“Ooh, can I chat with you for a minute?” Zoe ducked her head into my classroom and glanced around. “I know Holden’s here soon, but I wanted to speak to you.”

“What’s going on?” I asked with a smile. It had to be good news. After a test period, Holden was going to find out that day whether they had picked up his idea for the grade curve program, and he was stopping by as soon as he found out to tell me.

“Nothing. I wanted to see if Holden had come by yet.” She shrugged. “Anything from him yet?”

“Nothing yet,” I replied, shaking my head. “I have everything crossed for him, though. I think it could help out so many teachers too. Imagine all the time it would free up.”

Zoe waved her hand. “Tell me about it. I actually got to have a real-life fling because of the time he saved me. He has no idea how much that means to me.”

“How are things going with this mystery Vegas man?” I cocked my head with interest, and she tapped her nose.

“Let’s just say he’s passing through town next weekend,” she replied mysteriously. “And we’re going to see how things go from there.”

“Oh, the romance.” I planted my hand on my chest. “Why don’t you get set up on a blind date, turn him down, become friends with him, and then date him, and punch his ex like a normal person?”

“Well, I guess we can’t all be as traditional as you, Autumn,” she said. “Jesus, I was so glad when I heard the school isn’t going to do anything about the charges. I was worried they might try and pin you for something, but everyone came out for you.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to know so many people in this place have my back,” I agreed. They’d had to launch a formal investigation, even though the principal had pretty much waved away this whole thing as soon as he’d heard the details of it. Even with a proper investigation into what happened, everyone had backed me up, no question. The fact that Karla had some outstanding charges against her as well helped undermine her credibility, and once it was clear to anyone paying attention that I had been out there trying to keep Hunter and the rest of the children safe no matter what, nobody had really cared too much at what I’d done. I had no intention of doing anything like it again, that was for sure, and I hoped I would never have to.

“I sure as hell have your back.” She grinned, reaching over the table to pat my hand. “I thought you were so damn brave that day. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Well, that’s what dating Holden has done to me.”

“And there you were saying you would never date a guy with kids of his own already,” she teased. “How long ago was that? Seven, eight months?”

“If that.” I shook my head. “I know. So much has changed since then.”

“But you’re happy?” Zoe asked, and I nodded without hesitation.

“Yeah, I’m happy,” I assured her. “Really happy, actually.”

“Mind if I cut in?”

We both turned to see where the source of the voice was coming from, and I beamed when I saw Holden in the doorway.

“I suppose you can.” I nodded, and Zoe slipped away, grinning at Holden as she brushed by him.

“So you hear about the program yet?” I asked him, and he waited until Zoe was out of the room and closed the door behind her. My heart sank. It had to be because there was bad news, and he didn’t want Zoe to overhear it.

“Not good?” I made a face, but before he answered my question, he walked around my desk, clasped my shoulders, and planted a big kiss on my lips.

“All right, so a little good?” I laughed as he pulled back, checking that the door was shut. Hunter was at an after-school club, one of the ones the other teachers ran, and I didn’t want him walking in on me and his father.

“Autumn, I can’t believe it.” He shook his head. “They want to roll it out across the whole state next semester. The whole state!”

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, practically jumping up and down on the spot. “You’re kidding me. The whole state?”

“The whole thing,” he said, and the thrill of excitement in his voice was obvious to anyone paying attention. He might have tried to play it cool most of the time, but I could tell when he was thrilled, and right now, he was spinning among the clouds.

“They’re buying the rights for the program from me,” he explained. “So we’re going to be… well, whenever you want to take a trip to Vegas next, we’ll be able to afford the best of everything.”

“Wait, we?” I held my hand up to stop him. We weren’t sharing finances yet. We were pretty far removed from that as far as I was concerned. What was he talking about? Then I saw a smile spread out across his face, and I knew this was going to be good.

“Okay, so I have something to admit.” He brushed a strand of hair back from my face. “When I registered the copyright to the program, I put your name on it too.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I gasped.

“Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to come up with it at all,” he pointed out. “Zoe has a few shares, too, since she helped me test it. And now that we’ve sold it…”

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to process this, trying to make sense of it. He was beaming at me, but it took me a moment to let everything sink in.

“How much—“

“A whole hell of a lot,” he replied. “I can talk to you about the exact numbers later, but suffice it to say, you have enough to live on for the next decade. Comfortably.”

“Holy shit,” I murmured. “Holy shit. Please tell me I can be the one to break this news to Zoe?”

“I think it’s only right that you do,” he said. I stared at him for another moment, waiting for him to pull the rug out from underneath me. But he didn’t, and he never would have been that cruel, never would have led me to believe something so exciting when it was false. He was telling me the truth. I was rich. Like him.

