A Tropical Rendezvous: A BWWM Interracial Bad Boy Billionaire Multicultural Romance (African American Romance) (46 page)

Rory fidgeted nervously as she and Jackson sat in the waiting room of Stephen McKnight-Farthing, the estate lawyer currently being paid to withhold her inheritance. “Stop fidgeting Rory, he’s just a lawyer. And why are we here anyway?”

She stopped. “We’re here because we need to know all the stipulations
before
we get married so we don’t unknowingly violate them.” The last thing she wanted was for Jackson to be stuck with her and it didn’t help either of them.

“Mr. McKnight-Farthing will see you now,” said his elderly secretary. She turned and walked down the hall, expecting them to follow.

“This place is like
The Walking Dead
, isn’t it?” Jackson whispered and threw his arm around her as they walked into the mausoleum of an office.

“Shhh,” she elbowed him and took one of the chairs across from the lawyer who sat with pale skin and a depressed gaze. “Mr. McKnight-Farthing, glad to see you again. This is my fiancé Jackson Bennett.” Jacks extended his hand received one limp and sweaty pump of the arm.

“Have a seat,” he said without any emotion and began flipping through pages. “Okay here we are the Lane estate.” He cleared his throat and gave them each a grave look. “In order to collect your inheritance and gain access to your trust fund you must,” he looked down at the papers again, “get married and stay married for a period no shorter than 44 months.”

Rory cut him off, “But that’s almost four years! The note said two years, two freakin’ years!” She flopped back in her seat.

“Yes, if you’ll let me finish Ms. Lane. As I was saying, you must stay married for a period no shorter than 44 months in order to inherit the full estate, which includes the mansion in Rainbow Cove, the bungalow in Aruba and the apartment in Paris, and the entire financial portfolio totaled at about eighty million dollars.” He looked up with a stern look and straightened his tie.

“What? Are you serious, there has to be some mistake. My parents didn’t have that kind of money.” She leaned back completely taken off guard. Her parents had been loaded. Filthy stinking rich and had tied it up in bundles of knots before she could touch it. “Unbelievable.”

Jackson rubbed her back to calm her down. It was a ridiculously large sum of money, it could
would
change Rory’s life. “You okay Rory?”

She shook her head and kept her eyes close to fight the nausea rising up. “Are there any other provisions?”

With a heavy sigh he nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid. If your marriage does not meet the 44 month benchmark you only get the house here in town and $50,000. I am required to check in at least six times each month to ensure you are not only living together but sharing a bedroom for the first six months.”

“What, no provision for heirs,” Jackson joked.

“Actually there is. If an heir is produced at any time during the marriage you will receive an additional $100 million upon the birth of the child, twenty-five of which will go into trust for the child. If no heirs are conceived the money will go to Mr. and Mrs. Lane’s favorite charities.”

“Is that all?” Rory was feeling overwhelmed and despondent all at once. Apparently her parents were wealthier than she’d ever realized and it didn’t matter because she’d never get to see any of it. She couldn’t ask Jackson to give up almost four years of his life and she certainly couldn’t ask for a baby. It was too much, even for a friendship as close as theirs. At Mr. McKnight-Farthing’s grave nod she stood and went in search of a bathroom.  After emptying the contents of her stomach into a very fancy toilet, Rory rinsed, straightened her back and walked out to meet Jackson.

“Hey sweetheart you okay?”

The look of concern in his sky blue eyes confirmed her plans. She couldn’t do this to him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them. He’d be tied up with her for four years and that meant no dates, and she would be with him and wasting her last good baby making years. “I’m fine Jacks, you worry too much.”

He pulled her in for a hug and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’m worried just enough. You were just told you’re about to be a multi-millionaire and your first response was to go puke.” He smiled at her surprised look. “Who knows you better than me?”

“No one of course because you hog me all to yourself,” she stuck her tongue out and let him walk her out of the law office. “What am I gonna do Jacks?”

“We’re going to get married you crazy girl.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against her ear, “And since you’re going to be a proper heiress, I’ll take you up on that pittance you offered me.” He kissed her cheek and laughed.

“What? Jackson, no. We can’t, I mean I can’t let you sacrifice this much for me. It’s too much.” She didn’t want to feel guilty about him putting his dating life on hold for her and she didn’t want to risk turning her crush on her best friend into something more.

“What sacrifice? We spend all of our free time together anyway, now we’ll just do it in a bigger house with a bigger TV. You think you can spring for one of those big ass TVs that don’t really look good in any room?”

She laughed. Jackson had always been able to make her laugh when she didn’t want to. “
If
we do this, yes Jacks, I’ll get you the biggest TV we can find.”

“What’s the
if
here? We’re doing this,” he squeezed her tight. “We are
so
doing this!”

“Jacks,” she waited until his smile disappeared and she had his attention. “Sex. That’s the sacrifice. If you marry me you’ll have to do without sex for almost four years. You heard him, he’ll be checking about twice every week.” She growled in frustration and walked ahead of him. “Stupid dumb man thinks he can go four years without sex when he hasn’t gone a week without it since we were fifteen.”

He yanked her to a stop, “Actually I haven’t had sex in about four months and who said I’d go without? We’ll be having sex. Won’t we?”

“You want to have sex…with me?” He looked down at her with a smile so sexy she’d never seen it before.

He shrugged in that casual way of his. “Sure I do Rory, you’re a bombshell. I just don’t hit on you because you’re my best girl and I don’t want to lose you.”

She took in a deep breath that was part sea water and part Jackson. His words left an odd heat sparking off her body and a strange pinching in her chest. She released an unconscious shudder when his soft lips touched her forehead again. “You don’t have to say that Jacks. It’s okay.”

“Are you kidding? It’ll be magical between us. Just you wait.”

