Jill Shalvis - The Trouble With Paradise

“Do you hear that?” Brandy asked. They all went still to catch the humming that was getting louder and louder.

“A helicopter?” Cadence shielded her eyes. “A helicopter!”

This was greeted with such excitement that Dorie made herself smile along with the others. Because rescue was good. Great actually, because now she could put her new epiphany to the test.

She was going home to live her life. To design clothes, which had been her dream for a very long time. This trip halfway around the world had given her that, if nothing else.

Yep, any second now she’d feel the joy…

By the time the helicopter had refueled, Christian had gotten word via the radio that the authorities had caught Ethan. He’d run adrift on a ridge of coral and had given up fighting the sails. He willingly surrendered to the authorities and confessed in exchange for rescue.

Denny was hauled off, still trying to get everyone to say that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

He’d be telling it to a judge soon enough, Christian knew.

Then the helicopter was ready to leave. Cadence had decided to go home with only what she wore on her back. She didn’t want her bag, didn’t want anything from the island. “Going home to make a fresh start,” she said, and hugged everyone, even Dorie, though they were traveling together. “Friends forever,” she whispered fiercely, smiling when Dorie repeated it back to her with tears in her voice.

Christian watched them, not surprised at the deep bond that had formed between them. They’d been through a lot in five days.

Andy lifted his bag. “I’m not leaving anything behind. I want to remember.” He hugged everyone, too, and like Cadence, held on to Dorie for just a little bit longer than the rest.

Christian resisted the urge to step in, reminding himself of what he’d always known, that there was just something about Dorie, something different. Special. She pulled back, smiled, and watched Andy get onto the helicopter. Then she looked at Christian.

He was staying to watch over a stubborn Michael for the night, since he refused to go to the hospital.

Which made it good-bye.

“My turn,” Dorie said with false cheer. She hugged Brandy, then carefully did the same for Michael, then turned to join Cadence and Andy on the helicopter.

Christian stood there, poleaxed by a swamping rush of emotions. She was going to walk right out of his life. And since that’s what he’d wanted, there was nothing he could say.

Dorie reached for the hand of the man squatting just inside the helicopter. He wore a headset and was talking into it, but all she could hear was the roar of her heart.

She was leaving.

Then someone tapped her on the shoulder. “What about me?” Christian asked. “No good-bye for me?”

At least that’s what she thought he said. She couldn’t hear him over the chopper, or her own heart. She certainly couldn’t talk. Didn’t he know how hard this was for her? Couldn’t he just let her go, without making her lose it entirely? “Christian-”

“We need a minute,” he said to the pilot, then pulled her aside.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about earlier,” she broke in. She had to say this. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out. I think it was just a remnant from all that adrenaline, from the shipwreck, from being back in a boat, from the gun-”

“When I heard the gun go off,” he started, then closed his mouth. His eyes were shiny with some fierce emotion when he finished. “I didn’t breathe again until I saw you.”

God. The look in his eyes. She really wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, like maybe it would have killed him if it’d been her to get shot.

“It was the longest minute of my fucking life, and then you wouldn’t get on the goddamn radio-”

“I wasn’t pushing the button down-”

“I love you back.”

She just stared at him. “I’m sorry. I think my brain just hiccupped. Could you repeat?”

He let out a rough sound and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, but you’re risking my organ failure, and I don’t think you know CPR-”

“Look, I think I heard you correctly, but I’ve been really wrong about this stuff before, so-”

“I love you.”

She swallowed, her eyes locked on his. “Just to clarify, this has nothing to do with us not using a condom in the shower, right?”

“What?” Brandy shifted closer, sticking her head between them. “Sex without a condom? Are you kids crazy?”

Dorie closed her eyes. “Crazy. That would explain everything.”

Cadence hopped out of the helicopter. “What’s the matter?”

“Well, they had sex without a condom, for starters,” Brandy said.

“Just the once,” Dorie said weakly.

Andy hopped out of the helicopter, too. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey!” The pilot yelled out to them. “We’re on the clock here!”

“Just one minute.” Dorie hadn’t taken her eyes off Christian. She couldn’t.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” he told her in front of everyone. “This can’t-eat-can’t-sleep sort of thing.”

