My office chair creaks loudly as I lounge back on it, and I can almost feel the front wheels lifting from the floor. I balance myself and sit forward again and bring my attention back to the portfolio spread out across my desktop.

I shuffle idly through the stack of paintings. Each one is more macabre than the last, their colors a uniform raw blood-red. A little tang of disappointment hits me when I see this. We had sent out specific primers for the artwork required but it seemed a lot of the artists that submitted went straight for the literal translation of the book’s title.

My phone blinks and I press the button. “Some more deliveries for you, Mrs. Lockwood,” a voice says over the speaker-phone, sounding tinny and distant, making me doubt she will ever learn that there is a certain range on the thing.

I sigh loudly. That’ll be another bunch of portfolios to add to the ever-increasing pile overtaking my secretary’s corner. “Thanks, Joan,” I tell her. “Just throw them with the rest, and let Mike know that I hate him for convincing me to put out an open submission program.”

“Will do, Mrs. Lockwood.”

The button clicks when I press it and the call is disconnected. I blow out a lungful of air and run my hands through my hair. Mike down in marketing just had to go and have the great idea to open the artwork submission for this new book cover to the public and for the last few weeks I’ve been doing nothing but drown in a sea of macabre art.

Thousands of paintings later and I’ve really only added a handful to the shortlist. Of course, I could hand this job off to some of the people below me but I’m too much of a perfectionist to pull that kind of move. Like all the releases we’ve done, I want this one to be perfect.

I look at my phone and find the time going on one p.m. Another relatively late lunch in the office again. I consider going out to eat when the phone vibrates in my hand just as I’m about to set it down.

Lunch incoming. Stay put.

The dear husband coming in to save the day yet again. I get up from my chair, carefully as ever and make my way over to the window and admire the view. Below, the city sprawls ever onward, and in the midday light it looks as if it blossoms under those rays.

The heat from the light is warm so I turn my face against it, basking in that feeling while my hands rub my swollen abdomen. Less than a month to go and we still haven’t decided on a name. Or rather, we haven’t decided whose name choice is going to win the debate.

But… I have a feeling I’m going to win, no matter what.

My office door opens behind me but I don’t turn to look. I can tell who it is by the sound of his approach, and the smell of his cologne as his hands wrap around my waist from behind, and the feeling of his lips against my neck. My body tingles all over as he nuzzles against my skin.

“Hello, beautiful,” Mason whispers into my ear.

“Handsome,” I reply.

His big hands gently caress my bump. “How are we all doing today?” he asks.

I turn my head and look him in the eyes and smile brightly. “Oh, just the same as usual,” I say before locking my lips to his and kissing him deeply.

He breaks from the kiss and smiles. “When is this kid of ours gonna announce his arrival?” he asks.

“You mean hers,” I tell him and mean it.

Mason cocks his eyebrow. “You sure are convinced of that.”

“Well,” I say with a knowing grin, “I’m the one she’s connected to, I think its safe to say my body has a lot more confidence in making this call than your random guess.”

Mason shakes his head in disbelief but resignation falls over his expression as he speaks. “Well, I guess you have me there.” One of his hands slips behind me and I feel a gentle slap on my right ass cheek as he moves away from the window toward my desk.

“Have a look at the art,” I suggest.

I watch from the window as he leafs through some of the paintings, his expression constantly changing from terror to disgust to confusion as he takes in all the decadent artwork ranging from good to bad.

“Try that pile.”

He points to it. “Is this your best of collection?

I nod. “Yep, that’s the short list.”

Mason holds each painting up to closely inspect it, tilting it at an angle so as to catch the light streaming in from the windows. He nods his head in agreement. “These are pretty great,” he says. He selects one from the pile and turns it toward me. A ghastly image of a skeletal ghost emerging from a rectangular pool of blood, its bony fingers huge in the foreground as if they are ready to reach through the very paper and lunge at me from across the room.

“This is my favorite,” Mason says.

