“And if I say I don’t believe in marriage?” Natalia taunts, her fingernail tracing lightly on my chest.
“Then I’ll tell you that marriage is just a piece of paper,” I say. “Idecide how long I’m going to love you.Icommit. And I’ve already done that.”
“Really?” She arches a brow. “How long then?”
“Forever,” I whisper. “And however long you let me after that.” I kiss her chest, over her heart, and whisper against her skin, “You, you, you.”
She falls over me, lips brushing over mine.
“You.”
Kiss.
“You.”
Kiss.
“You.”
Her.
Natalia
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
FIVE YEARS LATER
“Mommy, I can’t find my dinosaur!” my son shouts through the house.
“I have it!” Rowan shouts back.
I laugh as I finish applying sunscreen to my daughter’s small, gorgeous face in the master bathroom. She giggles up at me with that childish glee I want to protect forever—for both her and our son.
We adopted our four-year-old son, Jacob, in Vietnam. He was only a year old then, and an orphan, and I knew the moment I saw him he was our son. I broke down sobbing in the orphanage and Rowan held me together. I knew he would be ours to take home and love.
Our daughter, Lilac, is a year old now and learning how to walk. Her eyes are lighter than mine, her hair is a curly mess of dirty blonde that appears more light brown, and her skin a lighter olive. I’m not sure what I imagined a child with Rowan would look like but she’s pretty fucking perfect if you ask me.
I like to think she got all of Rowan’s best qualities.
“What are you laughing about, Lil?” I ask her as I brush out her wet curls to style them with curl cream.
My question only makes her giggle more, which always makes me laugh too. “You’re so silly,” I sigh, tremendously happy in this life I’ve made. “Okay, sweet cheeks, you’re all done.”
I lift my daughter off the counter and onto her feet, and before I can blink, her tiny legs are sprinting—moving faster than she can keep up before she lands on her butt, the diaper breaking most of her fall.
She giggles, and gets right back up.
Strong just like her mama,Rowan always says and then kisses my forehead.
I smile as I chase after her before she gets to the stairs. She’s still giggling as I scoop her up in my arms, thrashing with humor and I blow raspberries into her neck, making her squeal.
Postpartum depression was harder than I was warned it would be. The hardest, most hurtful of all my dark thoughts was believing that my newborn daughter hated me. That I’d already failed her and my husband,so what was the point?I believed Lilac didn’t want to breastfeed because she resented me, and I believed that Rowan regretted having me as the mother of his children—that he wanted to leave me and take the kids. That he didn’t love me the way he said he did. Then I was detached. I disassociated so severely, Rowan and our friends spoke to me about inpatient help.
Instead, I went through intensive therapy twice a week as I worked on my bond with Lilac. And then I worked on my marriage with Rowan through couples counseling where I told him things that hurt to say to his face because he cried, and I ache when he cries.
I thought I was losing him somewhere, somehow.
But Rowan Asher has never been someone I’d ever lose easily. He’s never been one to give up on me—ever.And he never would.
