Epilogue #2
God, I don’t even know how many times he’s been able to calm her down by just talking to her like that. Or managed to put her to sleep on the nights when she’s fussy and won’t listen to me at all. And I’m so tired and irritable that I don’t know what to do.
Sometimes I envy him that, the magical powers he has.
But right now, I’m totally falling for them. Just as my baby girl.
Because at his voice, she laughs and squeals again, kicking her chubby legs at his chest and clapping, making him chuckle and kiss her forehead.
But the show’s not over yet.
The next part is my favorite part. Even though I always roll my eyes at it.
Halo raises her arm then, tugs on her hair barrette — this one’s white and shaped like a daisy — and gives it to him.
Which he dutifully takes from her small hands.
Before he sets her down on the island, her legs dangling off the edge, and combs her dark hair with his large, beautiful fingers, putting it back on.
She nods at him. Like this is such serious business, putting a hair barrette on, and he nods back like he agrees.
Like how Mommy did it before was wrong and only Daddy knows how to do it.
I’m about to roll my eyes at their cuteness when he looks up.
He smirks at me and I narrow my eyes at him, mouthing, I hate you.
Which only makes him chuckle and wink, meaning, No, you don’t.
Ugh.
No, I don’t. I can’t hate him. I’ve never been able to. And these days, he’s even more irresistible with how playful and amazing he is with Halo.
Who wants his attention back on her so she waves her hand in his face, tapping his jaw and addressing him in random syllables. He picks her back up and with a last heated look at me, he takes her into the living room like he always does.
He’s going to play with her for a bit, keep her occupied so I can work on dinner in peace. It’s a routine we came up with in the beginning of this whole parenting thing, which I think is working out great for the most part.
Before coming to me.
Which he does about thirty minutes later.
I feel an arm sliding around my waist and his hard body settling against my back. I close the tap where I was washing the lettuce for the salad. Wiping my hands, I raise my arm and caress his stubble, sagging against him.
It’s my turn now.
“Hi,” I whisper, smelling his delicious scent of woods and wildflowers.
Also cars.
Spicy and masculine and so freaking sexy.
Reed hums, rubbing his jaw in my hair as he takes a breath, his chest undulating against my spine. Like breathing my scent calms him. It calms me too.
Knowing that I give it to him.
“Did you bring it?” I whisper, talking about the puppy, burying my fingers in his thick stubble.
“Yeah.”
“Is it cute?”
A puff of air escapes him. “Fuck knows. Pete liked it though. He’ll bring it over tomorrow, at the party.”
I’m glad Pete’s here for Halo’s party.
After giving his garage to Reed, he took off for a while. He traveled to all the places he wanted to go because they reminded him of his late wife, Mimi.
When he came back, I told him he should take the glass house back and live here. Especially when this was a special place for him and his Mimi. But he said that this house was ours now, Reed’s and mine, because it brought us together.
And so it belongs to us.
I chuckle. “You know what, Roman?”
“What?”
“You’re a sucker.”
He flexes his arm around my belly before spinning me around and crowding me against the counter, his arms on both sides of my body, making a cage. “I’m a sucker.”
I tilt my neck up, my fingers clutching his sleeves at his biceps because there he is.
My predator.
The one with the glinting wolf eyes and the sparkling vampire skin.
The love of my life. My hero.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “For Halo.”
His eyes narrow. “And why’s that?”
“Because you got her a puppy.”
“And?”
“I don’t know if you know this, Roman, but you don’t have to give her everything she wants. You can say no to her.”
“Why would I say no to her when I want to give her everything she wants?”
He looks so outraged right now. Like the thought of not giving Halo something is offensive to him and it makes me chuckle.
It also makes me go up on my tiptoes to kiss his jaw. “That’s the very definition of a sucker actually.”
That’s when he grabs my braid, pulling my head back, making my breaths scatter. He even goes so far as to press his hard body against my soft one and sighing, I sink myself into his harsh places.
He shudders and I shiver. Something that happens every time we touch and align ourselves with each other after a long day.
Keeping a firm grip on me, he flicks his wolf eyes over my features. “You okay?”
God.
Sometimes I think he wants to kill me. That’s why he does this, doesn’t he?
That’s why even when he’s holding me captive like this, like he’s really a villain, he has to go all protective over me and ask me about my day. He has to melt me with his mean fingers and tender voice.
