Earl Power: A Modern Aristocracy Billionaire Romance (Endowed Book 2) Read online

  I just need to convince Mara to share it with me.

  ◊◊◊

  I arrive back at the castle at 6:45 a.m., in pitch blackness and freezing fog. Getting out of London was, of course, a nightmare. I unlock the main door and slip inside as quietly as possible, knowing which creaky floorboards to avoid.

  First person I see is Mother, who’s startled—but not surprised—to see me as she turns into the kitchen, perfectly dressed in her tan Chanel two-piece, her dark blonde hair with its sporadic grey streaks coiffed to perfection.

  By her resigned sigh, it’s clear she knows.

  “So, it’s happened,” she says with stiff resignation.

  “Yes, twin girls.”

  That gets a raised eyebrow. “Are you happy?”

  “Yes. And I don’t care that nobody else cares. Why should you? But don’t expect me to go around pretending they—or Orla and Rachel—don’t exist.”

  “Oh.”

  I press on. “I wanted to give them respectability and a big house, and yes, at times I flirted with the idea of an aristocratic title—something you yourself encouraged—but all they need from me is my presence, my devotion, and a little guidance on settling into the community. They never asked for anything else.”

  “Well, she doesn’t deserve it,” Mother snaps.

  The impasse is not going to get fixed in one conversation, that’s for sure. But I have to say my piece. “Mother, I know you’re the deserving one. I know what you did for me in the name of love, but my time has come to embrace all of who I am, and that extends into the next generation.”

  She’s shaking her head. “I’m finding this very hard to swallow.” Her voice is cracking at the edges, something that rarely happens.

  I know it’s a bitter truth for her. But I can’t sit around holding her hand. I have something to do now that’s even more important.

  30

  MARA

  I’M DOWN AT THE building site rubbing my hands together wishing I’d brought gloves. Unable to sleep, eat breakfast, or make polite conversation with anyone, I came here at the first light of dawn, which in Britain in November doesn’t happen until 8:32, according to my phone’s weather app. It’s misty and bloody freezing, and I’m having second thoughts about my own sanity, but I really wanted to see this mess for myself. At nine, I can ask George to take me to London again.

  Seb hasn’t called all night, which is weird. I reckon there’s been a complication or he’s been up all night, or… no, I just don’t want to know about any other alternative. All I’m really sure of is that I’m so pissed off with everyone’s reaction around here that I needed to get outside.

  The weak November sun, glowing faintly red, seems barely capable of rising above the horizon, but it throws a flattering light on the Millhouse. But as I approach the gate and peer through, it’s more than just a trick of the light—it really does look much better than I’d imagined. The proportions are as they should be. Through the scaffolding, there’s no dreaded additional floor looming over the grounds, blocking the natural light.

  My footsteps quicken as I push open the squeaky gate and race around to the back. Okay, there are some pretty ugly connecting corridors under construction here, but at least their shapes and the materials blend in, reaching the perfect compromise between the customer’s orders and the natural constraints of the environment.

  I strike up a conversation with an engineer who’s standing there, holding a roll of cabling.

  “Darn sight better than the last plans,” he says. “It was like bleeding Balmoral Castle before. Delusions of grandeur, I’ll dare say. Now we’ve got a bit of balance, at least, and we may even be done by the Christmas deadline.”

  “Who’s the architect?”

  “Ah, we got these plans from some reclusive American architect, but he’s good. Has a good eye,” the engineer says, looking up towards the roof.

  A deep male voice behind us says, “A very good eye. Two very good eyes, in fact.”

  I swing around and squeal at the sight of Seb, standing there, disheveled, unshaven, and looking absolutely gorgeous in the freezing mist.

  “You’re back,” I gasp.

  Meriadoc leaps up against my legs. Seb tugs him back.

  “Here.” He hands the leash to the builder who takes it without question.

  Seb grabs my elbow and guides me into the house. First, he kisses me. Hard. Against a wall. Then softer.

