Manhattan's Most Scandalous Reunion by Dani Collins, Caitlin Crews

CHAPTER TWELVE

NINA’SAPPEARANCEONthe terrace last night with Oriel had set Paris on fire. The news traveled around the world within hours. Despite the downpour in Mumbai when they landed, even bigger crowds were gathered at the airport and outside the building where Oriel and Vijay lived. The roar when they paused to wave before hurrying out of the rain and into the high-rise rang in Nina’s ears as they stepped into the elevator.

“It’s a lot, I know,” Oriel said with a small wince of empathy, leaning into Vijay.

“Settle in and rest,” Vijay suggested, looping his arm around his wife. “Jalil and my sister will join us for dinner, but we’ll put off talking about interviews and appearances until tomorrow or the next day.”

“I think the baby needs to nap,” Oriel said with a sleepy blink up at him.

“Then baby should.” Vijay settled his hand on her belly, seeming completely enamored with her.

Nina’s heart pinched and she glanced away, but her gaze was snagged by Reve’s intense one. She looked down guiltily. She couldn’t help it that she was envious, and wished he hadn’t noticed. It put a lot of pressure on him that she didn’t mean.

The pair stayed in the elevator while she and Reve departed two floors below her sister’s penthouse into a very swanky apartment with a living space that opened onto a covered terrace overlooking the sea.

Nina immediately went to stand at the rail. Rain gusted toward them, but she only grinned at the storm waves and heavy gray skies.

“Doesn’t it smell good?” She drank in the sweet, earthy, salt-scented air.

“It does, but—” Reve nodded at someone pointing a camera toward them from the beach twenty stories below. He drew her back into the apartment. “Can you imagine bringing a child into this sort of fishbowl?”

She bit the corner of her lip, debating how to react.

“Oriel’s mother is a renowned opera singer so she’s used to being the daughter of someone famous. She seems comfortable with the attention, but they weren’t planning to have a baby this soon.” In a private confidence between sisters, Oriel had confessed that she and Vijay had married because Oriel fell unexpectedly pregnant. Nina kept it to herself.

“Accidents happen,” she said with a defensive shrug. “I’ll try not to have any and certainly wouldn’t deliberately let it happen, but you should probably consider that it could.”

He walked into the kitchen and her heart sank. She followed and found him glowering. Her stomach cramped.

“Look, if you’re not comfortable with that risk...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She hated how tentative this was! Without any firm promises between them, every little thing felt as though it could defeat them.

“I don’t like this kitchen. We need to remove that wall and put in an island so you can cook without me getting in your way.”

“Really?” she said, perplexed.

“Am I being sexist? I thought you liked to cook.”

“Sure, but that sounds very... I mean, I can’t afford this place.”

“The show has done well, and I have every confidence you and Oriel will quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the fashion industry. At some point, you absolutely will be able to afford this, but I’ll buy it. That way we’ll have somewhere to stay when we visit.”

Her stomach swooped. “I thought we were taking this day by day. Did you hear what I just said about accidents?”

“Yes. And if I’m not comfortable with that risk, I can wear condoms as an extra precaution. I probably won’t, unless you want me to.”

“Really?” A bubble of optimism rose to press painfully behind her breastbone.

“Really. Let’s go see if we like the bedroom.”

The next days were challenging and busy, but Reve couldn’t resent the demands and privacy difficulties when Nina was positively incandescent.

And while he still loathed the intrusion of paparazzi, he discovered what a disservice he’d done to her and himself in the past, when he had refused to meet her family. He had thought it would feel like an overstep to allow strangers into his personal life, but spending time with Nina while she got to know Oriel allowed him to see parts of her she had never revealed before. At night, she decompressed, confiding in him the complicated feelings she had about all of this. It formed tiny threads that meshed them closer together.

He enjoyed coaching her and Oriel on their business plan for the fashion house idea, too. Nina’s confidence in her worth as an artist grew by the day, making him so proud he was in danger of becoming insufferable. Vijay’s sister wanted in on their fashion label idea even though she was already busy with the security work she did with Vijay, and soon Reve was sent to do “boy things” with Vijay and Jalil. He enjoyed their company, too.

With the evidence Reve had found, Jalil was commencing formal legal action against Lakshmi’s manager. Suing the clinic was much trickier since the business had been dissolved two decades ago and the doctor who’d colluded with Bakshi was dead. Still, they were going to try. In fact, Reve had just left Nina with Oriel and Jalil at the lawyer’s office and was killing time by wandering down the block.

