EPILOGUE
Lucas still behaved like he was commander and chief of everything, but he was sensitive and open to deeper feelings and experiences. I was truly in love with him. We’d been dating a whole year, and he was taking me out on some fancy secret date tonight, Valentine’s Day — one year from the day he’d proven to me he didn’t need to tie me up to have me in his life.
He’d given himself over to being present and in tune with me as his partner, friend, and lover. We had deep philosophical discussions and disagreed on a lot of things passionately and often. Late at night, we made love and explored our boundaries, playing with fuzzy or spiked things that didn’t hurt too much. We’d created space for each other in our lives.
But not for a baby.
When I skipped my always regular period, I thought it was from the excitement and stress of my first runway show. Or even the heart attack I almost had when one of the models in Gentlemen’s Review began a photo striptease wearing one of my creations — one of the prototypes Harv’d had custom-made at the chalet. I’d had to explain to my mom about the magazine before someone back home clued her in.
It couldn’t be a baby.
In the bathroom, I ripped open the pregnancy test box.
Lucas and I hadn’t talked about our future much. He’d mentioned it, but not in a I-want-six-kids kind of way. What if he thought I only wanted to get him to marry me? He was a billionaire, after all, and plenty of women had pursued him in the past for his money. Even though I had my own now, my bank account was a drop in the bucket compared to his.
I read the directions and hoped I had the mental capacity at the moment to pee on a damn stick correctly. The directions sounded pretty complicated. Could I pee on it wrong and get the wrong results? I’d never done this before.
When I’d soaked the sucker as much as I possibly could, I set it on a tissue on the counter then set my phone timer for three minutes. I paced the bathroom, taking deep breaths, trying to remember the mantra my grandmother had repeated when she was really upset about something. But my mind was suddenly mush that could only concentrate on the stick on the counter that had one pink line.
One. That was good, right? My stomach plummeted, and I was shocked to realize I was disappointed.
But wait. It hadn’t been three minutes yet.
I resumed my pacing, stopping to straighten the hand towel, then flick a piece of lint off the counter.
Was that a second faint line?
I dove in to look closer, and my heart jumped into my mouth.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
The second pink line was turning darker, looking more like its twin by the second.
I was pregnant.
My knees wouldn’t hold me, and I sank down on the toilet, picked up the stick, and burst into tears.
That was how Lucas found me, bawling like the baby we would soon have and that he hadn’t asked for, hadn’t wanted.
“Ava? Honey, what’s wrong?” He was on his knees in front of me, his gorgeous eyes going over my body, looking for some injury he couldn’t see.
I blubbered something even I couldn’t understand, and his eyebrows came together in a frown.
I was going to have Lucas’s baby. And maybe he or she would have blue-gray eyes like his that reminded me of silver clouds going over the moon when he was happy, and hard, cold steel when he’d been wronged.
I watched them go to the pregnancy test box, hold, and widen. They shot back to mine. Tears flooded my eyes again and spilled over my lids in a flood. I waved the stick, the precious, two-pink-lines stick in my hand.
I was going to have Lucas’s baby. Joy ripped through my chest so great that for a second I thought he would be able to actually see my heart in the gap it left.
Lucas’s warm hand caught my cold one, held it up as he focused on the stick.
“I’m pregnant,” I said, the word ending on a sob.
“You’re… you’re pregnant. With a baby.” His dazed eyes left the stick and clashed with mine.
“Your baby.”
A breath whooshed out of him, and he leaped up laughing and threw his arms wide. “We’re pregnant?”
I could only gape as he fell to his knees again, a single tear making a wet track down his cheekbone.
“I was going to do this later.” He laughed and looked around. “And somewhere romantic, not here. But now, this is the perfect place. This is so perfect.”
I frowned, trying to catch on to what he was talking about, but my brain was too fuzzy with elation and fear and shock that he was reacting like I’d just handed him a prize.
I was going to have his baby, and he was happy.
Lucas reached into his suit pocket and pulled something out, holding it in his fist. When he opened it, he revealed a little red velvet box that was tied together with a white ribbon. My heart lurched then danced. He pulled the ribbon loose, opened the box and held up a glittering diamond engagement ring. “Ava, will you marry me?”
“Here?” was all I could think to say. He was asking me to marry him… here? In the bathroom.
He laughed again, and another tear followed the first. “Not marry me here, although I’d marry you right here in this bathroom if you said yes. Will you marry me, have my babies?” His gaze fell to my still flat belly. “Baby. I was going to ask you tonight, with the city skyline as a backdrop, but you’re so perfect sitting there, crying because you think I’ll be upset. I want this. This is perfect. You’re perfect. Ava, will you marry me?”
I covered my mouth with my hands as more tears cascaded down my face, and I stared at the diamond in disbelief until it blurred into a bright, shiny star.
When I met him, Lucas had dominated everything in his life. Over the past year, he’d mellowed… mostly. He was still a wolf in the sheets, but he had his softer moments too. He was also softer with the people around him, becoming more involved in their lives.
Even though I’d insisted I could do it myself, he’d set my sister up in college and was taking care of all her expenses. He’d created a college and medical fund for the children of those he employed. He mentioned that with every good deed he did, it made a new pocket of his heart open up that he hadn’t known was there.
“Ava?”
I realized I hadn’t said anything. “Yes!”
He let out a whoosh of a breath, and his arms came around me. “Where do you want to get married?”
“Not on the toilet.” We both laughed, and he drew back, the look on his face one of amazement. “My Valentine’s gift for you isn’t as grand as this.”
His hand came to rest on my belly. “The Valentine you’ve given me is better than any I could have dreamed of.”
I knew he dreamed of a big family — one with siblings and cousins who romped noisily with each other — and regretted the years he’d held such a grudge against Mason. They were making up for it now though. Lucas and Mason had grown closer, taking to heart the reality check their uncle had thrown at them with his fake heart attack.
Lucas took the ring out of its spot in the box and slipped it on my finger before hooking his arms behind my knees. When he lifted me into his arms, I rested my head on his shoulder and stared, enthralled at the ring as he carried me to the bed and laid me there as if I might shatter at any moment.
Lying next to me, he gently stroked my hair, kissing me so softly that tears sprung up again.
“None of that,” he said when he saw my tears and dipped his head to my neck, where he feathered my skin with kisses that slowly moved lower. When he reached my chest, he undid each button of my blouse, laying down a kiss on each inch of skin he revealed. “I want to make you happy, so happy you’ll keep on having my babies until we’re overrun and desperate.”
I laughed, so happy I was about to spontaneously combust. A gasp escaped my throat when his mouth closed around a nipple, and my back arched into it. “You make me unbelievably happy.”
Lucas rid me of the blouse and moved lower, stripping off articles of clothing, both his and mine, until we were skin to skin. As his molten steel eyes gazed down on me, he said, “There’s no way to describe to you how happy you make me. You’re my perfect match.”
“Yes, and you’re mine.”
He entered me then, and we both sucked in hissing breaths, the intensity of our union as overwhelming as ever. When he moved inside me, he was so gentle, rocking back and forth, but the sensation of his flesh meeting mine was heightened by his slow movements, his exquisite gentleness.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, sinking my fingers into his hair as he wrapped me in his embrace, his lips finding mine in a slow kiss that spoke of the depth of his love. When we came together, I knew it was true.
We were the perfect match.
THE END
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