EPILOGUE
It hadn’t been easy for so many Sullivans to carve time out of their busy schedules to travel to New York for William’s birthday party, but they’d all found a way to make it happen. Everyone’s return to Cordelia’s garden only a week later should have been impossible, but Alec’s wedding was an event so epic that no one would have dreamed of missing it.
“The harder they resist,” Cassie said so that only Harry could hear, “the harder they fall.”
Harry couldn’t deny his cousin’s assessment. Alec was standing in front of the rose arbor, waiting for Cordelia to walk down the aisle, looking happier—and more in love—than Harry could ever have hoped for.
“They were meant to be together,” he said to Cassie. “Cordelia is Alec’s perfect match.”
Everyone stood as “The Wedding March” began and Cordelia appeared on her father’s arm in the garden looking radiant in a flowing, pale yellow gown, carrying a bouquet of pink cosmos, with an enormous smile on her face. No bride had ever looked more certain about the man she was marrying, and no groom had ever looked so grateful that she was his. As a bonus, last night at their rehearsal dinner, they’d told everyone that they would now be working together on the new restaurant at Langley Garden Center.
Cordelia was only two-thirds of the way up the aisle when Alec headed down to grab her and kiss her as though he’d wouldn’t survive if he didn’t have her in his arms that very second. The crowd whistled and clapped with obvious approval.
When Alec finally let her go, Cordelia’s smile was even bigger than it had been walking down the aisle. Clasping each other’s hands, they made their way to their spot in front of Harry’s father. Walter, still grinning, kissed his daughter and took his seat in the front row beside his wife.
“Family, friends,” William began, “we’re gathered here today to celebrate the love between two very special people. Cordelia Langley is the woman every father dreams of for a daughter-in-law. And Alec…” Harry’s father looked too choked up to speak for a moment. “You’ll never know how much I respect you, son. How much I cherish you. How much I love you.”
Alec reached out to put his hand on his father’s shoulder and William’s shook slightly as he covered it, holding on for a long moment. Alec had shared with Harry, Suzanne, and Drake some of his discussion with their father in the hospital room, enough for Harry to know that major bridges had been built—and were getting stronger every day.
William cleared his throat. “Cordelia and Alec have prepared their vows. Please,” he said, “whenever you’re ready.” He took the flowers from Cordelia, then moved a step back to give them the full spotlight.
Cordelia turned to face Alec, putting both of her hands in his. “The day we met,” she said in a clear and steady voice, “the last thing on my mind was love. I felt lost and confused, hurt and angry. But every moment—every single day and every night—you were kind. Sweet. Helpful. Caring. The knight in shining armor I swore I didn’t want, one I was convinced my birth father had foisted on me against my will. But it turns out Gordon Whitley was a very wise man, because he must have known all along that I couldn’t live without you and that we belonged together.” She moved closer so that she could hold Alec’s hands against her heart. “All my life, I’ve waited patiently for things to grow. But my love for you bloomed in an instant…and I know it will keep growing bigger and bigger forever.”
All around Harry, people were sniffling. He was more than a little choked up himself, although what really got him was realizing that his father was crying tears of joy. For so long, all of them had wanted the dark clouds around Alec to disappear. Thankfully, just as Cordelia had said in her vows, Gordon must have known she would be able to reach him in a way that no one else could have.
“You say I’m your knight in shining armor,” Alec said in a deep voice that brimmed with emotion, “but don’t you know? You’re my knight in shining armor, Cordelia. You’re the only woman in the world who could have reached in and touched my heart. You’re the only woman who has ever made my palms sweat, my heart race. Every time I look at you—every time I so much as think about you—I can’t keep from smiling. I want to thank your parents—Amy, Walter, and Gordon too—for trusting me with your life. With your happiness. And you most of all, Cordelia, for seeing something in me that I wasn’t able to see in myself until you loved me. I’ll forever be amazed that you believe I’m worthy of you. I swear I’m going to prove to you every single day for the rest of our lives that you chose the right man to love.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as William stepped forward. “It is the greatest honor of my life to pronounce you husband and wife. Alec, Cordelia, you may now seal your vows with a kiss.”
