Epilogue
Natalie
“Jacob!” I called through the apartment, waiting for him to answer me back. Even now, once in a while, I found myself panicking that he would have realized what kind of life he was living now and would have run away in the time that it took me to pick out a dress. He hadn’t given me any indicators that he was planning on going anywhere, but hey, I was an over-thinker at the best of times.
You’d think, too, that moving in together would be all I really needed to get all the panic and worry and second-guessing out of my head. And I had to admit that it had seriously diminished it. I still remembered the moment he’d leaned over the table at dinner, eyes wide and excited, and I had been sure he was about to slide his hand up my thigh and find some way to make sure the two of us had some mind-blowing sex before we walked out of there. Much to my surprise, he didn’t, and instead spoke softly while catching my hand between his.
“I want you to move in with me.” He cocked his head to the side. “I know it’s soon, but-”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Fuck, yes!”
We embraced awkwardly over the table, and I did my best to ignore the stares of the other patrons around us.
“You know, they probably think you just proposed to me,” I remarked as we pulled back, and he glanced around with a grin. He looked delirious, an expression I often found him wearing when he was just watching me go about my day.
“Soon,” he promised, lifting my hand to his mouth and planting a kiss at that sensitive spot on the centre of my palm. I shivered, and wondered what it would be like to come home to this man day after day. What kind of plans and games he’d cook up to keep me on my toes.
Ever since we’d returned from the tour, our sex life had just kept getting better and better and better. Jacob worked far fewer hours than me, so he would often plan these crazy, kinky evenings of fun when he knew I’d had a long week at work.
I’d used to enjoy a glass of wine or three, but now I was more likely to be found having crazy, raw sex on the balcony of our apartment only a few feet from where the neighbors were throwing a party, or finding expensive lingerie lying out on the bed for me when I got home along with a note telling me where and when to meet him. I was pretty sure the sex was better for my liver than the wine, and it still stunned me that Jacob could drive me so completely and utterly crazy.
I never thought that I’d be able to keep the flame alive this far into a relationship but he knew exactly which buttons to press to keep me at his mercy. And hey, once in a while, I even came up with a few games of my own for the two of us to enjoy.
And the sex wasn’t the only reason that I loved living with Jacob so much. He had invited me to move into his incredible apartment on the East side, but I had turned him down; I didn’t want to sleep every night in a bed where he’d likely had a hundred different women over the last couple of years. I loved him, but not that much.
So, he offered to do some research on places he thought we’d both like, and turned up this absurdly beautiful penthouse on the top floor of a building a few streets away from my office.I couldn’t have asked for a more gorgeous place; it was minimalist and chic but still had smatterings of the both of us over it, him with his classic sports posters and me with framed magazine covers neatly lining the hallway. I loved in there – doubly so because I was sharing it with the man of my dreams.
It had taken a while to get over the initial culture shock that came with dating a celebrity with as much notoriety as Jacob. A long time, in fact.
Especially after he picked up a state-wide MMA championship title – I found myself having pictures slyly snapped of me when I was out on the town with my girlfriends, and at first I found it seriously disconcerting.
But then, eventually, the fact that I was dating Jacob seemed to become common knowledge and no one really gave that much of a crap about it anymore. There were no photos, no magazines calling up my office to see if I’d be free from an interview.
God, the guys at work gave me hell the first few times that happened – I was sure they’d never let me forget it. But the two of us were moving by it now, especially after Jacob issued a stern missive to his fans not to bother me or anyone else about our relationship.
My parents had been skeptical as all hell when they’d heard I was dating an MMA fighter, but as soon as they met him they fell head-over-hells as I had. His family were a little harder to win over, as they seemed to be under the impression that I was a gold-digger who was only after Jacob for his considerable inheritance.
But as soon as I made it clear that I had a career of my own that I had no intention of stepping back from any time soon, they warmed up to me. I even went along to their Thanksgiving, and found myself grilled by his various grandparents about when the two of us were going to start having kids already.
On the drive home afterwards, Jacob had been unusually quiet, and I nudged him with my elbow to attract his attention.
“Hey,” I prompted him. “What’s up?”
He had been staring out of the window, and glanced around at me with a half-vacant expression on his face. He shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “It’s just…everything my grandparents were saying, about kids…”
He trailed off, and left the question hanging in the air between us unspoken. It took me a second to cotton on to what the hell he was talking about, but as soon as he did, my eyebrows shut up and I struggled to keep a straight face.
“You want…kids?” I asked, my voice low as though if someone overheard us it would magically become so. He scanned my face carefully, as if he knew that he had to play it carefully here if he was going to get what he wanted.
“Yeah, I do,” he nodded confidently. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, in fact. I know I want to be with you forever, and I know I want kids, so…”
“How soon?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral and failing. I had been waiting for him to bring it up for as long as we’d been dating. I had always assumed that he would be the one pushing back against it because of his career and had been reluctant to push the issue, but here he was, telling me that I had been wrong all along.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he reached over to take my hand. “There’s no rush. I know your career is good right now, and I don’t want you to walk away from that before you’re ready. But…better hurry if we want someone to inherit this MMA title, right?”
I laughed, feeling giddy. He was right. My career was on a major upswing and I didn’t know if I wanted to put that on hold to have a kid right there and then.
“Right,” I agreed, then took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I can tell you when I’ll be ready for certain, but I do want kids with you. So much. And I won’t keep you waiting much longer.”
“I love you so much,” he squeezed my hand and I squeezed back. We spent the rest of the car ride home in silence, as the two of us lost ourselves in imagining what our future kids would look like, what they’d be called, how we would raise them. At that second, I would have let him get me pregnant right there and then as long as I could get first pick out what names they were lumbered with for the rest of their lives.