Restlessness chased him. He was ignoring his own business by lingering here with her, but he didn’t want to leave, even though he knew she would be okay. Jalil was footing the bill on the legal proceedings and security. Everyone had welcomed Nina with open arms. She was regaining her sense of self and making decisions about her future. She didn’t really need him.

Which wasn’t as comforting a thought as it ought to be. If she didn’t need him, why was he here? Because she loved him and he didn’t want to hurt her by rejecting that love?

That was true, but he was also starting to realize that he needed her. He had already tasted life without her voice and touch and laughter. It was empty and meaningless if he didn’t have their playful bickering or quiet moments of sincerity.

From the moment she had stumbled back into his life, he’d been thinking he should pry her out of it, and he hadn’t once found the strength. He still didn’t think he was right for her, but their soft promise of “wait and see” wasn’t enough for him. He saw the commitment between Vijay and Oriel and knew Nina wanted that. Love, marriage, children... It still felt very foreign to him. Impossible to achieve.

Yet, every time he saw Vijay touch Oriel’s belly, curiosity rose in him. He wanted to ask him, What is that like? How does it feel? How do you know you’ll be a good father?

He looked at his ghostly reflection in a shop window and was struck by how much he looked like a younger version of his father. Had there been a time when that man had loved him, before he’d lost the woman he loved and gave himself up to a bottle of grief?

Could this man reflected back at him be a good father after that example had been set for him? Despite Reve’s mind riffling through all the ways he would make a terrible parent, a resounding truth rose above the noise. Nina wouldn’t let him fail. She would help him be better. He knew that.

A swell of possibility rose in him.

“Sir, would you like to come in? Can I show you one of those rings?”

Reve focused his gaze and realized he was standing outside a jewelry store.

“You still need to go to Berlin, don’t you?” Nina asked Reve the next morning.

They’d had a late night. She and Oriel had been interviewed on a television show, which had been surreal, but seemed to result in a wave of public outrage for what had been done to Lakshmi and support for them. Reve had been quiet and distracted, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the attention or because he was growing tired of playing second fiddle to her needs.

“I have business in New York that needs to be addressed sooner than later. Why? How long were you thinking of staying here?”

“Forever?” she said on a wistful sigh and flopped onto the sofa. “I love it here, but I feel very far away from my family. I also haven’t even started the work I need to do with Andre. I have to fill those orders so my investor doesn’t send his goon squad after me.” She reached her toe out to nudge him in the thigh.

“You’re saying that having a twin isn’t as convenient as it sounds?” He caught her ankle and sat to swing her feet into his lap. “Isn’t it like having a clone? Can’t you be in two places at once now?”

“Turns out, no. Family is many things, but convenient is rarely one of them.” She shifted to straddle his lap, so in love with him she thought she might die of it. “Even so, you can never have too much.”

She faltered slightly as she realized how that might sound.

“Nina, it’s okay that you say what’s on your mind and in your heart.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at her in a way that sent a spear of hope straight into her chest. “That’s how I know I can trust you.”

“Do you trust me? Because sometimes I worry it’s not the publicity that will drive you away,” she confessed softly. “I worry it’s the moments when I get excited about Oriel’s baby or I do something else that makes you think I need what she has. I only need you.” She cupped his stubbled cheeks. “I promise you that.”

“It seems impossible that I could ever be enough.” He searched her eyes pensively. “I keep thinking that I need to do more.”

When she started to shake her head, he tightened his hands on her hips, forestalling her from saying anything.

“I can’t ask you to leave places where you have roots and family and people who love you to follow me around the world. Not unless I give you a good reason to.”

She wanted to ask, Such as...? She had stopped breathing, and her eyes teared up.

Ask me to marry you, she silently pleaded, pulse rushing in her ears. If he was her family, she would go wherever he wanted to take her, convenient or not.

He swallowed and started to reach into his shirt pocket.

Her heart stuttered and soared with anticipation.

His phone rang in the opposite pocket. He swore, glanced at her sheepishly and made a face of annoyance as he drew it out and looked at the screen.

His features froze with concentration. Hardened. When he clicked it off, his expression was grave.

“I have to leave.” He spoke quietly and with a finality that landed on her like a meteorite.

Her limbs became cold and unwieldly, too weak and heavy to fight him as he moved her off his lap and rose.

