Empire of Hate (Empire #3) by Rina Kent

A lone tear slides down my cheek. “I won’t. I can’t.”

He brushes his lips against mine. “Remember when you asked me where my home is?”

“You said it was nowhere.”

“I lied.” He taps my chest. “My home is wherever you are. You’re my home, Nicole.”

“Oh, Daniel. My heart can’t take this.”

“Stay with me. I haven’t gotten to the most important part.”

My chest squeezes. “And what is that?”

“Remember what you asked me back when we were children?”

“What?”

“You proposed to me.”

My cheeks turn hot. “I was…a kid.”

“It still counts and it’s my turn to propose.” He struggles to his feet, then awkwardly gets on his knee. “You’re the only woman I can imagine spending the rest of my life with. The woman I want to wake up next to every single day. You don’t only make me a better man, but you also give me the urge to be more for you. Nicole Stephanie Adler, will you marry me?”

I choke on my tears. Not just because his proposal feels surreal, but also because he actually knows my middle name.

He knows a lot about me that I thought he didn’t.

I take his arm, trying to pull him to his feet, but he refuses to. “You’ll rip out your stitches.”

“You better say yes then.”

I smile through the tears and open my mouth, but he cuts me off.

“Before you shoot me down, I want to tell you that my dick is now monogamous for you and refuses to be functional for anyone but you, so if you say no, he’ll have to kill himself.”

“How is that possible?”

“No clue, but he’ll find a way. He’s resourceful that way.”

“There’s no need.” I palm his cheek as I drop to my knees in front of him. “The answer is yes.”

“Yes, as in you’ll marry me, or yes to watching my dick come up with a way to go down in history as the first junior to kill himself?”

My laugh is loud and carefree. “I’m marrying you, Daniel. Like I dreamt twenty-one years ago. I loved you then, I’m in love with you now.”

“I loved you then, too.” He grabs me by the nape, pulling me close to him. “I’m mad about you now, Peaches.”

“Why do you call me that when you don’t eat the fruit?”

“You still love it, and I’m low-key glad the thing, as dangerous as it is, brought us close together.”





EPILOGUE - NICOLE





TWO YEARS LATER





The wails of screaming pull me from deep slumber.

I stumble out of bed, rubbing my eyes as I head to the nursery. My feet come to a halt when I find Daniel already holding his fussy son and rocking him back and forth.

My heart leaps with a mixture of adoration and complete bliss. Suppressing a yawn, I lean against the doorframe and rub the sleep out of my eyes.

I’m tired, absolutely exhausted from working all day. Those who say being a chef is easy didn’t try having their own restaurant and branching out to other parts of the world.

It’s a full-time job, just like being a mother, and a wife. While I should use the chance that Conrad has his father with him, I can’t force myself to move.

I love the view more than sleep, more than rest, more than anything.

If I thought Daniel was attractive before, he’s downright mouthwatering as a father. It doesn’t matter that he’s only wearing a pair of boxer briefs—although it does add to the hotness. There’s an edge of maturity to him. A part that’s touched by time and experience and everything in between.

At first, he admitted that he never considered having children of his own. He was so cynical about it that I thought it would take some convincing.

I always wanted children, and even though I raised Jayden, I wanted to be a mother, not only a sister.

So color me surprised when, in the midst of a very intense fucking session during our honeymoon, in Zach’s island, my husband flipped me on the sand and said he wants to put a baby in me.

It was his show of possessiveness, I guess. He tends to be jealous of any man I know, including his own brother, so I thought he probably wants to stake his claim.

But after we talked about it, he said he meant it.

“I never wanted children before because I didn’t care for procreating for the sake of procreating,” he told me while we were lying on the sand, staring at the million stars.

I rolled around to face him. “It’s different now?”

“Fuck right it’s different. They will be our children, they will be a mixture of you and me. More importantly, you will be their mother.”

Then he proceeded to fuck me again and again. Nine months after that honeymoon, a little miracle called Conrad Sterling was born.

He has my eyes, his father’s hair, and the stubborn attitude of the two of us combined.

Just because we’re married doesn’t mean we don’t have our differences. We drive each other crazy like every healthy, passionate couple. We still fight about our differing points of view, but I’m starting to think Daniel does it on purpose for the make-up sex.

He turns my life upside down in every way possible. After I got into therapy about my past trauma, my life took a leap for the better. I became more body-positive, though Daniel played a major part in that.