When the man emerged barely a minute later, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. As he was making his way back, Dawson’s Aston Martin pulled into the driveway. Dawson got out of the car and met the man in the backyard. They talked briefly before finishing their way into the house.
As soon as Dawson was in the room, the trembling in my body became multi-faceted. Fear and desire all wrapped together. His eyes found mine the instant he walked in. He didn’t stop until he had his arms around me, squeezing me to his chest as if I’d already been injured.
“Thank God you’re all safe,” he breathed into my hair. My arms wrapped around him, and I hugged him back.
“Congratulations, Dawson,” I said, and my voice cracked.
He’d just loosened his hold slightly when Jada joined us, hugging us both. “I knew you’d win,” she said.
Dawson laughed softly. “It’s pretty incredible.”
Jada and I stepped away from him as the other men in the room packed their equipment into briefcases.
“Nolan.” Dawson shook the man’s hand. “Thanks for sticking around.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Malone wants me here until we close the deal.”
I thought Dawson might protest, but then he looked at Jada and me and just gave a curt nod. “Sounds like a plan.”
Dawson’s phone rang, and I caught a glance of a picture of Leena before he answered it. We could all hear the “Congratulations!” that was screamed at him from the other end. Dawson’s face lit up in a soft smile.
“Thanks,” he said. He listened, put his hand over the mic, and said, “They want me to put it on speaker. You good?”
I nodded.
“Are you taking Dawson to the Crab Shack to celebrate, Violet?” Mandy asked.
I felt like an awful human being. I’d done nothing to help him celebrate this momentous occasion. Sure, there was the party the next day, but that was Jada’s doing. I hadn’t done one thing. Mandy was right. We needed to go to the Shack. We’d celebrated every big occasion there for as long as I’d lived with them.
“The Crab Shack, yes!” I said with a smile.
“What else are you doing to celebrate?” Leena asked.
Dawson’s eyes caught mine, sliding down to my lips and then back up, and even though the room was scattered with other human beings, my body still reacted to that glance. A celebration. I was all for celebrating with lips and bodies tangled.
A smile hit my face for the first time since Jada had all but yanked me out of the garage that morning.
“Well…Jada is throwing us a huge party tomorrow night,” Dawson said, voice gruff.
“Hi, Leena. Hi, Mandy,” Jada said into the phone.
“Oh, Jada! Hello, honey,” Leena greeted back.
“We wish you were here,” I said, but in truth, I think everyone was glad they weren’t. If they’d been involved in all of this, it would have been heartbreaking.
“We wish we were too,” Mandy responded.
“You’d love the party Jada is organizing,” I said. “It’sGreat-Gatsby-themed.”
“Ooh, that does sound like fun!” Mandy, the book lover, said wistfully.
They talked for a few more minutes before hanging up.
“We do need to go to The Crab Shack,” I told Dawson with a smile. “They’re right. We can’t pass up a celebration without it, but I can bring the food back here if you’re too tired.”
He did look tired—dark shadows under his eyes, a paleness to his otherwise tan skin, and his beard, which was well past the stubble mark, only added to the raggedness of his appearance. I was sure the number of hours he’d slept since Monday was in the single digits.
“I’ll go with you, but I’m all for bringing it back here,” he said.
