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“And I want your babies.” My voice breaks on the word because it’s the thing I’ve wanted since before I knew who he was. Hearing him say he will try is the thing that makes the last wall crack. “I want a family with you. A real one.”

“You’ll have it.” His thumbs wipe the tears off my cheeks. “I’ll make it happen.”

We both know that might not be possible. “What if the reversal doesn’t work, Rhett? You can’t promise that.”

“I can promise that I am going to get the best doctors and we’re going to do everything we need to do. But you must know that if you choose me, and this doesn’t work, you have to be alright with Ryker fathering the child in secret. I won’t lie to you about that, and I’m not going to trick you. That is part of the deal I made with Dane for his help with the Council. We still have to produce an heir. The only medical intervention the Ravens allow is the reversal. I need you to understand what I’m saying.”

I hold his stare and let the weight of what he’s telling me settle. If the reversal doesn’t work, Ryker will give us the baby and we’ll raise the child as ours. The Council never has to know. I’d carry a baby that isn’t my husband’s, and the three of us would carry that secret to our graves.

It’s fucked up and messy. But as I look at this man I love more than anything, his hands shaking on my cheeks, I know what he just did. He gave me the truth. The real, ugly truth that could make me walk away. And he’s letting me choose what I want.

No man in our world has ever respected me enough to do that.

“I understand.” I grip the front of his shirt. “I choose you. All of it. The reversal, the risk, the backup plan if we need it. I choose every fucked-up piece of this, Rhett. Because I’d rather have a complicated life with you than live in this world without you.”

His forehead drops against mine, and the breath that comes out of him sounds like a man who’s been drowning and just broke the surface.

I pull him down to me, and his hand is on my throat before our mouths meet. He kisses me, and I taste salt and whiskey. I kiss him back with everything I have because he’s fucking mine.

“I love you, Rhett.” I whisper it against his lips.

The sound he makes isn’t a word. His arm locks around me, and he holds me against his chest so hard I can barely breathe.

“I love you, little one.” His voice is low and rough. “Now let’s go home.”

His hand squeezes my throat. He tilts my chin up, and the man looking down at me is the one I fell in love with. Dark eyes, set jaw, possessive as fuck. “And when I get you there, I’m tying you up, inserting a tracker into your fucking neck, and spanking you for trying to leave me, baby.”

I press up on my toes and lick his lips. “That’s not the threat you think it is, Daddy.”

“God, I fucking love that brat mouth.” He kisses me again and picks me up to cradle me in his arms as he carries me away.

“Good because I’m still not done telling you what an asshole you were.”

But I still choose Rhett Bradley. I’ll always choose him.

Epilogue

11 months later

Rhett

My wife is going to be the fucking death of me.

She’s standing on a chair in the nursery trying to reach the top shelf, barefoot, nine weeks pregnant, and deliberately ignoring when I told her not to do shit like this. She knows I’m watching the cameras. She’s doing it on purpose because my brat likes what happens when she does things to piss me off.

I’m in the doorway in under a minute. “Get off the fucking chair, Laine.”

“Make me.”

I cross the room and grip her waist and pull her off the chair so fast she gasps. I pin her against the wall. Her gray eyes go wide and dark, and her legs wrap around my hips because her body responds to me the way it always does.

“You know we both like when you pull that brat shit, baby. But you know I can’t let it fucking slide.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She bites her lip but I can feel the heat coming off her pussy through her leggings. Pregnancy hormones and my cock have turned my wife into an insatiable little slut who walks around our house begging to be fucked, and I’m not complaining about a single second of it.

“You looked right at the camera and smiled before you did it.” My mouth is against her ear. “You wanted Daddy to come find you.”

“And here you are.” Her bratty smirk makes my cock so hard it strains in my pants. “Such a predictable Daddy.”