Epilogue
“Go long!” Wes shouts to Lachlan and tosses the football across the sun-drenched shoreline belonging to the Sea House hotel.
It lands in the dunes, buried in the beach grass.
That hasn’t happened once since they started playing about half an hour ago.
I know because I keep glancing at my sexy husband in his bathing suit, his incredible abs on display.
Focus. I continue filling the toy bucket with water, like I have four times already, so I can bring it to the sandcastle I’m building with my daughter.
“Fable,” Emery shouts. “She took off.”
I whirl around.
In a gold bikini, looking like a model and not like she ever had a baby, Emery stands with her ice-cream-covered son on her hip, pointing down the beach.
My darling two-year-old runs across the sand, headed for the dunes where the ball landed. I take off after her.
Her dark curly hair bounces as she pushes her little legs to go faster than seems possible.
Giggles escape her, and I can’t help but laugh at how cute she looks, like a drunk sailor in a sky-blue bathing suit that matches her eyes.
She stumbles like she’s about to go down, but rights herself and keeps going.
If she falls, she’ll get a mouthful of sand and the fun will be over.
“Wes!” I call out, moving slower than usual thanks to the almost full-sized bun baking in my oven. In two months, we’ll get to meet daughter number two.
He turns, just as our little one darts by him, too far out of reach for him to grab.
It only takes him three long strides to snatch her up into his strong arms. She giggles and pushes away from him, pointing at the dunes. “Ball. Ball.”
He kisses her chubby cheek and walks her toward Lachlan, who straightens up from the grassy dunes with the football in his hand.
I take a moment to catch my breath, hating how easily winded I get, even though it’s for a good reason.
Lachlan brings the ball to my still pointing child. She pats it with her little hand. “Ball. Ball. I play.”
Wes laughs. “Not for a while, Faelynn.”
Her name always makes me smile. I don’t know how we’ll come up with another unique one for the new baby.
Wes was very specific about picking this one.
“I want her to have a name as pretty as yours,” he said, standing in her finished nursery at Harmony—the newly renamed Hellfire.
Floral curtains and bedding in soft shades of pink, yellow, and green gave the room an ethereal feel, while a mural of an enchanted abandoned garden wrapped the walls in magic.
“And I want it to start with an F,” he added.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, certain he’d given this much thought. Wes has a plan for a plan and a third plan in case the first two fall through. He also doesn’t see this trait is more about his need to control things than to keep order, although he needs that too.
He took a baby name book from one of the drawers and handed it to me. “I circled four. But I want you to pick which one you like best, unless you don’t like any of them.”
Doubtful. I giggled through my nose and opened the page he marked. Fate, Flora, Fiera, and Faelynn. Each had meanings and origins. Faelynn’s jumped out at me. Fairy princess, little fairy.
I’d suggested angel to him once as a name, but he said I was his angel and our baby would be his little fairy. It must be why he circled it twice.
“Faelynn seems perfect since it’s likely she’ll be tiny like me, even with your height genes.” My dad was six feet tall, and I still ended up as short as my mom.
“I would hope so.” He bent and kissed me on the lips, his big hand holding my belly.
Emery appears beside me, holding Leithan—Leith for short. The little guy licks blue gelato from his shirt. The cotton candy color coats his tongue, fingers, and face.
She spent the last twenty minutes trying to help him eat it instead of wearing it. She rolls her eyes. “I give up. He’s as stubborn as his father.”
Leith looks at me with his big eyes—hazel swirls of gold and turquoise—and smirks. I’ve seen his father do it several times and am convinced Faelynn will grow up to be in love with him one day.
“I need to take him in and change his clothes.” She tugs on his stained swim shirt. “Better yet, he needs a bath and a nap.”
“Faelynn needs a nap too.” I do as well, but I’m not about to admit that.
“Look what I have,” sings Adelaide, walking toward us, carrying an octopus-shaped bubble machine. She must have got it from the hotel. Her hotel.
Ironically, this was the place where Mom had almost accepted a housekeeping job after we came back from England.
I had no idea who owned it and was surprised to learn Emery’s bestie does.
Her red hair stands out, the long waves brushing her waist like mine.
Her eyes are the deepest blue I’ve ever seen.
I met her when we first arrived for the week.
We had dinner with her and her husband, Kingston, last night.
Husband feels too ordinary a word for a man who looks like a “bat boy” straight from the pages of a fantasy romance in Emery’s bookstore.
I can’t tell if his eyes are clear, silver, or light gray. And that black hair... All I know is if those two have a baby, it will most likely be one of the most beautiful humans on the planet. Apart from mine and Wes’s, of course.
The wives were all late for the private dinner after Adelaide arranged for nannies so we could enjoy some pampering at the spa.
When we walked out onto the terrace to dine with the sound of waves crashing to the shore and stars sparkling above, my heart almost stopped.
Our husbands stood near the balcony in black tuxedos.