“It could just be indigestion,” Andy said ever so helpfully.

Dorie twisted around and glared at him.

“Just saying,” he muttered.

Christian took Dorie’s hand and stared down at her fingers for a moment, before lifting his head. “I thought I wanted to go back to France, because that’s the last real home I remember. I wanted to go there, work in an urgent care clinic, or the ER, because I figured that’s what would make me happy.”

“I know.” And it would be okay. Somehow, it would be okay. If only she could keep breathing, but she couldn’t seem to do that.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the headset guy tap his watch. She refused to acknowledge him.

“But I realized something,” Christian said. “Home isn’t a place. It’s a who.”

“Aw,” Cadence murmured. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“A who?” Dorie repeated.

“You.” Christian cupped her face. “I never thought I’d feel this way, never wanted to, but I want you with me, Dorie. Smiling that smile, the one that snags my heart every single time. I don’t care if we’re in France, or at the damn Los Angeles Shop-Mart, or this island. The where doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not a damn bit. Not as long as I’m with you.”

They heard a sniff. Cadence was smiling with tears on her cheeks. “That’s beautiful,” she said, and sighed.

“Romantic, too.” This from Brandy. “Especially with that French accent.”

With an apologetic smile, Michael tugged both Cadence and Brandy away, and even though they were still surrounded by people and the damn helicopter, Dorie felt like they were the only two people on earth. “I can design clothes from anywhere,” she said.

“I like the sound of that.” Christian stepped close and hauled her up against him, smiling at the cheers around them but not letting her go. She hoped not ever letting her go…

Six months later,

with all the French chocolate one can eat…

The night sky was city, not island, and therefore the stars weren’t quite as bright as they’d been in the South Pacific, but Dorie didn’t care. Her view from the twentieth-floor balcony-which if she leaned out just right included the Eiffel Tower-was gorgeous.

Next to her, Christian was flipping through the day’s mail, and came across her Vogue. “Mrs. Dorie Anderson Montague.” He lowered the magazine. “I didn’t realize you were going to add my name to yours.”

“That’s what American wives do, take their husband’s name.” She grinned and admitted the rest. “Plus, I married a doctor. My mother would never have forgiven me if I didn’t take your name.”

“So glad to oblige.” His slow, warm, sexy smile was never ever going to stop making her want to jump him. She’d been doing plenty of that this past week, on their honeymoon, which was not on an island, thank you very much, or a boat.

Nope, after a small, intimate wedding with only her family, Cadence, Brandy, Andy, and Michael in attendance, they’d honeymooned right here in Paris, where they were going to buy a place and live, where Christian would do what he’d wanted to do forever, work in an ER, where she could be in the fashion center of the world.

She loved this world, Christian’s, hers… theirs. So much that she had been attempting to learn French-attempting being the key word here.

Tossing the paper aside, Christian leaned back in his chair. He looked so good, all long and toughly muscled, sprawled out without a care.

With a smile, she stood and slipped out of her sweater. Beneath, she wore only a pale lace bra.

“Too warm?” he asked.

“Not exactly.” She began to work the long line of buttons down the front of her skirt.

His brow shot up. “You going to take a bath then?”

“No.” Any second now he was going to realize she was currently commando. “There’s a matter between us, something that was never settled. I don’t like to leave things like that.”

“Is that right?”

She let her skirt slip to the floor before she went still. “Damn, I forgot the music.” Maybe he wouldn’t mind.

His breathing was satisfactorily uneven now, more so when she reached for the hook of her bra, and she thought maybe he didn’t mind at all.

“What do we need music for?”

“The dancing.” She sighed. “I was going to dance for you. Naked.” She pointed to the balcony. “Beneath the stars.”

“Ah, the bet.” With a thrilled grin, he stood up and kicked his chair aside. He was out of his clothes so fast her head spun. “Don’t worry, I don’t need music.” And then he snatched her close, up against that body she knew she’d never get enough of. “All I need is you.”

He looked so damn sexy. And happy. She made him happy. The thought made her heart soar. “Then you’re in luck,” she whispered, holding him fiercely, “because you have me, all of me…”

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