I chuckle. “That’s my favorite one too,” I’m happy to tell him. “I have a good feeling that this is the one we’ll use for the book cover. I’m not getting a strong feeling of hidden quality from the rest of the pile that awaits me.”

Mason sets the painting back down on the desk and rejoins me at the window, pointing to the office door as he moves. “That’s what those piles of paper are out there?” he asks with something like a terror trembling his voice.

“Why, Mr. Lockwood, are you afraid of some spooky paintings?”

“I’m afraid of those towers out there, yes,” he says as he takes me in his arms. “I’m also afraid they’re going to give my darling Stace terrible nightmares.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, I’ve seen scarier paintings than those.”

“Oh,” Mason says, staring up at the ceiling in thought as he speaks. “I suppose you have. A lot of those books you liked to read had the most horrific covers. In a good way, of course.”

“Especially the ones you gave me,” I remind him.

He laughs loudly. “Well, you’re so deep into horror I remember wanting to give you a good scare with them.”

“That you did.”

We turn back to the window and the view splayed out before us. In the far distance, I can see the shimmering blue of the ocean that fades into the blue sky on the horizon to the point where I can’t tell where one starts and the other ends.

I think back to just over a year ago. When I had come back home, limping with my head down and in need of help, working at my father’s hotel. The time when Mason came back into my life, changing it for the better. And then the cherry on top: he never left.

He could have been happy with the other million women somewhere down there in the city, but he had chosen me out of all them, the connection we had felt while together has shown him the correct path to take.

And here I am just a year later. Married to Mason Lockwood. Billionaire. He gives me everything I want, anything that I might crave for, but there is really only one thing I’ve ever wanted and that is Mason by my side forever. Loving me, accepting me, and that is exactly what I have.

A family.

I cradle my bump as Mason rests his head on my shoulder. We slightly sway together as we stand here in my office. My own office… a year ago I had nothing, now with Mason’s help, I was able to start up my own publishing house. He had taken me under his wing, shown me the ropes, had taught me his expertise in business and with this I — we — had managed to create one of the top five upcoming publishers in the city to date.

And then we had created our child. I was going to be a mother to Mason Lockwood’s child, something I’ve always wanted to be.

When my father found out he was ecstatic and whatever bad blood might have remained between himself and Mason had simply evaporated.

The last time we had dinner together, my father had taken me off to the side during a quiet moment. It was there that he expressed how proud he is of his daughter, his only child — how he was glad that this family was going to continue on into the future. Especially now with the hotel business being run by Mason’s company, and with our child on the way we were set for a few generations. My marriage to Mason had helped my father feel more comfortable with Mason’s company taking over the hotel business, of course — his daughter was part of it still, and that pleased him. He spends more time with my mother now, my father. Each week I speak to him he expresses how much more he appreciates his retirement now that the family business is in safe hands.

“Hey,” I say, suddenly remembering. “Where’s our lunch?”

Mason shuffles me side to side in his powerful arms, standing behind me once again with his chin resting on the back of my head. “Well, I figured I’ll take you out somewhere. The limo is waiting for us,” he says nonchalantly.

I sigh. “You just couldn’t decide again, could you?”

A few seconds of silence in the room. “Damn, I thought I was getting away with that one,” he says quietly. “Well it’s just that you have such a refined palette these days, it’s hard to guess exactly what you want on any particular day.”

“Sustenance is what we want, Mason,” I tell him. “Very tasty, filling, sustenance.”

“Food,” he states flatly.

“Exactly.”

We both laugh and stare out the window again before I decide that I can’t put off eating lunch any longer — somewhere in the back of my mind it feels like our baby is demanding food and I can picture the little gal so clearly, gently rapping her tiny fists on an imaginary table: feed me.

I turn and look up and stare into Mason’s eyes, still finding it as easy as ever to get lost in their dazzling color. “This is good,” I say softly.

“It is, Stace,” he says and runs his fingers down my face.

I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him softly on the lips. “I love you, Mason,” I tell him.

“I love you, Stacy,” he replies.