“I can’t believe you did this.” I shook my head again. My thoughts were battering back and forth in my brain, unable to process it all. I had money now. Real money. I could do whatever I wanted.

“I wanted you to be able to have any kind of life you wanted.” He held me close, and I looked into his eyes and saw a sincerity glowing in there. This wasn’t some kind of empty gesture to show off. This was him offering me a lifestyle of my choice.

“I only want to share it with you,” I murmured, and he planted a kiss on my lips. When I pulled back, I looked deeply into his eyes, and I opened my mouth to say the words—but before I could, he said them first.

“I love you too.” He brushed his nose against mine.

I widened my eyes. “You heard me last night?”

“Sure did,” he replied with a grin. “But I wanted to be properly awake when I said it to you for the first time.”

“I love you,” I said the words to him, rolling them off my tongue as though they had been waiting there for a lifetime. I closed my eyes and let my head rest against his, letting the warmth pass between us. How had I waited so long to say those words? How long had I felt them and tried to hide from them? Looking back, it was so clear that from the very moment we met, it had been leading to this moment, to this admission that we loved one another. And that was never going to change. He completed me in a way that I had never felt before in my life.

“I’m going to be saying that a lot in the next few days,” he said, not pulling back from me. I didn’t care if anyone walked in on us at that moment. In fact, I wanted the whole world to see and hear those words, to know we were finally together and in love and at peace with everything that was going on and everything that we had been through.

“Me too,” I replied. “Making up for lost time.”

“I was so nervous to say it to anyone,” he confessed. “I’ve known it for a long time. Since I saw you again in Vegas, I knew it.”

“That trip was amazing.” I sighed. “We should do that again sometime soon.”

“Well, you can afford to go anywhere in the world now,” he pointed out. “Where do you want to start out?”

“Oh my God.” I gasped. “I really can go anywhere, can’t I? I don’t know where to start.”

“I was thinking the three of us could take a trip to Italy,” he suggested. “Maybe try out some of that authentic Italian food? See how it compares to what we have over here?”

“That sounds amazing,” I said, beaming. “Me, you, and Hunter.”

“A proper family vacation,” he replied, the smile spreading wider over his face. “That would be perfect.”

“We’re a real family now,” I murmured. “The three of us. Aren’t we?”

“You’re going to be an amazing mother to him,” Holden promised me. “You already have been, you know. With everything that happened with Karla—”

“That’s behind us now,” I assured him. “We get to look forward now. Not back.”

“You’re right. I can’t wait.”

“Well, I can’t wait to celebrate properly tonight.” I cocked an eyebrow at him playfully, and he laughed.

“Hmm, well, now that you mention it.” He leaned in and planted another kiss on my lips. That familiar warmth spread through my entire body, boiling down in my belly, ready for more. I couldn’t wait to get him home, have dinner together, and then head to the bedroom and—

“Gross.” A voice came from behind us, and we sprang apart. Hunter was standing in the doorway with Zoe, and I smiled at him, a little embarrassed that he’d caught us in the act. But I supposed there was nothing to hide from him anymore since we were truly a couple now, since Holden had called me Hunter’s mother. The thought of that was enough to fill me near to bursting with total joy.

“Hey, come on now.” Holden strolled over to join Hunter. “Not that bad, right?”

“I guess.” He made a disgusted face.

“You ready to head home?” Holden asked his son, and Hunter nodded.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Zoe said with a grin, and I waved her closer.

“Oh, give me a minute. There’s something I need to tell you,” I replied casually, winking at Holden. Zoe glanced between us, cocking an eyebrow.

“Something I should know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, there is.”

She grinned widely, and she looked to Holden and wagged her finger at him. “I told you, you’re supposed to ask my permission before you propose,” she joked, and he chuckled.

“When the time comes, you’ll be the first person I ask,” he promised her.

“Okay, you guys head out. I’ll meet you there in a minute.” I waved to Hunter and Holden.

“Can we go out for dinner tonight?” Hunter asked hopefully.

“I don’t see why not,” Holden agreed. “We’re celebrating, after all.”

“Are we?” Zoe asked keenly.

“Come on. I’ll catch you up on everything,” I promised her.

“See you in a second.” Holden nodded to me, and I watched them go. We would move in together soon, when the moment was right. I had no doubt about it.

A smile lifted my lips. Zoe was practically hopping from foot to foot with excitement, but I took a moment to watch them leave—Holden and Hunter, my two boys, the family I had never known I needed. We were celebrating tonight, celebrating so much. The program, sure, but more than that too. We were celebrating us, together at last, and the promise of a future together that I could already hardly wait to get to.

A future that was everything I never knew I wanted. Funny enough, I’d been right under his nose the whole time. Lucky boy!