“Right now? Why? I’ll go with you.” Panic edged into her voice as she scrambled to her feet.

“No. Spend time with your family. Tell them...” His expression tightened. “Tell them I’m sorry.”

Dread slid down her back in cold fingers. Nina scanned his features, growing more and more distressed. Maybe she and Reve hadn’t made any promises for a future, but she had thought she would have more warning if he decided to leave.

“What happened?” She looked at the phone he’d tucked away.

“The smear campaign has begun.”

“On me? By who? Lakshmi’s manager?”

“On me. There’s nothing Bakshi can say to discredit you, is there? You’re an innocent victim. He’ll only look worse if he comes after you. Better to say your accusations against him are being prompted by a man who lacks morals. One who makes up any story for money.”

“Oh, Reve, no. I am so sorry.” She took a faltering step toward him, but he was already putting up a hand to hold her off.

“It was bound to happen, Nina.” He was speaking in a tone she hadn’t heard in a long while, the one that said nothing could touch him. Except it could. She heard through that aloof tone to the pain it disguised. “He’ll soon discover he has started a fight he doesn’t want with a ruthless bastard who stops at nothing. But my past, and the dirty fight we’ll have, cannot be your problem. So here we are. This time we really will end it.”

“No.” Pain began to seep like poison through her veins and arteries and nerve endings, growing too intense to bear. “Reve, I don’t care what he says about you. I love who you are. Everything about you.”

“Nina.” His voice was gentle, as though he was holding something fragile and trying to release it into a breeze. “It’s not just you I’m protecting.” He nodded to the ceiling and Oriel and Vijay, two floors up. “They’ll all suffer if I allow myself to be used as a weapon. If I leave, he has nothing against any of you. You don’t need me anymore. You’ll be fine.”

“No, I won’t! I do need you. We belong together. You know that. You were just about to ask me to marry you, weren’t you?” she demanded, pushing the strained words through her tight throat.

He looked away and a muscle clenched in his jaw. “You don’t want to be married to this. I’ve always known that, and you would have seen it, too, if you had really wanted to. When you do, you’ll thank me for making the hard choice that you refused to.”

“That’s bull. You’re being a coward.”

His head jerked back as if she’d punched him.

“I’m doing what has to be done.” He walked into the bedroom where he threw a few necessities into a bag, gave her one last look of agonized regret and then left.

She didn’t go to the shower. She was too devastated for tears. She sat on the sofa in a paralysis of loss, unable to form a thought through the pulsing pain that enclosed her.

Eventually, she became aware that her jagged breaths were the only thing she could hear in the otherwise profound silence. She had never felt more abandoned in her life.

But she wasn’t alone, she realized dimly, and ran in a blind hurry up to Oriel’s apartment, banging urgently on the door.

“Nina? Are you okay?” Oriel let her in, alarmed.

“No! Something happened.” The words stumbled against the sobs that were stacked like uneven blocks in her throat. “Gouresh Bakshi is dragging up Reve’s past to discredit me and harm Jalil’s case. Reve left. And I don’t know how I’m going to bear it.”

“Oh, Nina.” Oriel’s arms came around her.

Nina clung to her sister and heard Vijay swear vehemently.

“That can only mean one thing,” he said.

He sounded so grim that Nina was pulled from her anguished need to weep and lifted her head. “What?”

“I’m next.”

Reve’s jet had gone back into service after dropping them here in Mumbai. It would meet him in Dubai, and a conventional executive jet had been chartered to get him there. He was stuck in a private lounge, waiting for it to make its way onto the tarmac.

Would he start drinking, he wondered? He tried not to use alcohol as a coping mechanism, but he really didn’t know how he would survive leaving Nina. He had to protect her, though. Had to.

Because he loved her. He must. There was no other explanation for this feeling—it was as though a part of him had been amputated. He could hardly breathe.

Although he wanted to berate himself for letting it happen, he hadn’t had much choice in the matter, either. Not from the first moment she had approached him at that New Year’s Eve shindig, saying with the wide-eyed blink of an ingenue, Your performance of boredom is extraordinary.

He had never been bored again. Not while she was around. Now, all he could think was that his life would become a wasteland again. Meaningless.