  “I have so much to tell you, but let me start by saying I love you,” he says, breathless. “Don’t ever leave me again. But if you do, let me be in your life somehow. I can deal with distance, with sacrifice, but I have to know where your heart is.”

  I’m speechless with my powerful love for this man, but force myself to get the words out. “It’s here with you," I say firmly. "I can’t deal with the distance either. It nearly drove me crazy, being apart from you—the one person who really sees me, who really knows me. I’ve been clinging on to excuses, I know, I know, and I'm so sorry about that. Because when I actually sat down and thought over it, well, there’s no real reason I can’t continue my final year here. It’s mostly dissertation and project work. I only have to be physically present on three separate occasions. I could manage that from here.”

  The way his dark eyes glow makes me want to clamber up the scaffolding and sing Joy to the World, or something equally over the top.

  “But what about your job? Mike?” he asks. “All your plans?”

  “Never mind Mike, he’s on board. And my plans? There’s plenty more where they came from. My plan right now?" I move in closer to him. "I want to live, to stop being invisible. I want to love. And that can only ever be you. I love you, too, Seb. If you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

  He's deathly still for a moment. Then he cocks his head. “Well, there may not be room, now that you’ve forced me to downsize.”

  “You’re asking for trouble,” I say.

  “No.” He grasps my lapels and tugs me up tight against his hard, pulsating body. “I’m asking for this.”

  And suddenly, the chilly room gets a whole lot hotter.

  EPILOGUE

  (SEVEN MONTHS LATER)

  MARA

  “You were right—it did take longer than expected,” Seb says as we walk up the path to the Millhouse together. He slips his arm around my waist. “But it was worth the wait.”

  I have to agree. With the ugly scaffolding finally gone and the cement mixers off of the lawn, the house is nestled beautifully among thick summer foliage in every shade of green. The product of our hard work and planning stands before us in all its Tudor-Georgian glory, with a splash of modernism on the side. With its gleaming slate roof and rows of brightly painted window frames, it’s even better than the computer graphics version I drew up when I first came to England. And now that the interior decorators are finished, the inside is just as beautiful.

  We chose today as the official moving in day for us, Rachel, Orla, and the two girls. Seb and I have come here earlier than the others to set up some glasses of champagne.

  Rachel and Orla had been staying near the hospital in London but now that both babies have been declared healthy and discharged, they’re looking forward to the relaxation of country living—or as relaxed as life with twin babies can be.

  It’s been a rough time, with everyone constantly worried that the premature twins might succumb to illness or infection. But now they’re as healthy as any full-term babies, and as cute as pie. Watching Seb play with his little nieces—so gently, so spellbound—tugs at my heart every single time. He was the one who came up with their names, Freda and Rosie. I still haven’t broken it to Orla that her daughters are actually named after hobbits.

  “Do you have the key?” I say, holding out my hand.

  “Door’s open.”

  I glance at him curiously. “How come?”

  “I got here earlier.”

  I open the front door to the invigorating smells of fresh plaster and paint. Cutti
ng across the gleaming new terracotta tiles is a long red mat leading over to the stairs. It definitely wasn’t there yesterday.

  “Huh? Did you ask the decorators for a red mat?”

  He shakes his head.

  “It’s very long. I’m not sure it suits…” My eyes trail to the end of the mat, but it doesn’t seem to stop. It continues up the main stairwell and all the way up the stairs, winding its way to the landing and beyond. “What the hell?”

  I march up the stairs to see how far this carpet leads, because I now realize it’s a carpet, not a mat.

  “Did we invite Her Majesty over for this or something?” I mumble, opening the door of the main dining room—my favorite room—which is where the carpet seems to be leading.

  The carpet ends at the twenty-foot varnished oak table that stands proudly in the dead center of the all-wooden room. And in the dead center of the table, there’s a silver dish with a domed lid—the type which, in the cartoons, always seems to be concealing a bundle of lit dynamite.

