She nodded, then shook her head. “I just…I wanted it to stay ours a little longer. I didn’t want to be someone’s story before I’d even figured mine out.”
I got it. This was the part of my world she hated. The noise, the attention, the strangers thinking they were entitled to her. To judge her. To speculate.
Kate had always held her privacy like a shield. Not to shut people out, just to protect the quiet parts of herself no one else had earned. Every headline felt like an intrusion to her.
“Hey,” I said, tipping her chin so she had to look at me. “Then let’s do it our way.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, screw letting someone else tell our story.”
I opened my photos and found it almost immediately. She didn’t even know I’d taken it. She looked so at ease, like the sea, and the baby, and me were all hers. Like she’d finally stopped holding herself at arm’s length. That was the Kate I wanted the world to see.
She was sitting at breakfast on our last morning there, wearing my white shirt over her swimsuit, hair still damp and tousled from the sea. Her left hand rested on her small but visible bump. The ring sparkledin the sun. She was looking out to the sea over the balcony. She looked spellbinding. It was my new favourite photo of her, and it was everything.
I opened Instagram. God, I barely posted anything personal. But this? This felt right.
I typed the caption:She said yes to it all.
Then I hit post. Kate blinked. “You didn’t.”
I held up my phone. “I bloody did.” Her expression hovered between exasperated and touched.
“That photo’s ridiculous,” she muttered. “I look like I’ve just had sex and a mimosa.”
“Welloneof those things is true,” I said, grinning. “You looked perfect. And now the whole world knows you’re mine.”
Her smile was cautious at first, like she was testing out the weight of it. Then she leaned in and kissed me, right there in front of everyone. But it wasn’t just a kiss. It was her sayingfine, we’ll do this together.
By the time she pulled away, I was grinning so hard it hurt. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she whispered.
I nodded, my voice rough with everything I felt. “Yeah, babe. We’re doing all of it.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Jordan
Christmas this year was quiet.
Peaceful. A little strange, but it was ours. Just me and Kate, tucked away in our London flat while the city outside fell still under the frost. Normally I’d have been back in Aus with Mum, Dad, my brothers and sister, the nieces and nephews running riot around the tree and out in the back yard. But this year was different. This year, I was starting my own little family, and there was no one else I wanted to spend it with.
We had a slow morning, the kind where the duvet felt too warm to leave, and for the first and last time, it was just the two of us at Christmas before the baby came. The flat smelled faintly of coffee and pine, needles scattered across the floor from the bloody tree I’d insisted on dragging up the stairwell. I’d muttered every curse I knew, wedging the thing around corners, while she sat there laughing so hard her stomach ached. I was seriously regretting my life choices at that moment.
“Jordan, I seriously think our son’s first word will befuckerif you keep this up.” She laughed.
We headed over to Gwen’s in the afternoon. No fuss, no pressure, just long walks in the cold, board games, too much chocolate, andGwen grinning as she reminded us, “Can you believe there’ll be a baby here next year?”
Kate beamed through the whole thing. And I was lit up like a kid myself. For a moment I could see it—the Christmas mornings ahead. Chaos. Excitement. Little feet pounding down hallways, presents being torn open, love spilling out of every corner.
That morning, I’d surprised her with the tiniest pair of trainers I’d spotted in a shop window. As if I was ever going to resist. “How could I not?” I’d said, grinning. She’d cried—of course she had, everything was setting the poor girl off lately. They were bloody small. Holding them in my hand made it real in a way nothing else had.
Later, I caught her watching me play a board game with Gwen’s daughter, Lola. I pretended to cheat when she was winning, groaning dramatically when she beat me. Kate looked at me like I’d just handed her the world, and I knew, this was the life I wanted. Our son, laughing like that. Her smiling at me like I’d already nailed it.
It hit me how much we needed this. The exhale before everything changed.
Because from next year, it would be different. Christmas mornings with toys scattered everywhere, batteries missing, balls bouncing off walls. A full house.
But this one…this one was just ours. A quiet little miracle tucked in between the madness.
