“Anabelle Simpson.”

Beside me, Laurel clapped almost as hard as I did, waving to Ana on the stage as she collected her high school diploma. We beamed proudly at our daughter, who had graduated with honors and had been on the honor roll all through high school. Tears brimmed in my eyes as I stared at her, the beautiful young woman, now eighteen years old, and who was so different than when she had come to live with me. Tall and slender with her black hair cut in a bob and bangs, she was my pride and joy along with all my children. She was heading off to Harvard, and on a full scholarship no less, so she could study law.

“Isabelle Simpson.”

We clapped as hard for Isabelle, who sauntered on the stage in a dramatic fashion, which was completely her style. Over the years, the twins had blossomed so differently as they grew into their separate identities. Isabelle may not have graduated top of her class as Anabelle had, but she had left her own unique mark as well. With purple highlights in her black hair and several piercings, she collected her diploma. She had been Prom Queen and had already started her own fashion line, which I had willingly funded. And not just because she was my daughter. She was gifted.

Unlike Anabelle, she wasn’t going to a traditional university nor following a traditional career path. She was heading off to Milan to attend Instituto Marangoni, not a decision I’d taken lightly since it was far away. Whatever made my kids happy made me happy too, and it was a dream of hers that I wouldn’t blight in anyway. She would always be a plane ride away and had my private jet at her disposal.

“Is it over now?” my nine-year-old son Jeff grumbled beside his mother. He had her fair hair, but outside of that, he favored me like the girls did. The day the nurse had placed him in my arms when Laurel had given birth to him, I’d cried, a man undone by the new life he was responsible for creating.

“It will be over soon,” Laurel assured him, then turned to place her hand on my thigh and sniffed. “I’m so proud of them, but I don’t want them to leave home yet. It’s too soon.”

I smiled at her with so much affection, my heart felt like it was ready to burst from my chest and present itself to her. She was an incredible woman, and life with her had not been boring these past ten years. I loved her more with each year that passed of our contract. She had walked into my broken life and been the glue that kept us all together.

She was also very pregnant with our baby. Another boy, according to the ultrasound. I reached across her to rub her belly and as if sensing my touch, the baby moved and butted against my palm. I never got tired of experiencing it. We hadn’t expected another baby. My sperm count was still low, and we hadn’t really tried. We simply never used protection, and since another baby was never conceived, we thought it safe to say another wouldn’t put in an appearance.

I loved it when we were wrong about things like this because I now anticipated the birth of another child. Especially with two flying the nest.

“I think this baby is ready to come out soon,” Laurel whispered to me, grinning.

“Two more weeks left,” I reminded her. “I don’t mind waiting. I have something for you.”

I reached in the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which I passed to her. She glanced at me curiously before taking the papers from me and unfolding them. I stared at the front page which had been stamped in red, “Invalid.”

Tears shone in her eyes as she smiled at me. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

“Yes, you’ve completed your duty to us,” I told her. “And I want to marry you again, for real this time. Not for the kids but for us.”

She squeezed my thigh. “Silly, our marriage has always been real. And I haven’t been living these ten years only for the kids but also for us.”

“Then no wedding?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “But I can take a renewal of our vows, though.”

Hooking her chin with my finger, I tilted her head towards me and kissed her at the same time the graduating class erupted in screams and shouts of glee. Once again, although there were more than a hundred people around us, we were lost in the two of us. Lost in our love.