  I whirl around to see Seb leaning against the doorframe, silently watching, as if none of this is in the least surprising.

  “What the hell, Seb?”

  He cocks his head back, as if to say ‘keep going.’

  I reach over and lift the lid gingerly. In the center of the plate, there’s a small box—a jewelry box.

  I gasp. A thought is dawning.

  Seb’s right up beside me, a glow in his eyes, his breathing faster than normal. And it’s then that I know.

  “Well, holy…”

  He goes down on bended knee. “Mara Myers, my beloved, my American queen, will you be my wife and stay with me forever?”

  His pleading eyes cut straight through to my heart. I see a deep vulnerability there, even now, but I also see his blazing love. Love that’s grown every day since I’ve known him. Love that I can rely on. Love that understands me and empowers me.

  I stare at him. I stare at the ring. And I’m speechless.

  “Come on, say something,” he growls after what must be a minute of me staring blankly at the oval-shaped diamond set in pink gold, my mouth making random jerking movements. I’m not a jewelry person, but this ring I can imagine on my finger. What’s harder to imagine is that any of this is real.

  “Yes. Yes!” I finally shriek, pulling at him so he’ll stand up. I set the box down on the table and grab his shirt collar. I want that kiss.

  He tugs me into him, his hands smoothing over my chin and my neck then planting his mouth hard and possessively onto mine. Our tongues dance together in delirious happiness as thoughts of our future crowd my brain.

  “I love you,” he says, pulling away, grasping my head between his palms. “I don’t want to come over all possessive and old-fashioned, but you’ve no idea what this means to me.”

  “I can guess,” I say, smiling. “Because I love you too. And sometimes even cynics like me get their happy ending.” I gesture at our beautiful surroundings, which with soon be bustling with life and happiness. I still can’t believe this is happening.

  “We still have thirty minutes before they arrive,” he says in a low voice close to my ear.

  I nibble at his neck and smooth my fingers down his pecs. “You got something else to show me, Earl Power?”

  “I do.” He’s unbuttoning my blouse, slowly, deliberately, from the top down, his gaze steady on my face as his fingers graze my skin with delicious strokes. “It’s magical, just like you,” he says solemnly. “You’re going to love it. But here’s the thing—it doesn’t work so well with clothes on.”

  Want to know how the Endowed saga continues?

  I know what you’re thinking. WTF happened between Ken and Liv?

  What indeed? With Seb out of the way, everything had been going well for the youngest Belgrave brother, Ken and the spirited heiress, Liv. One moment they were happy and laughing, betting on horses, the next moment they weren’t.

  What exactly happened at the end of the summer to make the golden, fun-loving couple break up? Did Ken’s gambling habit cause a rift? Or was it Liv’s youth and love of parties that led her astray?

  The answer will shock you: Liv went and married someone else. Someone awful. Lord Peter Maxwell—we met him (briefly) in the first book.

  Ken’s completely devastated. He’ll never date again. They used to call him Viscount. Now they’re calling him Picky Viscount because no woman’s ever going to be good enough for him.

  Except one. The one who’s not available.

  Does the youngest Belgrave brother ever find love? Find out how the saga continues in ENDOWED#3, PICKY VISCOUNT.

  If you're interested in the "Endowed" saga or in other books I'm working on and want to know more about the characters, the storylines, the writing process or even the author Sign up to my email list now.

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  As long as people are reading and loving my books, I'll keep writing them. And don't forget if you want to know how the story continues, check out the third book in the "Endowed" series: Picky Viscount. It's hot, with a somewhat complex hero and with all the fun and pomp and characters of the first two books!

  Thanks for reading and following. I'm just trying to make my way in the jungle, and readers like you mean everything to me. Many of you have contacted me personally, reminding me of the reason I'm writing in the first place—to connect to other human beings! Thanks for being supportive and for being human.

  Sara x