Epilogue
Silas
Seven Years Later
Rian, Anya, and Raina were running wild across the grass, barefoot and armed with water guns. It warmed my heart that they always included Raina, and even though she was younger, they never soaked her as brutally as they did each other.
It still amazed me how one five-foot-nothing slip of a girl had transformed me into a family man. Once we had Rian, we were addicted.
A flash of turquoise pulled my attention.
Everly.
Her long dress flowed behind her, tiny gold sequins catching the sun with every step. She carried Noah on her hip, and the second he spotted me, he lifted his hands in the air.
I swooped him up, and his squeals of joy filled the garden.
“So all I’m good for is boobs?” she muttered, shaking her head, but she smiled when Noah giggled at her.
I didn’t bother responding. She’d had to put up with all five of us at one point or another, treating her like our personal lifeline, and she’d done it without complaint. I kept Noah perched on my arm as I flipped the burgers, careful to angle him away from the grill.
“I booked the appointment,” I murmured.
She bit her lower lip and glanced deliberately at my shorts.
“Maybe we should wait?” she said, flicking her eyes toward our older three.
Noah babbled nonsense in my ear, completely oblivious.
Rian and Anya were planned.
Raina happened because I got Everly hammered, and a drunk Everly is a horny beast. Noah, however…
Noah was entirely my doing. I decided we needed him the moment Raina started showing signs of independence at barely two years old—wandering off, insisting on doing everything herself, leaving Everly’s hip empty more often than not.
I wasn’t ready for the house to stop feeling full.
I wasn’t ready for Everly not to have someone clinging to her.
And I damn sure wasn’t ready for the phase where she’d go entire hours without needing me.
“You do realise that I’ll never say no. Right?”
She turned to face me with a broad smile, holding her hands out for Noah.
There was something in her expression—familiar, knowing, indulgent.
A woman who understood exactly what I meant and exactly why I meant it.
A woman who’d stood beside me through every chaotic, messy, beautiful expansion of our family and still looked at me like she understood every dark thing I’d ever done—and loved me anyway.
Noah squealed when she took him, his fists bunching in her dress like she was his whole universe.
She was the glue that bound us all together.
I’d once seen Rian as a legacy, something to inherit the empire, but fatherhood had knocked the arrogance right out of me. I wasn’t thinking like a dickhead anymore. I was easing out of my role in the company, and my children could choose their own futures.
“Maybe one more,” Everly said, kissing the top of Noah’s head. “Cancel the appointment.”
I nodded.
I didn’t say a word.
Because eventually, I’d convince her that six was a nice, round number.
Breeding her was like staking my claim on reality—every child another reminder she was mine.
My sexy little toy would never leave me.
I closed the hood of the grill and walked around to Everly, slipping my arm around her shoulders as we stood together, watching our family.
The End.