We had been dating for about three months when the story actually came out. It was after the conversation about kids, after we moved in together, and I was worried that he would read it and get insulted at my portrayal of him. Not that I had depicted him in an unflattering light or anything like that – but I felt very differently about him now that I had when I was first writing the article, and I couldn’t help but worry that my mixed feelings towards him would come through and hurt his feelings in some way.
Tanya, my editor, was enthusiastic about the piece from the start. She had, as I’d predicted, pitched it alongside the fact that the two of us were now dating and living together and all that good stuff, and that I had an insight into him that no-one else would have found. It was meant to just go in one of our local editions but it ended up landing on the front page for the national one – Jacob had ordered a dozen copies and distributed them proudly amongst his family as soon as it was out.
Even now, he had a copy carefully laid on the center of the coffee table and was all too happy to explain to anyone who stopped by what it was about and who had written it. Me? Well, I was just stunned and grateful to have one of my pieces on the front cover of a magazine. Tanya had assured me the piece was fantastic a dozen times over, but I didn’t really believe her until the offers started rolling in.
It started out with small jobs at first – interviews here and there. A profile in a major sports paper. But soon enough, I decided to go part-time at my original job so I could take on a handful of freelance conceits on the side. It felt as though the world was opening up in front of me, reminding me that I was good at this, that I was worth it, that I had earned it. And I couldn’t have asked for anyone better by my side than Jacob.
I was pulled out of my reverie as Jacob finally appeared at the door of our bedroom; he was holding a glass of scotch and his bow tie hung undone around his neck. He looked so damn hot like that, embodying all the sexy playboy clichés I had been convinced made up the sum of his parts when we first met.
“Damn,” he looked me up and down, leaning against the doorway. “You look hot.”
“Thanks,” I shrugged casually, glancing at myself in the mirror, but I couldn’t hide the fact that I felt it, too. The dress was stunning, a gift from his mother, a black velvet number with ruched straps and an hourglass shape that gave me way more figure than I was born with. My hair was up, and I had
done my best with my make-up.
“Can you do it up?” I asked, pulling the last few strands of hair away from the zip. He made his way across the room to me and pulled it up in motion, before wrapping his hands around my waist and burying his nose into my neck.
“Mmm,” he sighed against my skin, his breath warm as he exhaled. “You smell so good.”He planted a kiss on my neck and I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to turn around and tell him to take me right there and then. But we had an event to go to, and I knew we couldn’t be late. He unwrapped himself from me, sensing my urgency, and watched as I put in my earrings and grabbed for my shoes.
“You know you’re going to win tonight, right?” He remarked, and I rolled my eyes at him.
“I don’t want to get too cocky,” I warned him. “There’s loads of great writers there tonight.”
“Yeah, and you’re the best one,” he shrugged as though it should have been obvious. I rolled my eyes at him, but couldn’t help but smile. It was so good to have someone who was so completely and without question on my side.
The article had been nominated for a major industry award – we had gotten the news through a few weeks ago, and I had been dancing around the apartment with excitement. I knew it had caused quite a stir when it had been released, but I had never in a million years predicted anything like this.
Ever since, Jacob had been utterly certain that I had it in the bag, and while I had done my best not to get my hopes up, I had to admit that I was feeling pretty confident. Either way, I was stunned to have just been nominated, knew in my heart of hearts that even if I didn’t win it this time around I would bag it eventually.
That was where we were off to that evening, in fact – my chest was light with excitement and I was glad that I had an excuse not to drink, because if I hadn’t I might have downed a bottle of wine just to keep myself steady. As it was, I was actually kind of enjoying being in my right mind and experiencing everything as it was.
“I’m so proud of you,” Jacob remarked as he watched me get ready. “You deserve this, you know.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I joked with a grin, and finally turned to him. “Okay, I’m ready. Do I look alright?”
“You look incredible,” he assured me, finishing off the last of his scotch and placing it on the antique dressing table that he’d purchased me as a moving-in gift. “Hey – your bump is showing!”
He got to his feet and gingerly placed his hands over the small bump that had just begun to show under my dress. His eyes shone with excitement, just as they had when I had first told him about the pregnancy.
“I guess I am,” I twisted to the side so I could inspect myself in the mirror. I still couldn’t believe we were actually having this baby. We hadn’t been trying, but when, a month or so ago, I realized that my period was late I knew at once what was going on. And while the timing wasn’t what we’d planned, I knew I wanted it as soon as the pregnancy test confirmed what I was already sure of. The office had assured me that I could work from home and I would be able to keep up with my freelancing on the side, not to mention the fact that Jacob had promised me all the support in the world to make sure that I didn’t have to give up my career for our family.
Our family. I covered his hand with mine and we smiled at each other, a moment of pure, unbridled joy that would hang around in the back of my head for the rest of my life. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, shaking his head.
“What’s up?” I asked softly, and he grinned, looking bashful all of a sudden.
“I was just thinking about the first time I met you, when you came barging into that locker room to convince me to let you write this article,” he shrugged. “I think I knew, then.”
“Knew what?”
“That I loved you,” his eyes flashed with love for me, so deep that it made my head spin briefly. “That we would end up here.”
He got to his feet and planted a kiss on my lips, and I wrapped my arms around him, forgetting about the award and our obligations and everything in the world but him. When he pulled back, he smiled down at me and brushed his nose against mine, just as he had done when he’d first told me that he’d loved me.
“We should probably get going,” he murmured. “Much as I’d rather stay at home with you all night.”
“And miss my big break? I think not,” I teased, and reached for my bag. We headed for the door, arm in arm, and I wondered what the hell I had done to secure a life this charmed. It might not have been what I expected, but I knew now that Jacob and everything that came with him was exactly what I wanted.
The End