Alexander’s grin turns wicked.
“Without a doubt,” he says without hesitation. “If I can make you forget everything—even while you’re carrying that little giant in there—then I’m invincible.”
I grin back, because damn it... he’s not wrong.
Alexander takes my left hand and kisses my rings, then my wrist, just as he’s done for years. His lips linger there, right over the simple, delicate tattoo I got last year. His other hand never leaves my belly, tracing soothing circles.
It was exactly like this during my pregnancy with the twins. From the moment he learned he was going to be a father, he couldn’t stop touching me. He kissed my belly even when it was still flat, constantly crouching down to speak to the babies inside, as if they already knew him.
I think back to three years ago, when we came for Nonna’s birthday. One afternoon, Alexander kidnapped me without warning, claiming he had a surprise. That surprise turned out to be dinner in Edinburgh, at the same pub we’d visited on the last day of our trip the year before.
What made that time different was what came after.
We returned to the same inn together, and he spent the night worshipping my body with a kind of reverence that felt almost sacred, as if there were nowhere else we were meant to be but with each other. At sunrise, he woke me and took me to the exact spot where we’d shared our first kiss, and right there, he proposed. Just the two of us.
Of course I said yes. We spent one more day in Edinburgh, celebrating.
When we returned to Pisa, everyone was waiting with a celebration of their own, Ethan and Alicia included. They’dstayed at the villa and already knew, because Alexander had asked for my hand in marriage from them first.
I found out I was pregnant two months later, just a month before our wedding. I spent two days trying to figure out how to tell him, turning the moment over and over in my mind, searching for something worthy of us.
Until it finally clicked—there had only ever been one perfect way. I felt foolish for not seeing it sooner.
“You know today marks exactly two years since we met, right here on this beach,” I murmur, leaning back against his chest, the sand cool beneath my bare feet.
Alexander chuckles. “And how could I forget? That was the day I felt my world turn upside down for the first time.”
I slip out of his arms and turn to face him, smiling. “What if we marked this spot with another first?”
Alexander arches an eyebrow, glancing around the deserted beach before fixing his gaze back on me, that suggestive glint I know too well lighting his eyes.
I laugh, exasperated by where his mind has gone. I can’t even blame him. When it comes to him, it’s never enough.
I crouch down and reach into my beach bag, pulling out one of the journals he gave me at the start of the year—the one I’d hidden away—and place it in his hands.
“Open it,” I ask, doing my best to keep the tremor out of my voice. When he turns to the first marked page, I add, “Will you read it out loud? I love hearing your voice.”
He smiles, confused, but he grips the journal a little tighter. Alexander takes a breath, his chest rising and falling before he begins. His voice comes out rough, even deeper than his usual tone.
“I could use all these pages to tell you how much I love you—for all the little things. But you already know, and there aren’t words enough to...”
He hesitates, swallowing hard.
“...to describe everything you make me feel. This past year with you has shown me what love truly is. Real love, the one you feel in every cell of your body, as if it’s coded into your DNA. A love so beautiful, so intense and immeasurable, it feels as though it was written in the stars just for us.”
He looks up, and when his gaze meets mine, it’s overflowing with a devotion that makes my heart stumble. He clears his throat, then lowers his eyes back to the page.
“And if I’m being honest, I never believed in soulmates until I met you. Until I let you into my life. Until I allowed you to fill my heart and my days with the vastness of who you are.”
“I think that no matter how much time we spend together, I’ll always find something new to love about you. And every day, I’m grateful for that. My chest has been bursting with gratitude... for having you by my side, for you choosing me, and for allowing me to choose you.”
A trembling smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he moves on to the next paragraph.
“I thought there was no way I could be happier than I am right now, with just over a month left until I become your wife. But once again, life has shown me that with you, the bar will always rise. And since you always tell me how much you love my words, I couldn’t think of a better way to tell you this.”
Alexander stops.
The wind off the sea rustles the pages of the journal, but his hands are frozen. I see the exact moment his eyes reach the next line... and lock there.