The way they looked at each other as they moved into each other’s arms was so intimate that Harry almost felt as though he were intruding by watching. And when Alec lowered his mouth to Cordelia’s, Harry knew their kiss was as much a vow of forever as the words they had spoken.
Everyone was on their feet applauding as Cordelia and Alec made their way back down the aisle. Baskets of flower petals had been placed at the end of each row, and the very happy couple laughed as the fragrant, colorful petals rained down upon them.
“Do you really think that?” Cassie asked Harry as they headed over to congratulate the happy couple.
“Think what?”
“What you said before they said their vows—that everyone has a perfect match?”
A picture instantly came to Harry’s mind. One he shook away. This was a day to celebrate, not to get lost in thoughts about the past.
“Sure, don’t you?”
“The way my luck in love has gone,” Cassie said, “I’m honestly not sure anymore.”
Harry put his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe we can fix that today,” he suggested. “Any wedding guests catch your eye?”
“One happy ending at a time, Harry. And given the way this family does things,” she said as she grabbed two champagne glasses from a passing waiter and handed him one, “we all know yours is next.”
Before he could reply, she clinked her glass against his, then headed off to congratulate the bride and groom. Leaving Harry thinking about happy endings…and whether Cassie was right and his actually was next.
Anything was possible, he supposed. After all, Alec and Cordelia had just proved that in spades. From across the garden, he raised his glass to the happy couple in a silent toast to true love prevailing yet again.
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I hope you loved reading Alec and Cordelia’s romance as much as I loved writing it! Please be sure to () so that I can let you know the release dates for all upcoming books, including Harry Sullivan’s book.
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Please also enjoy the following excerpt from the first San Francisco Sullivan book,
Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet country road straight into a ditch, she’s convinced even the gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is he?
As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he’s home in San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is—until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa Valley. Not only has Chase never met anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes Chloe has much bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, Chase is willing to move mountains to love—and protect—her, but will Chloe let him?
Enjoy the following excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE…
Chase almost missed the flickering light off on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about driving safely in inclement weather—stayed home.
Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.
He turned his brights on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him, and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in his headlights.
Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try to help her. She was shivering as she watched him approach.
“Are you hurt?”
She covered her cheek with one hand, but shook her head. “No.”
He had to move closer to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.
Something inside of Chase’s chest clenched tight.
Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact that looking like a drowned rat wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty stunned him.
In an instant, his photographer’s eye cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush curves well. In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.
It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, “My car is definitely hurt, though,” that he realized he had completely lost the thread of what he’d come out here to do.
Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he’d been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like his brother Zach, who owned an auto shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn’t half-smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her bald tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.
If her car had been in a less precarious situation, he probably would have sent her to hang out in her car while he took care of getting it unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of the ditch.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck.” He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.
But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.
“I’m not getting into your car.”
Realizing just how frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.
“I’m not going to attack you. I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
She all but flinched at the word attack, and Chase’s radar started buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years meant he could always tell when something was up.
And something was definitely up with this woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his hands up. “I swear on my father’s grave, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay to get into my car.” When she didn’t immediately say no again, he pressed his advantage with, “I just want to help you.” And he did. More than it made sense to want to help a stranger. “Please,” he said. “Let me help you.”
She stared at him for a long moment, hail hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself holding his breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn’t matter to him what she decided.
But, for some strange reason, it did.
…Excerpt from THE LOOK OF LOVE by Bella Andre © 2015
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Please enjoy the following excerpt from (Rafe Sullivan’s story), the first Seattle Sullivan book…
As a very successful private investigator who has caught most of the cheaters in Seattle with their pants down, Rafe Sullivan believes true, lasting love only happens once in a blue moon. Needing to get away from the city to clear his head, he finds the lake house where he spent the best summers of his life is now a wreck…but the sweet girl next door is all grown up and prettier than anything he’s ever seen.
While Brooke Jansen is happy making and selling chocolate truffles in her small Pacific Northwest lake town, she secretly longs to experience something wild. So when her favorite “Wild Sullivan” moves in again next door after more than a decade away, and sparks fly between them, she can’t stop wondering if being bad is really as good as it always seemed…and just how long it will be before she can find out.