The three of them together would knock any woman on her ass or send her to her knees.
Wes with his commanding presence, sculpted jawline, sensual mouth, and tousled locks falling around his beautiful face.
Lachlan with his striking blue eyes, chiseled features, and murderous gleam that says look at my wife and I’ll kill you.
And Kingston, the dark angel, as Adelaide calls him, with his black-as-night wavy hair, tan skin, and ghostly eyes that track his wife like a homing beacon.
“Did we all just die and wake up in a romance series?” Emery joked.
“I’ve been dying for him since I was eleven years old,” Adelaide murmured, her expression enamored.
I might have been able to say that about Wes had we met under different circumstances.
From what Emery told me, she was forced into her marriage with Lachlan and hated him for it because he tricked her by making her think he was gay.
She also mentioned Adelaide and Kingston had a love/hate relationship for years.
“I guess no one’s love story is a fairytale romance,” I said after they told me this a few months before my wedding to Wes, when we were here for a mini vacation and get-together.
They both agreed that my story with Wes and my upbringing proved even more I was a true blue blood, because people in their—our—elite world suffer abuse and trauma far beyond what outsiders who only see the opulence might think.
Faelynn’s laughter draws my gaze to the ocean. Wes holds her as he runs in and out of the surf, chasing the waves and making her giggle. I smile at them and the way the sun catches the fable tattoo with angel wings on his back.
“I’m taking him up,” Emery calls out to Lachlan.
He runs over, his lean muscles flexing beneath his Dara knot tattoo and Celtic writing that Wes said is the motto to his Scottish family’s coat of arms.
The Hale family have a motto too: Spectemur agendo, “Let us be judged by our actions.” Wes had it tattooed on his back after his father beat him and left him for dead, promising when he was powerful enough, he’d remind the “rotter” who raised him of its meaning.
Lachlan grabs Leith from Emery’s arms, tossing him in the air and making him giggle.
“Is it nap time?” he asks and bends to kiss his wife before licking a smudge of gelato from her cheek.
I shake my head and laugh silently. No more blushing for me when they do that. I’m much more desensitized now.
Adelaide joins us, the octopus still in her hand. “Did I miss the fun?”
“If by fun, you mean mess? Then yes.” Emery gestures to Leith. “Look at him.”
Adelaide grins. “I think someone liked his gelato.”
“We’re going to clean him up and get him down for a nap,” Emery explains. “But that bubble blower will be perfect for later. You know how much he loves coming down for s’mores.”
We did them last night at sunset, but Faelynn was only interested in throwing the marshmallows.
Adelaide nods, and Kingston walks up behind her, dressed in a linen shirt and navy shorts. He puts his arm around her waist, drawing her against him, and takes the octopus from her hand. “No bubbles?”
“Not until later.” She glances up at him, and he kisses her nose. Her eyes find Emery again. “I’ll have the staff clean up everything and set the bubbles aside for tonight.”
“Thank you. Love you.” Emery walks toward the hotel, with Lachlan and Leith at her side.
“Do you need anything?” Adelaide asks me.
“No, thank you. Faelynn needs a nap too.”
She nods. “Just leave your stuff. I’ll have it packed up and sent to your room.”
“Thank you.” She’s so freaking nice. It’s not something I’d ever expect from a woman who grew up in a Gilded Age hotel so prominent presidents and celebrities frequent it and have throughout history.
Kingston and her walk away, his arm around her shoulder as she leans into him.
Wes strolls over with Faelynn and rubs my bare belly with his free hand. I’m wearing a bathing suit top and a long beach skirt over my bikini bottoms.
“What did I miss?” He glances at Adelaide and Kingston as they approach the pathway that leads to the hotel.
“Nothing. It’s nap time.” I yawn.
Wes grins. “Looks like both my girls need a nap.”
“And a bath,” I add, brushing sand off Faelynn’s little foot. Who knows where else it is on her.
“I can help with that. First Faelynn,” he says, “then mummy. She looks like she could use a good washing.” His sexy tone and the smirk in his eyes let me know what he really means.
My body ignites with pregnancy hormones, and like that, I’m ready to be thoroughly… washed.
“Let’s get you two inside.” He takes my hand in his big one and guides us across the beach toward the hotel.
With how our relationship started, I worried the passion between us might fizzle after having a child. Him juggling work and me maintaining my thriving Instagram account, now filled with European castles and gardens I’d only imagined visiting, didn’t ease those fears. But it’s as strong as ever.
Maybe even better. We know each other so well that trust allows us to push the boundaries and explore more taboo acts.
I never thought I’d experience anything close to what I have with Wes, not just sexually, but romantically, and more.
He’s my best friend, my guardian angel, my future and my past. He made my dreams come true and gave me new ones.
He gave me a family, a safe haven, and the biggest gift of all.
His heart. The demon that he believed lived in him is gone, vanquished by unconditional love.