“Red’s perfect.”
“Heck yeah, she is,” he cleverly retorts. “Great to see you’re catching up, sweetheart.”
I think my ovaries react to his words because I feel something swell and pulse deep inside me. Maybe Hana wasn’t wrong, and I should get pregnant. Baby trapping this man sounds like the greatest idea I’ve ever had.
He sends me to the lounge area with our glasses of wine and then joins me with a beautiful board full of various finger foods. “You must have spent the whole day cooking,” I say, overwhelmed.
“Just the afternoon. I started on the meat yesterday, though, and it’s been slow cooking all day.”
“I need to make sure this evening is all worth it, then.”
“Oh, I have the feeling it will be, red.”
I hand him his glass, and before we drink, he raises it, his gaze locked on mine. “To our first date,” he toasts.
I tap my glass with his and repeat, “To our first date.”
And to many, many more to come.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jake
I genuinely cannot believe thatthis gorgeous, clever, and witty creature sitting by my side is mine. Life doesn’t get any better than this, does it? All the struggles I’ve been through to get to this moment have been worth it. A million fucking times over. Especially when her pearly laugh fills my ears like it does now. I bagged Genevieve Kensington, and no accomplishment will ever be that rewarding.
“I swear,” she struggles to say between laughs. “My mother grabbed my arm and dragged me out so fast. ‘Genevieve, this man is a former president of the United States!’” she adds, mimicking what must be her mother’s shrill voice. “But how was I supposed to know?”
“How old were you?”
“Six!”
“Yeah, I reckon that’s fair,” I reply, amused. “What happened after?”
“Well, I was forbidden from attending galas, which I really didn’t mind. But then Victoria refused to go if I couldn’t come, so my parents decided to debrief me a lot more instead.”
“Did you obey?”
She doesn’t say right away, mischievously biting her lower lip. I know the answer right then, even before she shakes her head. “Within a month, I got us out of gala duty for good.”
“So, you’ve been a determined little thing your whole life. Consider me warned.”
A small giggle spills out of her pink lips, her eyes lifting from her nearly empty glass. “Your turn. Tell me something about your childhood,” she softly asks.
There are two different versions of me as a kid, one of which is always hard to talk about. Before my mother’s death, I was like any child with a single parent struggling to make ends meet. What came after though, was devoid of innocence and joy, a dark era that nearly ruined all of her hard work.
“I told you my mum was a nurse, right?” I ask, to which Gen nods. “Well, when I was too young to take care of myself and she couldn’t find a sitter, she sometimes smuggled me into the hospital’s break room, gave me a pile of blank paper sheets from the copier, a cup full to the brim with pencils that she nicked from the pediatric wing, and she left me there while she worked. She came back to check on me as often as she could, and she sang me lullabies when I was ready to fall asleep on the beat-up couch. I think that’s where my passion for drawing stems from.”
“She sounds like a great mom. She really tried her best to care for you despite her little means.”
“She was, and she did. Life wasn’t easy, but she shielded me from all her money struggles. She used to tell me I was the best thing she’d ever done, her perfect boy with the face of an angel. After her death, I spiraled into some bad stuff until I realized I was ruining everything she had worked so hard for, destroying her legacy by being a stupid twat. So, I picked myself up, stopped the self-pitying, and decided to become a man she’d be proud of, her perfect boy. I work hard, make honest money, respect women, give to charities… She’s also the reason why I never had piercings or tattoos on my face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I reckon that if we’re to meet again in the afterlife, I want her to see me with the angel face she always thought I had.”
Gen gives me a small smile, and her soft hand comes to rest on the side of my jaw, giving me a tender caress. “She would be so proud to see how far you’ve come, wombat.”
I twist my face enough to kiss the inside of her palm. We’ve been sitting here for half an hour, eating, drinking, and chatting like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t expect it to last that long, but we never run out of things to talk about, which is a great sign.