Ironically, by leaving her, he was trying to be the sort of man who deserved her. He was trying not to hurt her by hurting her. It was the most untenable position to be in, but he understood now. Love wasn’t a selfish thing you used to make others do things. It was something that drove your own actions on another’s behalf. It was complete selflessness. The sacrifice of your own happiness for their betterment.

Why was he forcing loss on her, though?

His phone pinged again. He’d been ignoring it. His PR people were becoming aware that his reputation was being attacked. They were reaching out for guidance and, furious as he was by Bakshi’s efforts, another part of Reve couldn’t care less. If he couldn’t have Nina, what was the point in fighting? Let Bakshi do his worst. He’d rather be dead.

Someone was trying to video call. He gave in and pulled his phone from his pocket, but missed it. Vijay.

He wasn’t in the mood for whatever rebukes Vijay wanted to spit at him. Reve’s past was stinking up all of their lives, he knew that. That’s why he was leaving—to mitigate the damage.

It bothered him that he was losing Vijay’s respect, though. Friendships of any kind had always eluded him, but he and Vijay had fallen into a comfortable camaraderie. This whole experience of watching Nina meld with her sister’s world had drawn Reve into believing he was part of that thing she was forming. The f-word. Family.

He wasn’t meant to have such a thing, though. He was alone and always would be.

His phone was still faceup, so he saw the text from Vijay as it arrived.

You tool. Do you think you’re the only one with dirt in his past? We’re both under attack. If you care about Nina at all, you’ll come back and fight with us.

“Sir?” A woman appeared beside him. “I can show you to your plane now.”

“Why is this man intent on destroying my family?” Jalil lamented. He sat between Nina and Oriel, one of their hands in each of his. Vijay’s sister, Kiran, was clattering away on her laptop, and Vijay was in the loft, issuing sharp orders in Hindi into his phone.

Jalil’s lawyer continued issuing advice over video chat.

Nina shouldn’t have tuned it out, but she was one raw, exposed nerve, throbbing with agony. Empty. It was all she could do to reassure Jalil that she didn’t blame him for Reve leaving. It wasn’t his fault that Gouresh Bakshi was lashing out.

The truth was that she and Reve had always been unsustainable. She had wanted to believe her love was strong enough to carry their relationship, but she realized that the mightiest bridge did nothing if the man she extended it to didn’t trust it enough to come across. Although he could say he was leaving to protect her, deep down, he was protecting himself.

He trusted her, but not enough. And that destroyed her. She didn’t know how she would survive losing him this time, she really didn’t.

Their discussions were disrupted by a sharp knock on the door.

They all went silent and looked at it.

Vijay came to the rail of the loft. “No one should be able to get up the elevator.”

“Maybe it’s—” Oriel glanced hesitantly at Nina.

“Should we guess? Or look?” Kiran rolled her wheelchair across the room and turned the latch. As she pulled the door open, she said, “It’s about time you came back. Oh. You’ve brought a friend. Hello.”

She rolled back far enough to let Reve in. He was accompanied by a blond, white man, tall and thin like a marathon runner, maybe in his early thirties.

Nina barely noticed the other man. She slapped her hand over a heart that had begun to pound. Her vision blurred as hot tears arrived in her eyes. He came back.

“Pascal Hansen,” Reve said with a nod, his gaze not leaving hers. “He was arguing with the doorman in the lobby when I came though, trying to get them to call up and tell you he was here.”

“I haven’t had any luck with leaving messages,” Pascal said, rubbing his hands on the seams of his jeans. “I, um—goodness!” He looked between Oriel and Nina. His bemused smile revealed a small overbite very similar to Nina’s.

She started to feel dizzy and clutched Jalil’s hand even harder.

“I found a letter in my father’s things when he passed five years ago,” Pascal said. “I knew he’d had an affair when I was young and that I had a sister in India, but... I guess I have two?”

“You should get some rest,” Reve said when he finally got Nina back to their apartment. She looked more emotionally drained and subdued than he’d ever seen her—which was saying something, considering she’d been riding one crisis after another for weeks.

He hoped the resolution they’d arrived at today would finally put the worst of that behind her. Through the afternoon and evening, everyone had been on calls with lawyers, putting pressure on Gouresh Bakshi from all sides.

Reve had spared nothing in his threats to sue the man into oblivion for defamation. Vijay had made similar threats. There was an element of bluff in both of them since they each had a muddy past, but the cost of defending himself was an expense Bakshi hadn’t wanted to take on.

