Chapter 26
AXEL
One Year Later…
The Eiffel Tower’s showing off beyond the glass wall of our Paris penthouse, its gold light flickering across the bed and my wife’s naked body sprawled over my chest.
We’re tangled in the aftermath, the sheets a ruined mess around us, hearts not quite steady yet. I feel every beat of hers as she traces the ink along my skin… a task she could willingly lose hours to. And I ain’t complaining. I said I was depraved, not stupid.
‘Now that I have your complete attention…’ she murmurs.
A lazy smile pulls at my mouth. She has every part of my attention – my body still humming from her, my mind still clouded with her. ‘Like you never had it before…’
She huffs out a small laugh, her thigh brushing mine and sending a warm ripple through me. ‘I’m just making sure your mind is fully focused on what I’m saying…’
‘I’m always fully focused when it comes to you…’
She presses a slow kiss to my pec, then, ‘What do you think about fostering?’
That pulls me out of the haze. ‘Fostering?’
She lifts her head, resting her chin on my chest to look up at me. ‘I know we’ve talked about adoption. And I’m not ruling that out, but—’
‘We also talked about a donor,’ I remind her softly. Because Theo was right; DNA doesn’t make the father. I was just too wrecked that day to see it.
‘I know, but…’ She lowers her lashes. ‘I think I’d rather help the kids who are already here. Kids stuck in the system who need somewhere safe to live.’ Her eyes come back to mine, glistening with the Tower’s gold. ‘Kids like we once were.’
‘We were never in the system.’
A shadow flickers across her face. ‘But we should have been.’
I slide a comforting hand along her spine. I ain’t denying it. I couldn’t if I tried.
‘And with fostering, we could help so many more children,’ she says. ‘We can give them stability, love, a home for however long they need it.’
‘It’d be tough taking them in and seeing them leave again.’
‘When have we ever done life the easy way?’
She’s not wrong.
‘And I think we’d be good at this, Ax. Great, even. With our experience growing up, we have an understanding you can’t be taught in a classroom or a textbook. And I know we donate to good causes all the time… but wouldn’t it be nice to give back in a more fundamental way?’
Her fingers settle over my heart as I imagine it:
Opening up our home and our lives to kids like we once were.
The difficulties and the challenges we’d face.
But none of those beat the difficulties and the challenges the kids themselves face in the lives they need protecting from.
‘Imagine if someone had swept in and rescued us…’ she says, her head travelling down the same sad road.
I tuck my fingers under her chin. ‘But then we might never have met, Baby Girl.’
She gives me a soft smile. ‘We also wouldn’t have the experience that makes us right for this.’
‘It’s a hell of a Catch-22.’ I stroke my thumb along the groove beneath her bottom lip. ‘How long have you been thinking about this?’
‘A little while,’ she admits, shifting until she’s fully on top of me and pressing a kiss to my jaw.
‘It would mean we’d have to travel less,’ I say.
‘Good,’ she whispers against my skin. ‘I’m tired of jetting around.’
‘We’d need a house with a garden.’
‘I’ve been feeling green-fingered lately,’ she says. ‘You’ve seen the veg patch Lottie and I are growing.’
I huff. What started as a way of giving Trouble some undivided attention – a chance to burn off steam while Theo, Sadie, and baby Tom did their thing, usually napping – has turned into a full-blown project.
‘We’d need to work less.’
‘I feel an early retirement on the cards…’
‘That,’ I murmur, rolling her gently beneath me, ‘is your best idea yet.’
Her breath catches as I cage her in, bracing my elbows either side of her. Her hands slide up my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. Even after everything we just did, I’m already hard for her.
‘I’m under no illusions, Ax. Nothing about this will be easy.’
‘The most rewarding things in life rarely are…’
And she knows I mean her. Loving her all those years and keeping it trapped inside. Unspoken. Never daring to dream, until the dream found me.
‘So… what do you think?’ she whispers, her eyes glittering up at me.
I press my forehead to hers, letting my weight settle just enough that she feels me – all of me. Loving. Wanting. Always.
‘I think—’ I kiss her deep, slide inside her slow, savouring her tiny gasp. ‘I couldn’t love you more than I do right now.’
Her fingers tighten at the back of my neck. ‘So… is that a yes?’
I pull back just enough to look into her eyes – my wife, my whole damn world.
‘What do you think, Baby Girl?’