“I love you,” I murmured, staring at the two of them.
My daughter and my husband.
My daughter and her father.
“I love you too, my little wife.”
I could almost forget we were surrounded by his entire family until we kissed, and the crowd broke out in cheers.
Later that night, after his family had left and we’d sung Lucy to sleep with Christmas carols, I led Max to our bedroom and let him open his present.
With love and wild hunger in his gaze, he unwrapped my pajamas from my body like a gentleman. And when he saw the black lace lingerie I had on underneath, he shed his gentleman and made love to me like the man who was made for me. My king of flowers.
The king of my heart.
Epilogue
DAISY
TWO MONTHS LATER…
“Ready?”
“I think so.” I smiled at Lou and turned my gaze around the living room at the Lamplight Inn, which looked nothing like a living room right now, but a secret garden.
“We did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself,” Frankie said, coming to stand at my left with a grin. “And I don’t think Max has any idea.”
It was just about as hard as it sounded to pull off putting together a wedding without the groom knowing when it was his flower company that was supplying the flowers.
“Oh, no.” Lou shook her head. “He’s definitely convinced one of our guests is getting married today. I think the fake contract Wade typed up and signed really sealed the deal.”
After Lucy’s birth and then Christmas, Max and I settled into a routine that felt as familiar as it did comforting, but there was one thing that nagged at me. After how wild the last six months had been, I couldn’t believe how I’d walked out of chaos and into a fairy tale. Every day I woke up next to him, every day he wentand picked up our daughter from her crib and brought her into bed with us. I couldn’t believe the dream I was living.
I couldn’t believe the dream I was living with him.
But there was one tiny, tiny thorn that kept pricking at me as the days and weeks went on. I’d never regret a single moment of the path that brought us here, but that didn’t mean there weren’t things I wanted to give Max—parts of his dream that he’d happily hopped and skipped over to protect me.
Like a wedding surrounded by his family.
“Chandler just texted. They’re on their way.” Frankie slid her phone back into her pocket and lifted her mimosa glass. Mine, filled with just orange juice, clinked with hers and Lou’s. “Have I mentioned how much I love that they decided on this whole ‘Dad day’ idea?”
Right after Christmas—though Jamie claimed he had the idea on Christmas and he and Kit bickered about it—the dads in the family, Jamie, Kit, Chandler, Wade, and Max, came up with the idea of a ‘Dad day’ that they took every other week. They’d take all the kids and go out for the day, or most of it, and do something fun. They’d done bowling days, hockey games. One time, Kit plastic wrapped his entire studio, and they did something that was more making a mess than it was painting, but Max had brought home a small canvas of Lucy’s footprints that Jamie then made a frame for.
“Such a great idea,” Violet said and joined us, but over by the window, where she could keep lookout.
Meanwhile, on Dad days, the moms got to play. Or, more accurately, relax.
“They’re here!” Ailene announced, beaming as she whisked my orange juice from my hand, and then my father-in-law offered me his arm, leading me to the end of the short, rose-petal-lined aisle.
George was performing the unofficial ceremony, keeping the entirety of the event contained to family members only.
“You sure you want to marry Max again?” His eyes twinkled at me in jest.
“Every day.” I smiled back and then looked to the entrance into the room, my heart rioting in my chest like I wasn’t already married to the man about to walk through it.
I heard the front door open. “Lou, I’m here. What’s wrong? You said?—”
His determined stride skidded to a halt when he reached the threshold and saw the room we’d turned into nothing short of a secret garden. My smile of happiness cracked, wanting to split wider when I saw Lucy sleeping in the carrier strapped to his chest. That little girl couldn’t have been morehiseven if it had been his genes woven into her DNA.
