Page 195 of Morally Black Betrothal

Also since you traded away your company for my family’s farm to a dead guy, what are you planning to do?

Are you coming back there with me?

What happens to us now?

It would all be very cool, I know. Which was why I didn’t send even one.

By the evening, however, I was done waiting for updates. The apartment was packed up, my utilities shut down, my lease formally broken. I was leaving tomorrow, whether a certain besuited billionaire was coming with me or not.

There was only one more thing to do.

“Brendan?” I called again as I wandered through the living room and into the kitchen he had built just for me.

There were signs he’d been here today. A suit jacket was slung over the back of the couch in the front living room. In the kitchen, a plate bearing crumbs sat by the sink, and the smell of toasted sourdough—mysourdough, I noted along with the half loaf wrapped in a flour sack and used bread knife on the island—was still evident, if faint.

But no Brendan.

I wandered through the rest of the first floor, checking his office, the guest suites, the gym at the far end. All empty.

When I climbed the stairs to his suite on the second floor, I found his bedroom ajar. For a moment, I hesitated. Was I still welcome here? Was this even my place anymore, even if he did love me?

Had it ever been?

Inside, the room was empty, but the balcony door was wide open, the slight chill from the early summer evening billowing the curtains inward.

I peeked outside. I’d never been on the balcony, and though there was still no Brendan, I did find another set of stairs leading to a rooftop deck. Following my intuition, I climbed them.

And found a garden in the sky.

One might have even called it a nest.

“This man and his aerie,” I murmured as I looked around a rooftop garden that looked like it had been plucked from a landscape magazine. Planters, hardy evergreens, and outdoor furniture provided some shelter from the elements in a place so high and unprotected. The wind whipped around me, but the view made me forget it. All of Boston twinkled below as dusk settled over the city.

And there, at the far end of the deck, I found him.

Brendan stood at the railing with a pair of binoculars, as still as any predator that might naturally track the bird he was undoubtedly watching. He still wore his dress pants and shirt that went with the shed jacket downstairs, though the tie was loosened and the top buttons of his collar were undone. His clothes were plastered against his body by the wind, a gray hoodie was thrown over everything for warmth, and his five o’clock shadow, barely tinged with silver, glowed in the twilight.

In that moment, I saw both the innocent boy he used to be and the ruthless man he was. The CEO and the birdwatcher. The kid from Southie and the urbane Back Bay denizen.

Every part of him was so beautiful, I could hardly breathe.

As if sensing my presence, he lowered the binoculars and turned. For a moment, we just stared at each other across the deck as the wind picked up between us. Then he raised one hand and crooked his fingers.

I went, and the moment I was close enough, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. His lips were cold from the wind, but his mouth was hot and demanding.

It was a thief of a kiss.

I gave it everything I had.

“Sometimes,” he rumbled against my lips, “I forget how much I need you until I see you again.”

Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “You need me?”

I didn’t think Brendan Black needed anything.

“God, yes.” He kissed me again, this time with some bite. “Like the air I breathe, angel.”

Before I could tell him I felt the same, that I’d spent all day aching for him, he turned me so my back was pressed against his chest and I was facing the same view he’d been watching.