Laces and Lace (Assassins #6) Read online

  Flabbergasted, she yelled, “Everyone has debt, Karson!”

  “Not me, I am completely debt free.”

  She could only blink as she shook her head. “That’s insane. So you have no debt? And two million dollars sitting around?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “What about your car?”

  “Bought it off the lot. Cash.”

  “What? That is ridiculous to me. I am, like, sixty grand in debt!” she yelled, her chest falling and rising every second.

  Karson reached out, taking her in his arms, hoping to calm some of her freak-out. They really should have discussed this before they came to buy a house. But like anything else, they acted first and thought later. Setting her with a grin, he said, “Not anymore. When we are done here, we’ll go to the bank and put you on my account, and then you pay your debt off. I don’t like debt.”

  “Karson, no, that’s crazy,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s okay to have debt.”

  “No, it’s not. You are my wife, and we will be debt free. I don’t want anything left behind if something happens to us. We don’t want to be like other people who fight to stay afloat. We are both successful. I want to be smart about this.”

  Her eyes searched his, and he loved how perplexed she looked. With a grin, he asked, “What?”

  “How much do you have?”

  “A lot,” he answered. “I’ve been saving for the last nine years.”

  “Why are you saving? Why aren’t you blowing money like a bachelor would? You should be broke. Just saying.”

  He laughed and then skimmed his nose along hers. “Someone told me a long time ago that I wouldn’t be able to financially support the woman I love. I made sure that when that time came, I could.”

  When the realization of what he was saying to her set in, her eyes clouded with tears as her lip wobbled before she tightened her arms around him. “My dad said that?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I wanted to make sure that when I got you back, no matter what, I could give you everything you wanted. And then if, God forbid, your cancer came back, I could pay for it all.”

  Her eyes watered as her little lip continued to tremble. “I love you.”

  His heart blew to smithereens in his chest as he held on to her. “I love you more, Lacey. Now tell me, do you want this house?”

  She looked around the house and then met his gaze. “Does it feel like home to you?”

  “Home is wherever you are, Lacey.”

  Her mouth pulled up as she leaned into him. “Are you sure you want to spend that kind of money on this? Maybe we can find a smaller house.”

  “No. Do you want this house?”

  She bit into her lip as she searched his eyes. “I do love the office.”

  “It’s big too,” he added. “I can have a man cave in the basement.”

  “Yeah, and I love the kitchen.”

  “Me too. You better believe you’ll be cooking for me in there.”

  She laughed. “Or the other way around.”

  “Sure,” he said with a nod. “The bedroom is nice. I could carpool with Shea if I needed to.”

  “Yeah, and when your family or mine comes, they can stay here. It’s huge.”

  “I know,” he said with a nod. “Say the words, Lacey, and it’s ours.”

  He could feel her heart pounding against his chest. Her breathing was labored and he swore she’d never looked so beautiful. She looked good in this house, and Karson was convinced that this was it. He loved watching her walk around and ooh and aah over everything. He knew as soon as they pulled up that she loved it. She was just worried about the price, and he never wanted that to happen again. He would give her the world.

  As long as he could buy it outright.

  He wasn’t playing with the whole debt thing. He not only saved money like crazy for the reason he told her. But the reason he never had anything on credit was because when he was younger, his parents’ house had almost been foreclosed on. If it wasn’t for his grandma coming and paying off their debt, they would have lost the house. It was a really bad time for them, and Karson was scared that they wouldn’t come back from it. But in true King form, the family not only came back from that, they came back stronger, and Karl King never bought anything on credit ever again.

  “I want it,” she said slowly, her shoulders coming up as she smiled innocently. “But if it is too—”

  “Then it’s ours,” he said, interrupting her. “If you want it, then it’s ours. No matter the price. I’d give you the world, Lacey.”

  Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks as her eyes shone with love. “So we are doing this? You are buying me this home?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “We are buying this home. It’s yours as much as it is mine.”

  “This all seems so unreal,” she whispered against his lips. “How did I get so lucky?”

  Running his lips along hers, he whispered, “I’ve asked myself that ever since I woke up beside you, and I have a feeling I’ll be asking that for the rest of my life. You are a dream come true, Mrs. King.”

  Her face reddened and her lips touched his, and his eyes filled with tears as he held her close. He had been waiting for this moment his whole life. The moment he would buy a home with her. He had thought he would never see her again. Hold her again, kiss her, and show he how much he loved her. Like she said, this was all so unreal, but each step they took to solidify their love made it even realer. They were married, they were now buying a house, soon it would be time for a baby, and that alone had a tear leaking out the side of his eyes.

  His dreams really were coming true.

  All because of the beautiful blonde he held in his arms.

  His forever.

  Still on the high of his offering to buy her dream home, Lacey couldn’t stop grinning. She had always imagined her first home with her Karson and the beautiful Greek revival-style home was it. Her family’s house was big and ostentatious, and when she’d lost her mom, it wasn’t a home; it was a cold place that was her personal prison. When she moved out after college to her small little apartment, it sort of felt like home, but mostly because she was the one paying all the bills. When she got engaged to Ethan, he had a massive mansion that he was convinced she would love, but she did not like that house. She was hoping that she could convince him to sell it once they were married because she’d never wanted a big house. She had been there, done that and didn’t want to get lost in her own house. She wanted a home, somewhere that held all the love in the world, and also something she wouldn’t get lost in. Karson was giving her that.

  He was giving her everything she could ever ask for.

  Like he said they would, he put her on his account, and when she saw how much money he had, she almost fell onto the bank floor. Twenty-two million dollars. Karson had saved twenty-two million dollars over the last nine years.

  That. Was. Insane.

  And he acted like it was normal! Like it wasn’t a massively huge deal when it was. He said it would be more if he hadn’t bought a new truck and bought his parents a new home and then cars for them and his sister. That honestly stunned her. His generosity was beautiful, but still, she was completely and utterly speechless. She hadn’t seen that much money before, and now, she had it. Well, it was Karson’s, but he kept insisting that what was his was hers, which was completely insane. Most women would shit themselves and run to the nearest Jimmy Choo, but not Lacey. She had not even an inkling to spend it, but she had it and it scared her.

  Holy. Shit. She was a millionaire.

  “I don’t know about this,” she said, looking over her laptop at Karson. He was sitting on the couch with JT beside him, playing a game on the PlayStation 4. Surprisingly enough, JT wasn’t that bad once you got past the beard, the anger, and the masturbation. He was actually really nice and funny. He didn’t apologize for his little adventure on the couch, but he did say he didn’t mean to disrespect her, and she took that