Imperfect Match (Elixir Bachelor Billionaires #1)

“Don’t worry, Charles. I showed her she’s way off base. If me gulping down six champagne glasses in a row isn’t enough to prove her wrong, I don’t know what else is.” Daisy winks at me lazily, her eyelids drooping.

She looks so breathtakingly beautiful that I can’t tear my gaze away from her.

“You can gawk at your wife at home, Charles. For now, please leave. If you stay another minute, I guarantee she’ll either pass out or get sick.”

“Daisy, we’re home.” I gently shake her shoulders as she lies sprawled over me in the back seat of my Porsche. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“Which one?” She slowly opens her eyes, her chin resting on my chest.

But my heart lurches at her question.

Why would she ask that?

Except for one night, she’s never slept anywhere else but in my bedroom, including the last few days, when she either pretended to be asleep before I joined her or waited for me to doze off before slipping in beside me.

“You have always belonged in my bed, butterfly.” I stroke her cheek, and only when she leans into my touch before closing her eyes does my heart settle back into its normal rhythm.

I place Daisy on the bed and untie the straps of her heels. My gaze stays on her pink toenails for a beat too long before I pull the covers up to her neck.

“I missed you. I missed us.” The tiny quiver in her voice knocks the wind out of me.

Fuck, butterfly.

“I missed you too,” I whisper, and her eyes widen. “Too much.”

Miss doesn’t even cover how I feel these days.

Daisy’s fingers trail up to my forehead, then down the corner of my face before running through my hair.

“You, Charles Ashcroft Hawthorne, are a dream I never even dared to dream. I never thought I’d marry someone like you, someone who would show me things I didn’t dare to wish for. Even if it’s only temporary.” She wets her lips while I’m frozen in place. “I wish this was real and we weren’t like stars that look good together but in reality are light-years apart.”

Her voice cracks, and a single tear slips from her eye before she falls unconscious, her head resting on my chest.

I don’t know if there’s a word for the emotion I’m feeling right now. The tear tracing down her cheek, seeping into my jacket, feels like acid ready to burn me.

She wants me.

She doesn’t think she can have me.

“I wish I was enough to make all your dreams come true, butterfly.”

32

THE SECRECY PACT

DAISY

“Daisy.” I hear a voice that sounds like my mom’s from someplace far away.

“Mom? Is this a dream?”

“It’s me, honey. Mrs. Kowalski.”

I slowly open my eyes, and after the initial blur, her face comes into focus, along with a smile.

“How are you feeling now?”

A groan escapes my lips as I try to sit up, holding my aching head between my hands. “God, how much did I drink last night?”