Pascal’s letter from Lakshmi to his father had secured Bakshi’s final surrender. Lakshmi had laid out everything—how the affair she’d had with Pascal’s father, a Norwegian academic, had resulted in a pregnancy. How she’d been pressured into having the baby far from home and forced by Bakshi to give it up.

He said our baby would never be accepted because she was mixed race, so I chose a French couple who were also mixed race. I was told the wife was an accomplished singer and the husband a scholar, like you.

I didn’t get to hold her or even see her. She was gone when I awoke. Perhaps that was for the best, because I don’t think I could have released her if I’d held her.

I will hate him for the rest of my life, though. There doesn’t seem any point in living if I don’t have you or our child.

Once those sentiments were conveyed through the lawyers, word came back that Bakshi would make a settlement that included all the rights to Lakshmi’s movies. It was a reclaiming of Lakshmi that meant more to all of them than any financial gain.

Pascal had a wife and children to get back to so he was returning to Norway, but he promised to bring his family to meet his half sisters very soon.

Nina called her family, and they were thrilled to hear she had a half brother and even more thrilled to hear that once this final announcement was made, things should finally calm down a little.

“Nina?” Reve followed her into the kitchen.

“I want some tea,” she murmured.

“I can make it. Go sit down.”

She set the kettle aside without filling it.

“How long are you back for?” she asked in a choked voice. “Because I can’t keep doing this.”

“Nina, I was trying to protect you.”

“You’re doing a terrible job!” she accused, flinging herself around to face him. “Life has run me over again and again and you haven’t stopped any of it. You can’t, Reve. Do you realize that? I mean, I don’t want to sound ungrateful for all the things you’ve provided me.” She sniffed and briefly covered her face as she gathered her composure. She lifted her face. “In some ways you’ve held off the speeding train while I untangled myself from the tracks. I’m grateful for that, but the only thing I have really wanted from you in all of this is you. Your presence next to me. And you left.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and moved out of the kitchen, but still feeling claustrophobic as he reached the dimly lit living room with the terrace doors blackened by night.

He saw Nina’s reflection in the one and glanced over his shoulder to see her leaning her shoulder on the wall, arms crossed. The corners of her mouth were pulled down with despair.

“I was going to ask you to marry me,” he admitted, and felt the sting of her flinch. “But how the hell does that go? I love you, Nina. Here are all of my worst behaviors making headlines. Please marry that?” he mocked.

“Okay. I will.”

“Don’t.” He looked to the ceiling. “I will take you at your word, and I will lock you down for the rest of our lives because I cannot take being apart from you. Not again. Not ever.”

“Okay.” He sensed her coming toward him and felt her arms come around his waist, but kept his gaze on the ceiling, afraid she would see how wet his eyes were.

“Don’t forgive me that easily. I know I was a jerk for leaving. I was so...” His arms closed convulsively around her. “I was so happy, beginning to see a future with you. It felt too good to be true, and it was. Gone like a candle being blown out.”

“You blew it out. You didn’t trust us. It’s not gone, Reve. It’s right here.”

“I don’t know how to believe this will last, though.”

“You just do. That’s how this works. You trust my love is there and believe in it and feel it inside you. That’s how I feel. I know you love me. I do.”

He did let her see into his eyes then, wanting her to know that his love for her was so big inside him, he didn’t know how to contain it.

She dragged in an emotive breath and set her hand against his face, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Reve.”

“I love you, Nina. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said with a trembling smile.

He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t see. He scraped the heel of his hand across his wet lashes, then patted his pocket and withdrew the ring. His heart hammered. He kept the ring in his closed fist a final second.

She closed her hands over his fist, keeping his fingers folded over it. “You know I only want a future with you, right? A ring isn’t necessary.” She kissed his knuckles.

“It is to me. I want the whole world to know we’re committed to one another. There’s a wedding band that goes with this, and I’ll wear one, too. I picked it because it looked like it wouldn’t catch when you’re working. You can exchange it if you want to.” He opened his hand and watched her closely.

“Oh, my God, Reve.” Her eyes bulged, and she brought both hands to her mouth as she took in the square emerald set flat and framed by multiple diamonds adorning the wide band.

“You like it?”

“I love it, but...” She saw a shadow come into his eyes. “No ‘but,’” she corrected gently. “I was going to say that you have to stop being so generous, but no. You’re perfect exactly as you are. I love you.”

