed completely. I wound up on the streets and spiraled into a life of crime because I had no guidance, no help, and no one to look up to. I was arrested, and the only reason I didn’t stay in prison and stuck in the cycle of recidivism was because I had the financial backing of a rich father.” He paused to let that sink in. “The children and teenagers we’re going to help, thanks to your funding and faith, are those who aren’t as lucky as I was. They’re individuals who don’t have a head start in life and who need support. Tonight, we’re unveiling the model of the recreation and support center that will be built in Lakeview, Chicago.”

Cain stepped back and gestured to the dais on the stage behind him. A young woman stepped forward and drew the sheet back to reveal the model.

Applause ruptured the silence and spread through the space.

I pressed my fingers to the undersides of my eyes and dabbed the moisture there away, then searched the crowd. Mom waved from the back, and next to her Jemma-Kate stood, nine years old, a little gangly, but blonde, sweet, and a spitting image of my father. She clapped along with everyone else, then inserted two fingers between her lips and whistled just as Cain had taught her to.

My boyfriend grinned at Mom and Jemma-Kate, then looked over at me and blew me a kiss. Finally, he stepped back up to the mic. “Now, I’ll quit the speech while I’m ahead, because no one likes listening to a load of hot air from a guy who’s probably got an ego that dwarfs a hot air balloon.”

Everyone laughed again, clapped.

“Please, enjoy this night, the food and drink. Without all of you, this wouldn’t have been possible either. So thank you, from the Foster Foundation, from me, and from Margot over there.”

The applause was as raucous as the first round. Cain walked off the stage and swept me into his arms, then spun me around on the spot. I let out a shriek of glee. “You did it,” I whispered.

“We did it,” Cain replied and kissed me, deeply. There was nothing chaste about it, but I didn’t care. This was his night. He’d worked so damn hard to make this happen. He could talk all he wanted about how much I’d helped him, but this was his foundation. The Foster Foundation.

“Ew, if you guys are going to be all in love and shit, I’m going to go eat some cake, OK?” Nat wandered off toward the table at the end of the hall, where desserts and snacks had been laid out.

Cain slipped his arm around my waist and walked me toward the door at the side of the hall.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We’re getting out of here.”

“What? Why? You’ve been waiting for this night forever,” I whispered.

“I’ve got somewhere more important to be.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see,” he said and pinched my ass.

We walked out and down the hotel’s hallway, out and down the concrete front steps to a waiting car—a black BMW. “Seriously, Cain, where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said, “and I don’t trust that you’ll be able to keep it, so you’ll have to wear this.” He withdrew a bright red ribbon from his suit pocket and held it up. “Turn around, gorgeous.”

I did as I was told, excitement thrilling down my spine. I trusted Cain with my life. A red silk ribbon only brought naughty thoughts to mind, though.

He lowered it over my eyes and tied it at the back, then rested his hands on my shoulders and whispered in my ear. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight, Margot? You’re stunning. You’re the center of my fucking universe. This way, watch your head.”

He guided me into the car, and the door slammed. I listened to the hum of the engine, tilting my head this way and that, catching sounds. The door clunked, the seat dipped next to me, and Cain’s hand took mine. “Let’s go,” he said.

The driver, whoever he was, didn’t reply, but the car drove off, away from the hotel to heaven knew where. The drive took about fifteen minutes—pretty quick, actually, and I kept up a mental game, trying but failing to guess where we might be.

Cain helped me out of the car and guided me across concrete, my heels clacking against it, then up stairs, one at a time, laughing softly when I almost tripped. He held me upright, took me all the way to the top as he always did.

My heels rang on the floor now, and then there was the gentle tick of Cain hitting a button. Was it that?

“I’m getting nervous,” I said. “I can’t figure out where we are.”

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered back. “We don’t want to get caught.”

“Oh god, Cain.” The thrill of whatever we were about to do passed over me again.

“Here, this way.” His hand pressed into the dip at the small of my back, and we took two steps then stopped again.

There was a jerk, and my stomach dropped. “Ha, elevator!” I said. “We’re in an elevator. But where are we going?”

“Up,” he whispered, breath hot on my ear. “To heaven. To paradise.” His fingers intertwined with mine. A couple minutes later, the elevator stopped, and we moved out and across a long space. A door opened, and we crunched across—wait, what? What was this? Sidewalk again? Concrete?

“Stand right there, just like that,” Cain said. “Don’t take off the blindfold until I tell you to.”

I waited, listened as he moved around. There was a short silence.

He cleared his throat. “You can take it off now.”

My fingers found the silky knot at the back of my head, and I freed it. The ribbon fluttered to the concrete at the top of the Cain’s father’s building. It was the same rooftop where we’d sat on the ledge together, where I’d first realized I was in deep trouble.

The ledges were covered with candles, as was most of the floor, and in the center of it all was Cain, on one knee, his hand up, a box between his fingers, open to reveal a diamond ring sparkling with each flicker of candlelight.

“It seemed like the best place to ask you to be my forever,” he said, his eyes glinting as much as the gem in his hand. “I love you, Margot.”

I ran at him, dropped to my knees and ripped the back of my dress, threw my arms around his neck and kissed his face, peppered it with the love I held for him. The love that would never die. That would never fail.

I kissed him, and he took charge, claimed my mouth as he’d done so many times before. We melted into each other, broke for breath.

“Is that a yes?” he asked, against my lips.

I pulled back and held his gaze. “Cain, that’s a forever.”

And it was.