Page 90 of What I Like About You

Epilogue

"Stop fidgeting with your tie.You’re going to strangle yourself before the meeting even begins,” Zara told Dalton, coming up behind where he was standing in front of the mirror in their bathroom.

“Would that be so bad? Then I wouldn’t actually have to go through with this,” he asked, looking at her via the reflection in the mirror.

Today was the day—the first Southland Holdings Board meeting of the year—and Zara knew that Dalton was freaking out inside. And maybe not just on the inside. It’d been five months since he’d made his return to Atlanta, and for the most part, it’d been an easier transition than either one expected—at least on the relocating front. Big D hadn’t sold the condo that Dalton had been living in before he left, and the most recent renters had moved out the month prior, leaving only a deep cleaning needed before he moved in. Three weeks later he’d moved her in with him, telling her he was tired of having to figure out which block of Peachtree Street they were spending the night on. While Zara worried at first at what their parents’ reactions would be, no one seemed fazed by the idea. Her mother had even told her that if they needed a decorator that she “knew just the person!”

When it came to work life, Zara knew that the transition had been a bit more of a challenge. Dalton had received an incredibly enthusiastic welcome back into Southland Holdings’ team. Well, most of them at least. As had been expected, Jonah had not been thrilled about Dalton’s sudden reappearance or his immediate appointment to Executive Vice President. But more than that, for the first time in their life, it was Dalton’s confidence that was shaky. He’d confided in her more than once in the last couple of months that he wasn’t sure that he had it in him, and that maybe he was better off just being a beach bum. It had taken a lot of reassurance from her, and even more kisses, to convince him that the business savvy CEO was in there, and he just needed to believe in himself that same way he’d always believed in her.

“Yes!” she said, slapping his arm lightly with the back of her hand. “You were born for this!”

“This fucking tie feels more like a noose than an accessory.”

“You only have to wear it for a couple of hours. Where’s the confident, cocky man I love?” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she placed a light kiss on the back of his shoulder.

“I’m not sure that I am ready for the reactions that are coming when Big D tells everyone that he’s stepping down and handing off Southland Holdings to his prodigal son.”

“Why? They all know it’s coming. You've been back for months—pretty sure the writing is on the wall,” she said, trying her best to reassure him. “Is he telling them everything?”

Other than Dalton’s immediate family and her parents, no one was aware of Big D’s diagnosis, that she knew of. To the best of her knowledge, even Jonah was in the dark. Big D had asked that it be kept to just the family so that he could help Dalton transition with as little drama as possible. The latest from the doctors was that Big D was doing well and that he could have longer than they originally thought. Neither he nor Dalton felt the need to burden anyone else with this news just yet, and it actually seemed like having a shared secret was giving them a little something to bond over.

“Just that he’s choosing to step down and that I will be assuming the role. He wants to make it seem like he simply decided to retire,” Dalton sighed. Turning to her, he grabbed ahold of her hips. “You know what would calm me down?”

“What?” she asked, pretty sure she had a good idea where he was going with this.

“If we went back to bed, and I spent some time getting lost in that incredible cleavage of yours,” he said, his telltale impish grin spreading across his face. He licked his lips like a cartoon character staring down a steak, and Zara could already feel the blush starting to creep up her neck.

“We do that, and you’ll miss your meeting!” she said. She playfully tried to break away from his grasp, but that only led to him gripping her hips tighter and pulling her in closer. The warmth of his body was comforting and inviting at the same time, but she knew she had to resist.

“I see zero downsides.”

All Zara could do was shake her head as she laughed at his response. Life these last few months had been better than she ever could have imagined, and it was all because of the man standing in front her right now. For all the years she imagined what a life with him would be like, she’d never come up with a feeling this good. She couldn’t wait to spend forever with him, just like this.

“Besides, the sooner you get this over with, the sooner we can leave for the Indigo Royal,” she pointed out. She knew he was just as excited as she was about going back to the resort for the first time since he moved away.

“I like the way you think, beautiful,” he said, kissing her forehead. Keeping his lips pressed above her brow, he whispered, “Have I told you how much I love you?”

“Yes, but you can do it again,” she replied teasingly.

“I love you more than words can express, Zara. You are my everything.”

“I love you too, Tripp.”

* * *

The board meetingwent much smoother than Dalton had anticipated. Or perhaps he’d just built up so many different scenarios in his brain of things that could happen that a calm and orderly meeting was smoother than expected. There were plenty of murmurs of surprise when Big D announced that he was taking his retirement, but no one seemed even the slightest bit ruffled when it was announced that Dalton would be taking over, which left him feeling a whole lot more relieved than he’d expected. Knowing he had the support of everyone at that table helped him feel like this was where he belonged. Just like Zara had said.

Actually, that wasn’t true—he didn’t have the support of everyone at that table. Jonah Davenport had sat at the far end of the massive conference table, huffing to himself that he was not the one being named as Big D’s replacement. To be fair, Jonah had been huffing and puffing about a lot of things since Dalton returned and made it very clear that even though he’d been bumped in the rankings, at least in his view, that he still expected the same treatment he’d always gotten. Dalton was still undecided on how to handle Jonah, but right now he had a much more pressing matter to attend to. Like getting home to his woman so they could get on a plane.

“So I expect that you’ll be vacating the role of president of the Atlanta Rising then,” Jonah said, catching Dalton as he approached the elevator. Dalton loosened his tie a bit, both as a way of stalling and out of a desire to get it off of him.

“Eventually. Big D will be around for at least another sixty days, if not ninety. Until he fully steps down, I will still be working with Britt on club operations. Once I transition, however, I will have to find someone to fill that role.”

“Well, I think it’s clear what you have to do,” Jonah responded.

“What I have to do?” Dalton echoed, trying to figure out where Jonah was taking this.

“You show back up out of nowhere, after three years of nothing, and you steal my job,” Jonah continued. “I think the only fair thing to do is to name me as president of the Rising.”