He used to do this, ask me about my day, look me over to make sure that I was okay, back when I was pregnant. I thought after Halo came, his protectiveness would go down a notch. But I was wrong.
He still does this.
Because pregnant or not, I’m precious to him, to my villain.
I’m the love of his life. His Fae.
“Yeah,” I whisper, looking him over myself, looking at the tired but happy lines around his eyes and his gorgeous mouth.
“Halo was okay too?”
“Yes. It was a fun day. We went to the park. We prepped for the party. Halo loves her outfit for tomorrow.”
It’s a Saturday and usually Reed’s home. But they’re working on this vintage car that I don’t even know the name of and they’re on sort of a deadline to get it done for this rich guy from New York so he had to go in.
“How was your day?” I ask then.
He shrugs. “Good. Tiring. But we got the car ready.”
My eyes go wide in happiness. “You did?” I grin. “That’s way before the deadline. Yay!”
That’s awesome.
Not that I had any doubts. My Roman knows his cars. But more than that it’s the fact that he told me. It’s the fact that he tells me things now.
Like he promised me he would. The day he told me he loved me. That he’d loved me for years.
At first, it was hard though. For him to share things.
After burying things inside of him for years, it was new and difficult for him to open up. But slowly, though my prodding and poking and his willingness to share, even though he didn’t know how to, we made progress.
He told me things about his childhood, about how his dad was the only one to call him Roman and how he hated that name until I started calling him that. And I’m not going to lie, there were times when I was so angry on his behalf.
But then I channeled that anger. Into love.
Into showing him that he has a safe place in me. A safe place in his fairy.
He hums again, bringing me back to the moment.
Then, “So I’m a sucker, huh. For bringing Halo a puppy.”
I nod. “Yup.”
“Or maybe you’re just jealous.”
I frown. “Why would I be jealous?”
He flexes his grip on my hair. “Because I brought a present. For a girl.”
“And?”
Smirking, he replies, “And that girl is not you.”
I raise my eyebrows at him and his smirk only becomes more devilish.
Just to be a brat, I bite my lip. “Well, you got me. I am jealous. Because I thought I was your main girl.”
“My main girl.”
“Yes. See this?” I let go of his bicep and show him my left hand, the one sporting a wedding ring. “This proves that I’m your main girl. For the rest of your life. So what do you have to say for yourself, husband?”
He eyes my hand for a second, a flash of possessiveness flickering through his features.
The same one he had on the day he put that ring on my finger almost a year ago.
It was exactly a week after we brought Halo home.
He took me out on a ride in his Mustang and popped the question in the woods where I used to dance for him.
He said that he wanted to do it right but he couldn’t wait.
I told him that he’d made me wait long enough so this was perfect.
And then, we laid on the hood of his Mustang, his engagement ring on my finger and watched the stars for a bit before going home to Halo.
Who luckily had been super good for Conrad and my brothers.
Who in turn already knew what Reed was going to do and they were completely on board.
Good.
Not that it would’ve changed anything – I loved Reed and I was going to marry him no matter what – but I was glad that my brothers approved.
A week later, we got married in our backyard with all my friends and brothers in attendance. Pete couldn’t be there because he was traveling but he did call. It was small and intimate and absolutely perfect.
Reed’s eyes come back to me, the look in them all heavy and intense as he murmurs, “That. Right. My bad then.”
“It is,” I say primly before winding my arms around his neck. “So where’s my present?”
He puts his other hand on my waist and tightens his grip on my braid with the other. “Outside.”
“What?”
“It’s a Porsche 911.”
My mouth falls open for a second before I sputter, “But wait, wasn’t… wasn’t that the car you were restoring for that guy? The car that you finished today.”
Now that he said the name of it, I remember.
He shrugs. “I lied.”
“You lied.”
“That’s sort of what I do.”
I can’t help it. A shocked laugh bursts out of me.
He doesn’t actually.
Except that one time when he broke my heart, Reed has never lied to me and I can’t believe that he lied to me now. I mean, it’s not a bad lie but oh my God.
A car?
We don’t need any more cars. We’ve got his Mustang that usually sits in the garage because we have Halo. And Reed, my sexy, badass husband, is super adamant about driving the minivan that he got last year because it’s the most kid friendly.
And now this, a Porsche?
I shake my head. “But Roman, we already have two cars and I don’t… I don’t need a car. I…”
“Yes, you do,” he tells me. “For Juilliard.”
Juilliard. Right.