~

Just you wait. Magical between us.
Jackson’s words played over and over in her head a few days later when they stood before a Justice of the Peace to get married. She stood in a strapless cream dress with a fitted bodice and it flared out from the waist with several layers of tulle underneath. She wore comfortable cream kitten heels with a white tulip stuck in her curls. And Jackson, he looked absolutely swoon worthy in a dark blue suit that turned his eyes a dark sapphire and a white shirt that showed off the dark curls swirling on his chest.

It should be illegal for someone to look so good, especially when that someone is your best friend and the only family you have. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as the Justice spoke and prompted them for an ‘I do’ ever so often. She imagined his hands gliding over her curves, his deep breaths washing over her body moments before his lips touched her somewhere, anywhere. Her body was already humming with desire and she wasn’t even married yet.

This is not going to end well
, she thought before releasing a breathless “I do.” He gave her the panty dropper before his own ‘I do’ and her knees buckled.

Jacks caught her arms and pulled her flush against him, “No need to be so eager sweetheart, we’ll get to the wedding night soon enough,” he joked. She wanted to smack him but figured it could wait until they were officially married.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

Their eyes were locked for an endless minute, both darkening with desire they’d never spoken of or allowed themselves to give in to. Their hands were still locked, her small butterscotch hands in his bronze ones, both fingers winking with Rory Lane originals. Rory took a step forward and Jackson did the same. Her hands wandered to his chest and she might have taken a minute to feel his bunching muscles before fisting the fabric and leaning into him.

Jackson pulled her in by the waist and slowly lowered his head until their lips touched. It was instant insanity but he’d signed up for it and dammit he was going to enjoy it. He licked at her lips until she opened for him and when their tongues touched, sweet hell it was like someone a set fire to his body. He tilted her head back to deepen the kiss and claimed her mouth until she moaned under him and his hands wandered south and grabbed onto her luscious rounded bottom.

“Ahem,” a voice uttered several times before it sank in that they were in the Rainbow Cove courthouse. “Happy to see young love kids, but I have another ceremony.”

Rory blushed and took the nearest seat, sure her legs would give out if Jackson wasn’t there to hold her up. “Sorry about that, sir. I guess we got carried away.” She hoped to get carried away again and again if just a kiss from her best friend put her on the verge of an orgasm.

“No worries dear. That’s the best way to start a marriage, by getting carried away.”

They signed the marriage license and exited the courthouse. “Come here wife,” Jackson pulled her in for a long hug and planted a kiss in her coppery curls. “Let’s get some food, I’m starving.”

“You’re always hungry. Being married to you I’m going to go bankrupt with that bottomless pit you call a stomach.”

“It’s a good thing you can afford it sweetheart.” He patted his stomach just as a loud growl sounded. “While we forage for sustenance tell me, what have you got planned for our wedding night.” He winked and she laughed, and ignored the moisture pooling in her sexy panties that matched his eyes.

~

Rory set foot in the house she’d grown up in for the first time in years. It was darker than she remembered with a lot of bulky furniture that she thought would end up at the nearest charity shop. Everything was covered in a layer of dust and the idea of cleaning this gigantic old house made her want to curl up under the covers. “We’re definitely hiring a cleaning service to take care of this,” she swiped a finger through the dust.

Jackson walked in behind her and dropped a few boxes near the door and dropped his hands on her shoulders. “Why don’t you call around now so your allergies aren’t going crazy for a week? I’ll get the boxes from the truck.”

They rented a truck to move his apartment and hers into the house. It didn’t make sense for him to keep his apartment for four years because as she’d told him, he was always welcome to stay at her house.
Forever
. And the house was now hers outright as of a few hours ago so she’d left the secondhand furniture and grabbed everything else for her new home. “I’ll do that, but first we need to check the Wi-Fi.” It was supposed to be set up already and once her phone told her it was, she called around. “Jacks! We have a service coming in two hours so we need to do a tour of the place.”

It took an hour to go through every room and figure out what was a priority and what could wait. “Do we have a master bedroom picked out yet?”

She spun when his words sounded so close to her ear and their lips were practically touching. “Oh,” she gasped her hazel eyes wide and sparkling, quickly going dark amber with desire.

A groan sounded deep in his throat and he cupped the back of her head. “I have to,” he rasped out and took, no
claimed
her mouth with all the desire he’d denied for years and especially this past week. When she sank into his kiss, into his embrace Jackson felt like puffing his chest out and pounding on it. Her soft cries and moans were making him hard and he didn’t want their first time to be in a dusty old room. “God Rory, what you do to me!”

Eyes squeezed tight and visibly trying to slow down her hammering heart, Rory finally opened her eyes. “I could say the same thing to you Jacks,” she shook her head and patted his chest. “Come on I have the perfect room for us.”

Us
. He smiled, loving the sound of that. If Jack was being honest with himself he could admit he’d been carrying a secret torch for his best friend since about the age of fifteen when she’d filled out overnight. All of a sudden his good buddy Ro had turned into a stunning creature with breasts, long eyelashes, glossy lips and a plump ass that taught him the healing powers of a cold shower. He’d never wanted to ruin their friendship for a short lived relationship but he couldn’t let her marry some douchebag who would take advantage of her and break her heart. And finally getting to make love to that delectable body? Well that was just a bonus.

They walked down the long hall, passing about a dozen doors before she stopped at the last door. There were dark cherry double doors and when she slid them open dramatically it was nothing but sunlight. Nearly one entire wall was covered by a window with dozens of small panes, giving the room a soft golden glow. “I thought we could put the bed over here and put a few chairs in front of the window,” she explained how she saw their marital bedroom and Jacks listened with a smile. Her skin flushed an appealing peach color when she was excited and right now she was thrilled.