“What are you doing?” I asked as he rummaged in the drawer. “A condom? We don’t need it.”
“You and your one-track mind. Sex, sex, sex.” He kissed my forehead and pulled back. When he raised his hand, something sparkly hung off his pinky. “Emerson Paige Bender, will you marry me?”
Typical Price. He didn’t wait for the “perfect” time or plan something extravagant. He knew what he wanted, and he went for it.
“Wow.” I had no words, hardly able to believe this was happening now.
Now, of all times.
“That ring,” I said, taking in the single gorgeous solitaire on a slender platinum band. It was perfect—huge—but the simple design was all me.
“Well?” Price took the ring and slipped it onto my finger.
“Yes! Of course. Ring or not, I planned to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Is that so?”
“Pretty much. I guess it’s a good time to tell you something else.”
“What? Your name isn’t really Emerson? You’re a spy?”
“Ha! I’m not exactly sure how to say this, so I’m just gonna come out with it. We’re going to have a baby.”
“What?” He shot up in bed, his naked, muscular chest stealing my gaze like it always did.
“A baby. Me. You. In November. Remember when I had the ear infection? We didn’t pay attention to the warning about the antibiotic possibly messing with the pill, and then our rendezvous in the storage closet in the Milk and Cookies Bar?”
“Oh, I remember,” he said, smirking. “But you had a cocktail a few hours ago. You’ve been drinking vodka all month.”
I shook my head. “Soda and cran. Chuck’s been in on the plan, and that’s all he serves me. Makes it look real.”
“You little devil. What were you waiting for?” He pulled me close for a deep kiss.
“For you to graduate, be everything I knew you could be. I was going to tell everyone tomorrow after lunch. I wanted today to be all about you. But now we’re engaged, and everyone will think you proposed because of the bun in the oven.”
“Never. We both have been holding in a secret. Tomorrow was going to be a surprise engagement party. Chuck’s in on it too, the shit. He’s been playing both sides of this operation.”
I pouted out my bottom lip. “I wanted you to have a party all about you.”
“Em, nothing could make me happier. A baby, a wife. Now, be quiet and go back to your sexy thoughts.”
Price
Seven months later
“Shhh,” I whispered to the little bundle in my arms. “Let Mommy sleep, deal?” I bargained with my three-week-old daughter as if I wouldn’t give her anything and everything she wanted.
Rebecca Barnes came into the world a week early on a Thursday at two o’clock in the morning, and she’d been making herself known since the minute she arrived. I’d banked on her being a spitfire like her mom, and I wasn’t wrong. With thick jet-black hair and big blue eyes—we hoped they didn’t change—and olive skin from me, she was already a beauty queen.
“We may need a Rottweiler too,” I told an extremely tired Tuck, who sat guard at my feet.
His routine had been slightly upset after the baby’s birth, but Tuck didn’t care. With doting eyes, he watched Becca. At least he had a small yard to run around in now that we lived in a brownstone over in Brooklyn. The loft was fun, but not fit for a family.
“Hey.”
Emerson appeared in the doorway, looking sleepy but gorgeous in wrinkled pajamas, buttons askew, her hair a mess, and slippers on her feet.
“Is she hungry?” she asked, stretching her neck from side to side.
