Natasha squeezed my hand and gave me an encouraging smile. I’d never felt so nervous in my life. Not before I asked Natasha to move in with me. Not before I bought the engagement ring I was still holding for the right moment with her.

This trumped it all.

Valerie had gotten two DUI's in as many months, and child protective services started an investigation on her that turned up several other red flags. Valerie had cocaine in the house, and she'd also apparently developed a dependency on heavy-duty painkillers after her last round of plastic surgery. Essentially, CPS had proved she was highly neglectful and managed to prove it in court, which meant Caitlyn was being removed from her care. Valerie had a boyfriend, but he wanted nothing to do with custody of Caitlyn, and even if he did, the court would've been reluctant to hand her over to someone who would keep her in the same neglectful environment. Valerie's parents didn't want her, either.

Legally speaking, I hardly had any more right to adopt Caitlyn than Joe Schmoe off the street, but I had made sure to take all the proper steps to get myself in the front of the line. It helped that Caitlyn had signed a written statement saying she’d like to be adopted by me as a foster child. It also helped that I had the financial means to support her, as well as a clean record.

All that being said, waiting to get word back on whether the situation would be allowed or not had been a nail-biting experience. I would absolutely adopt her whenever the day came that the court decided to completely strip Valerie of her legal right to provide for Caitlyn. I would’ve liked to think there was a distant chance of Valerie reforming and coming back to be the mother Caitlyn deserved, but somehow I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Today was the day we took her home.

A car pulled up outside my building exactly at the time they said it would. The driver got out to open Caitlyn’s door. I thought she might have mixed feelings, given the circumstances, but her face instantly split into a smile when she saw me.

“Thank you,” she said into my stomach as she hugged me tightly.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell her I felt so happy I could burst, because the only reason she’d wound up in my care was that her mother was absolute shit to her. I felt partly to blame for that, too. I wasn’t sure how much Valerie would’ve spiraled out of control if I hadn’t kept feeding her the money she demanded out of me. At the same time, I wasn’t sure constant legal battles wouldn’t have taken their toll, either.

Instead of saying anything, I just hugged her back and then led her inside. Her little hand was in my left, and my right was around Natasha’s shoulder.

William sat on my couch with an amused look on his face. He was tossing an expensive paperweight from the end table carelessly up and then snatching it out of the air again and again. Natasha and Caitlyn were playing some card game with endlessly complicated rules. They were on their knees in front of the coffee table, both wearing extremely serious expressions as they were no doubt trying desperately to win.

The two girls were more competitive than I would’ve believed, and as far as I could tell, they’d immediately hit it off. It helped that they were both apparently obsessed with board games and card games.

“You know,” said William. “I’m almost jealous. Really, I am. It must be hard to be done with the exciting part of your life. No more worrying about whether you still look good with your shirt off. No worrying about which hot girl to take home at the end of the night. All those problems… Just shwip. Right off the table. Must be nice.”

“It is, actually,” I said.

He flicked his eyebrows up. “Never me, bro. Never me. I’ll happily enjoy your little dysfunctional family second-hand. That’s more than enough of a dose of the boring life for me.”

“You’ll have your day,” I said. “Your problem is you haven’t met the right girl yet.”

“He’s right,” said Natasha, but she sounded distracted, and she didn’t look up from her cards.

“Did you teach her that? Nice trick.”

I glared at him. “You remember who used to always win when we fought? Be careful what you say or you’ll get a reminder.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. You don’t have to get all worked up over there. I’m just trying to say you did a good job.”

“Well thank you, I think.”

“You’re welcome, I think.”

“Boys are so weird,” said Caitlyn.

“Especially those two,” said Natasha.

“Ouch,” said William. “I guess she’s not so well-trained after all.”

Natasa gave me a wicked little smile that no one else caught. It was a smile that said so much more than words ever could. It said he was right. Natasha would never be the tame housewife or anything close to typical. She was my accident-prone, highly unpredictable, feisty little firecracker, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to wait much longer to get on one knee for her.

“That’s why I love her,” I said.

No one but Natasha and I felt the shockwaves of those words. We hadn’t said our “I love you’s” yet, and they were words I’d never taken lightly.

“I love you, too,” she said, finally seeming to lose focus on her game of cards completely.

“If you guys are going to start making out, I’m leaving,” said William.

“Me too,” said Caitlyn, but the smirk on her face said she still liked having parents—even if they were her adoptive parents—who knew how to show healthy affection for each other.

“Then get the hell out,” I growled.

The two got up and half-ran out of the room, leaving me to pull Natasha up from her knees and onto my lap, where we sank back into the couch.

“I was about to win, you know,” she said, eyes heavy and lusty as she scanned my face.

I glanced up at the clock behind her and saw it was ten in the morning. “Well,” I said suddenly, gently and carefully shoving her to the side to plop on her ass as I stood up. “Sorry to break the magic, but,” I nodded my head to the clock. “It’s time for my pre-lunch banana. So… Raincheck?”

“Raincheck my ass,” she said, grinning wide as she tugged on me and pulled me back toward the couch.

“Hmm,” I said, studying her body and her alluring eyes. “I guess I can postpone the banana.”

“I can’t,” she said, and she leaned forward to take my zipper between her lips. This time, she had enough practice under my belt to get it down on the first try.

“This is why I love you.”

“The only reason?” she asked, running her palms up my thighs.

“Hell no,” I said, suddenly serious. I wanted what she was about to give me, but it could wait. I urged her to stand, taking her by the cheeks and staring down into her eyes. “I love you because you never cared who I was. You never cared that I had money or that I was the boss. You were always yourself, even if you did hide the reason you were my intern. You’re the most genuine person I know, and that means I love you, not some mask you wore to impress me.”

She narrowed her eyes, a faint smile forming on her face. “Is this your nice way of saying I don’t give good head?”

I laughed. “No. It’s my nice way of saying I don’t only love you because you are phenomenal between the sheets.”

"Hmm. I accept." She leaned in and kissed my neck. "And since we're being mushy, I should say that I always appreciated how you let me show what I was capable of. Everybody else in my life immediately wrote me off because I was clumsy and a screw-up, which, admittedly, isn't that unreasonable. But you always looked past that."

“And you are capable.”

She got back on her knees and smiled up at me with a look absolutely dripping with mischief. “How about we take a walk down memory lane? Maybe we can start where it all began…”