Not maybe.
Now.
Thirty-eight, and the clock isn’t ticking; it’s screaming.
I could adopt.
But I want to feel it all: pregnancy, birth, the biological bond from the very beginning.
I could go to a clinic. Pick a profile.
I can see it now. Tall. Dark. Educated. Good teeth. Good health. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Efficient. Unemotional.
Done.
But even as I think it, I know it’s not for me.
I want more than a checklist.
I want toknowthe man.
What truly makes himhim.
And just like that, my gaze jerks to the villa behind me – to the man stepping out of the shadows and onto the lantern-lit path. My mouth instantly kicks up. The light hits everything except his face, but I’d know that body anywhere. All towering muscle and brutal strength.
Axel.
My other best friend.
Best man to my maid of honour status.
Now the formalities are over, he’s traded the suit for worn-in jeans and slackened off his shirt. Collar open, sleeves shoved back, white cotton skimming over muscle and ink like a tease I should absolutely ignore…Mmmm.
Yeah, I shouldn’t be looking, not like this.
Yet…
There’s always been something about Axel. Something that makes the air hold still whenever he shows up. And it’s not just me; everyone takes an extra breath the second he appears.
Whether it’s fear, desire, or pure OMG-ness… I see it now in the perky, blonde bartender as he approaches the beach-hut bar, leaning in to speak to her. Her eyes widen with her smile, her shoulders hitch with her breath. But my eyes are already drifting back to him, his profile edging into the light as another smile touches my lips.
His dark hair’s too tame, his beard trimmed to stubble: both groomed to fit the occasion, not the man.
But the dark, mesmerising eyes. The nose with its faint bump from one too many breaks. The cocksure tilt of his full mouth… all Axel.
And no matter how much I tell myself I shouldn’t, I can’t look away. Doesn’t matter that I’ve known him most of my life, that Ishouldbe used to his pull by now. I’m not.
I’m as awestruck as I was twenty-five years ago, the night he stepped between me, Theo, and a knife-wielding gang. He was two years older, but it might as well have been ten for his power and his presence.
From that moment on, it’s been the three of us.
Theo, the brains.
Axel, the brawn.
Me, the beauty: the media’s words, not mine.
