Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Then I got a letter from him—his final wish.
Find his best friend… and marry him.
A man I’ve never met.
A man my brother trusted with his life.
Only problem?
Rick McDonald is a nightmare wrapped in a jawline that could cut steel.
Cold. Distant. Unreadable.
A brooding, scarred billionaire with a permanent scowl and a stare that should be illegal.
And the grumpiest man on planet Earth.
His reaction to me?
A big fat no.
But I don’t back down from a challenge.
I make him a deal.
Two weeks.
I stay.
He stops glaring at me like I’m his worst nightmare.
Simple, right?
But somewhere between the fights and the accidental almost-kisses,
I realize I want more than just his permission to stick around.
I want him.
Too bad he placed me in the off-limits category.
All books in the "I Said Yes Series" are STANDALONES and can be read in any order.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter one
Aspen
I’m one of those people grief should have killed, but I’m still here.
My brother was twelve years older, and the thing about having a sibling so many years apart is that they become an adult before you do. They experience far more life before you even begin to figure out what living is. Jace saw more of life than I’ll ever hope to know. He joined the military at seventeen because he graduated early. I was just going into kindergarten then. My dad was so proud. My mom too. She wasn’t even Jace’s real mom, but she loved him like she was. I remember all of us standing there, seeing him off. My parents. Jace’s mom. We all got along well, which wasn’t something I really understood to be a thing when I was five, but I know it’s a thing now. We all waved Jace off when he joined the military. Everyone put on a brave face, even though the three adults were terrified something would happen to him. I was just proud because they acted like they were proud too. I didn’t know that under those forced smiles, their hearts were aching, and there would be so many sleepless nights to come, worrying about him.
Jace trained here first, but I was still just a kid when he went overseas. There were letters and videos, emails and texts. When my parents hung up the phone, there were so many tears in private, even from my dad. I thought it was because they missed my brother, but even when I was young, I started to see what the reality of having someone in the military meant.
Proud or not, we all missed Jace so freaking much.
When he came home, we thought maybe it might be for good.
It wasn’t. Over the years, the details became sketchier and sketchier. Jace stopped being able to tell us anything, and my parents stopped asking because they didn’t want to put him in that position. All we knew was that he was in Special Forces, and he was doing the kind of stuff we shouldn’t know about.
Even at eighteen, I knew Specials Forces wasn’t the kind of spy shit you saw in the movies. It was dangerous. I told my brother that if he ever got killed, I’d be so mad at him, and I’d never forgive him, so he had best never do it. He promised me he wouldn’t.
For six years, life went on. I went to college, graduated, got my first real job, had my heart broken a few times, and worried constantly. I did life while Jace wasn’t here to see it, and I always, always wished he was. Missing him was a perpetual ache.
Last year, he broke that promise.
It was a joke kind of promise. I wasn’t serious. He knew I wouldn’t hate him. It was just my plea to please, please, please come home safely.
We didn’t get his body back. That’s the worst part. Because it makes all this feel less than real. Except I know it is real because my parents have aged ten years in the past twelve months. My life has been on a frozen, paused hold where nothing feels real, yet everything is so real all the time that it could freaking crush me.
I’m twenty-five now. But Jace is always going to be thirty-seven. Until the end of time, he’ll never grow old in my mind. Until the end of time, I’ll do anything and everything I can to keep him alive in my memory, no matter how much it hurts. No matter how, sometimes, I could die or scream with the anguish of it. There are days, even a year later, when I have to lock myself in a bathroom or step into an alley and give in to the private, heart-wrenching sorrow. Some days, I can smile and laugh, but other days, the grief eats away at me. I want to celebrate Jace. I want to celebrate each and every minute we have spent together, but at the same time, it’s so hard knowing there isn’t ever going to be another.
No, that’s wrong.
A few days ago, my life changed. It was like Jace was speaking to me from the grave. No, more than like. He was. Is. I can imagine him right here with me, on this plane, flying across the country. I can imagine him smiling at me and giving me those dopey thumbs up and telling me I rock like a sock.
There’s only one letter. There isn’t going to be another. When the lawyer gave it to me the day after the anniversary of Jace’s death, he told me there was just one letter. It was left in his care, and Jace gave him instructions.
I have to say, I wouldn’t want to carry out final notices like that, but this guy? He was a pro. It was like he’d never had an emotion in his entire life.