Perfectseemed a stretch, but she placed her trembling fingers on his palm, allowing him to thread the ring onto her finger. It caused the most profound feeling within him, as if he was truly joining himself to her in a way that went beyond the physical, material world.

They were both blinking wet eyes as he brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed her hand. “Be mine always?”

“Always,” she promised.

When he drew her close and kissed her, he felt the joyous light of her spill through him, filling him with all those hopes and dreams she had for them. It was thrilling. The possibilities before them were so endless he could hardly catch his breath.

They married in Albuquerque with her “American” family in attendance. While Oriel couldn’t fly because she was nearing her due date, she was very understanding about not being included.

“It should be about you and Reve, not you and me,” Oriel said, wryly acknowledging that they always became the center of attention when they went anywhere together. “Besides, my mother is planning a wedding reception for Vijay and me for next summer. You and I can celebrate each other’s marriages then.”

Any initial coolness over the way Reve had broken Nina’s heart was quickly forgotten by her family when they saw how doting he was. Also, as a wedding present, Reve got her sister fast-tracked and financed for one of the top family planning clinics in the country.

When Angela tried to demure, he asked, “What’s the point in having all this money if I can’t do nice things for Nina and the people she cares about?”

“I see how confusing he is,” Angela confided when she put the final touches on Nina’s hair. “It feels like he’s buying my good opinion, but also I’m a little bit in love with him for doing something so magnanimous.”

It was as though Reve had never had people to spend money on before, and now he was determined to spoil rotten everyone close to her. Nina’s father didn’t know it yet, but Reve had paid off his mortgage. Her brother, the real estate agent, was also about to earn a stinking great commission from the house Reve intended to buy so they would have a home to stay in when they visited.

Nina’s father walked her down the aisle. They were all very weepy for the people who couldn’t be there, but when she arrived to place her hands in Reve’s, her joy was absolute.

He nearly crushed her hands as he spoke his vows and gave the ring on his finger an extra push to secure it in place, ensuring she knew he was hers. Always.

They didn’t honeymoon, both too busy with work, but they settled into the New York penthouse with a pleasant sense it was their primary home. Nina and Oriel were making progress on their plans to open a fashion house. Nina found the perfect studio space and was beginning to equip and staff it while coordinating production contacts in India with Oriel.

In fact, she was so busy, her husband was the one who noticed she’d forgotten something very important.

“Nina, do you know what day it is?” he asked, coming into the kitchen where she was making their morning coffee. He wore only his pajama pants.

“Tuesday.”

“It’s Wednesday, but I was looking for the eye drops and, according to this, you think it’s Sunday.” He held out the blister pack that she kept in the cabinet over the bathroom sink.

“No!” She snatched it from him and stared in horror. “I always remember.”

“Except we wound up staying at the hotel on Saturday night after the gala and didn’t come home until afternoon. Then you were up early Monday for that meeting, and Tuesday morning you were talking to Oriel while you got ready for work.”

“I...” She wanted to say she would have noticed this morning, but they’d had sex before rising and she had honestly completely forgotten. “I didn’t do this on purpose.”

“I know.” He gave her a perplexed frown. “I just thought you should know.”

“Okay, but if I miss this many, I’m supposed to throw the package away.” She swallowed. “And we should use condoms for a few weeks until...”

The coffeemaker hissed behind her. She gave it a distracted look.

“Until we...um...” She swallowed again. “Until we know whether there’s anything else to, um, worry about.”

“I’m not worried.”

“No, Reve. Do you realize what I’m saying? I’m not protected.”

“Oh, my God, Nina. Yes. I know where babies come from.” He chuckled. “Would you please stop having a panic attack?” He caught her hips to draw her close. “Honestly, this is a conversation I didn’t know how to have, but ever since Angela said their surrogate was pregnant, I’ve been thinking about asking you when you want us to start a family.”

“Oh.” She pretty much melted into a puddle. “Short answer? From the day I met you.” She stroked her fingertips along the fine hairs against his breastbone. “I’ve always known I wanted you to be the father of my children.”

“Yeah?” His smile was a slow dawn of self-conscious pleasure. “Well, let’s hope we just got lucky, then.”

“Oh, I’m already lucky,” she assured him, lifting her smiling mouth for his smiling kiss. “I’m the luckiest woman alive.”

“And I’m the luckiest man. But just in case...” He tilted his head toward the bedroom. “Should we improve our odds?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely we should do that.”

They did.