On instinct, I pressed my lips to one cheek just as a tear fell, wetting my lips with her salty tears. I tasted her emotion, then kissed the other cheek before pressing my forehead to hers.
“Together,” I reiterated.
We stood there, forehead to forehead, two strangers who were about to enter into the most intimate of partnerships without any knowledge of the other. Despite the niggling chemistry that wove around our forms like a warm blanket.
“I like that idea,” she whispered, her minty breath fanning against my lips.
“Me too, elskede.” I brazenly tunneled my fingers into her long red locks, feeling the silky tendrils as the endearment “beloved one” slipped from my lips and rolled through us both in reassuring waves.
I’d never called a woman my beloved before, but right then, it felt appropriate.
I moved my hands from her hair and brought them around her body, pulling her into a sudden hug. She fit perfectly. Her ear naturally settled directly over my pounding heart.
I closed my eyes as I filled with emotions that I didn’t recognize. Things I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Excitement. Anticipation. Contentment.
Nothing in my life had felt more right, more real, than this moment.
“I think I’m going to like holding you within my arms for the foreseeable future,” I admitted in a husky whisper against the crown of her fiery hair.
She hugged me back. “I think I could get used to this too,” she said, and then her body went stiff in my arms, as though she had admitted something she didn’t want to.
I let her go and held out my hand. “Shall we?”
“Where are we going?” She placed her hand within mine.
I smiled widely. I had nowhere I needed to be. My best friend, Jack, was at the helm of my empire and running things as smoothly as ever. I trusted him implicitly. Not that it mattered, because nothing could tear me away from this woman and stop me from finding out everything there was to know about her.
Which was when the idea hit. A place a girl from Montana would love, that I loved in return.
“First stop, home. Oslo, Norway.”
Episode 17
Faith’s Contract
JOEL
Once the auction was over, an attendant ushered me out of the auditorium and down a long hallway. He was reiterating everything I already knew. I had come to the auction at the urging of Nile and Noah Pennington. The twins were constantly dragging me to strange events, concerts, and into new business ventures, especially after I lost Alexandra. I believed it was their way to keep me engaged in life outside of work and my daughter.
When they signed on to participate in the auction, I knew they were doing it because of their family inheritance. I found the stipulation incredibly humorous. Watching two brothers who genuinely loved and cared for one another try to outdo one another in order to earn a tiny additional share of their family inheritance was a show I didn’t want to miss. They had me submit my information to Madam Alana “in the event” I got a wild hair and wanted to participate in the auction.
When I happened to be coming to visit Las Vegas at the same time the auction was being held, I had zero intention of bidding on a woman. Until Faith stepped on that stage. And then I knew, with my entire being, that my Alexandra had sent her to me. There was no other possible reason I could feel so strongly about a woman, a stranger, upon sight alone, unless something cosmic and otherworldly was occurring. My Alexandra had believed wholeheartedly in destiny, fate, déjà vu, astrology, moon signs, and all the hocus pocus that went with it. I’d humored her over the years, but after losing her, I’d prayed each night for a sign from my beloved. A sign of what I was supposed to do. How I should take care of Penny’s emotional needs, as well as her physical and developmental ones.
Today, I got that sign when I looked into the eyes of the woman who would become my second wife.
My daughter was only a year old when her mother died. Penny didn’t remember her, even though my mother and I both shared stories and tidbits about Alexandra to keep her alive in our home. And yet, it was not the same as having a living, breathing woman in her life to love her more than anything the way Alexandra had doted on our girl. Even as a brand-new mother she’d been devoted to Penelope. And then she became sick and wasted away before our eyes.
Fuck cancer.
One memory I would never forget of my late wife was our first date. A blind date, in fact. From that date on, we had five short but life-changing years together before she got sick. However, from the very beginning she’d always said she knew I’d be hers from our very first kiss. She’d said a single kiss can tell you everything you need to know about a person. And that didn’t change in our day-to-day life; it only grew more profound with time. With every press of our lips to one another’s, we could feel exactly where the other stood. As if our most genuine emotions were being transferred to the other through the simplest of physical acts.