But when their summer fling quickly spirals into deeper emotions than either of them were expecting, can they survive the heat between them? Or will Rafe make the biggest mistake of his life and end up losing the best thing that’s ever happened to him?
Enjoy the following excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT…
A lone man had just ridden up on his motorcycle, the ends of his dark hair whipping out from beneath his helmet.
Now that, thought Brooke with immediate female appreciation, is what wild and free looks like.
Her parents had taught her it wasn’t polite to stare, but she couldn’t remember why that admonition mattered as she watched the man pull off his helmet and run a large hand through his hair. She couldn’t see his face yet, but she didn’t need to see his features to know just how good-looking he was. His shoulders were incredibly broad, and even from a distance she could see how big—and how capable—his hands were where he gripped the handlebars.
She was so busy reeling from a blast of pure lust for the stranger as he stepped away from his motorcycle that it took her a moment longer than it should have to realize that he wasn’t a stranger after all.
“Rafe?” His name came out as little more than a stunned whisper. “Is that really you?”
Her question was loud enough that he finally turned to face her. Only, instead of responding, he didn’t say a word, didn’t even move.
All he did was stare, but it was okay, because she was busy staring right back.
People often said memories made things sweeter than they actually were. But Brooke now knew that wasn’t true at all. Not only had she not embellished how good-looking Rafe Sullivan was over the years that they’d been apart but, if anything, her recollections had sorely underplayed just how gorgeous he truly was.
His hair was dark and just a little too long, his skin was tanned, his jaw was dark with stubble, and he was so big and tall that she knew she’d have to stand on her tippy-toes and wrap her arms around his neck to kiss him.
The thought of doing something like that had her body instantly going warm all over despite the cool breeze. She’d been little more than a baby the first time she remembered setting eyes on Rafe, but even then, he’d stood out from the rest of his siblings as more fun. More daring. And infinitely more beautiful.
When he still didn’t say anything, she took a step in his direction. “It’s me, Rafe. Brooke Jansen. Remember?”
Finally, the intensity of his dark gaze shifted into one of recognition. “Little Brooke,” he said in a low voice that rippled over her, “how could I forget you?”
She had spent far too many years squashing her wild impulses. But following a wild impulse wasn’t what sent her straight into the arms of her favorite Sullivan without a second thought. It was pure happiness at finally seeing him again.
He caught her against his chest as she hugged him tight. He smelled so good, and the bare patch of skin above his T-shirt was so warm despite the cool evening air that she couldn’t resist burying her face against him. As she held on tight, she felt safer than she had in years. She’d lost too many of her favorite people from childhood, and was infinitely grateful to be given the precious gift of one of them back in her life.
She might have held on to him like that forever if it hadn’t been for her sudden realization of just how good his hard, heated muscles felt against her cold, wet, nearly bare skin.
The little girl inside her had thrown herself into his arms…but it was the woman she’d become who wanted to move even closer.
When she was eight years old, the crush she’d had on Rafe was sweet. Innocent. But what she was feeling now was decidedly not sweet.
Nor was it anywhere close to innocent.
Wild. The thought—no, it was more desire and pure need than it was a cognizant thought—came at her in an instant: I want to be wild with Rafe Sullivan.
…Excerpt from THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT by Bella Andre © 2016
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The following books in Bella Andre’s New York Times & USA Today bestselling series about The Sullivans are out now!
(Chase & Chloe)
(Marcus & Nicola)
(Gabe & Megan)
(Sophie & Jake)
(Zach & Heather)
(Ryan & Vicki)
(Smith & Valentina)
(Lori & Grayson)
(Mary & Jack Sullivan)
(A novella guest starring Mia Sullivan and Rafe Sullivan)
(Rafe & Brooke, The Seattle Sullivans)
(Mia & Ford, The Seattle Sullivans)
(Ian & Tatiana, The Seattle Sullivans)
(Dylan’s story, The Seattle Sullivans)
(Adam & Kerry, The Seattle Sullivans)
(Drake & Rosa, The New York Sullivans)
(Suzanne & Roman, The New York Sullivans)
(Smith & Valentina’s Honeymoon Novella)
(New York Sullivans spinoff, Summer Lake #1)
(New York Sullivans spinoff, Summer Lake #2)
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