by April Lust
“Want to help me set the food out?” he asked her.
She pulled the remaining items out carelessly and set them on the blanket. Somehow, the mini bag of chips never made it to the blanket, but was opened and half devoured by the time Jace helped Isabella sat down.
She rubbed her growing belly and picked up a sandwich. “So, this is what you were doing in the kitchen all morning.”
“Yup. I hope they’re okay.”
She took a bite of the turkey sandwich, and he took a bite of his own. He’d tried to make it like she did, but something was missing, and he hadn’t been able to figure out what. It still tasted okay, though.
“What’s different?” he asked. “What do you do that I don’t?”
She thought for a moment. “Probably the mustard. I mix Dijon and spicy.”
And he’d only used spicy. Maybe that was it.
“It’s very good, though,” she said.
After they’d eaten, he took out the bottle of sparkling grape juice. “I have a special toast to make.”
He ripped off the foil and poured the juice into three glasses. He handed one to Sara, and one to Isabella. Sara held up the glass, acting like she was a princess with her pinky sticking out.
“I have been living the perfect life,” Jace said. “A new job that I enjoy, a beautiful new house, a gorgeous woman by my side, an adorable little daughter”—he gestured to Sara—“and even another little princess on the way. But something still feels like it’s missing.”
Isabella pulled her eyebrows together and tilted her head slightly at him.
“It was this.” Jace set down his glass and reached into his pocket. He held one ring out to Isabella and another, smaller ring out to Sara. “I love you both. I want to continue to build our happy family together. Isabella, will you marry me? Sara, will you let me join your family?”
Sara looked at her mother with an amazed smile. “I get a ring, too!” She reached over and tried to grab it from Jace, but he took her hand and slid it into place, then kissed her hand. She giggled and moved her hand back and forth to make the small pink stone glitter in the sun.
Then, he turned to Isabella and picked up her hand. “I love you so much. Since the first moment you showed up, you were like an angel to me. Come to save me from death, then from a life of loneliness. I want to keep saving each other for the rest of our lives.”
She wiped tears from her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him.
“Will you marry me?” he asked again.
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. He kissed her forehead and picked up her hand to slide the diamond ring on.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “It looks exactly like the one I’ve always wanted.”
“Told you,” Sara said, taking a big gulp of her juice.
“You did?” Isabella asked.
Jace nodded. “I asked Sara if she knew what kind of ring you would want. She picked that one out.”
Isabella looked at Sara with wide eyes. It had been months since they’d had that conversation. It was one day after they left Craig and before she’d met Jace. They were in their apartment and Sara had noticed that Isabella wasn’t wearing her engagement ring and wedding ring anymore.
“Where did your rings go, Mommy?” she asked.
“Well, those rings were from Daddy and since I’m not married to Daddy anymore, I don’t wear them.”
“Will I have rings when I get married?”
“Of course you will. There’s an engagement ring first, that’s when he asks you to marry him, then you get a wedding ring later when you get married.”
Sara had been so entranced by this idea that they’d looked on Isabella’s phone and she’d shown her the different ring styles. She asked Sara which one she would want if she was getting married. She chose a square diamond with channel set diamonds beside it. Then Sara asked which one Isabella liked. She’d pointed to a round cut ring with a halo of smaller diamonds around the edge. A ring just like the one now on her finger. How in the world had Sara remembered that?
“Does this mean you’ll be my daddy now?” Sara asked Jace.
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes.” She nodded her head enthusiastically.
“Then, I guess we’ll just be one big happy family,” he said. “Mommy, Daddy, Sara, and Mia.”
“That’s a good idea,” Sara said.
She crawled into her mother’s lap and Jace put his arms around them. Everything he loved most was right here, close to his heart.
THE END
***
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More by April Lust
SINNER’S TOUCH: A Dark Bad Boy Romance
I have a past I cannot escape.
My ex is a criminal who refuses to leave me alone.
I run. He finds me. He punishes me.
I’ve been too scared to fight back… until I met Pax.
Until I succumbed to his sinner’s touch.
Pax is a former soldier with enough skeletons in his closet to fill a graveyard. But he’s got a jawline that could cut steel, and abs hard enough to stop a runaway train. And when he sees the hunger in my eyes…
He pounces.
He tells me I’m safe in his arms, and it’s so tempting to believe.
With his hands on my waist or his mouth between my thighs, the world feels warm and safe and alive. Everything I always dreamed it could be.
But I know what my ex is capable of. As long as he’s around, pain and suffering are lurking just around the corner.
This fairytale is doomed to end in agony.
SINNER’S LUST: A Dark Bad Boy Romance
My heart is as hard as my c*ck.
The day my wife left me, I swore I’d never love again.
I’d do one thing and one thing only: F*ck and leave.
F*ck and leave, f*ck and leave, over and over again.
Like a prayer, like a mantra.
As long as I could bury myself in some pretty little thing,
I could ignore the carnage she’d left in her wake.
But life has a funny way of forcing you to face that which you least desire.
A chance encounter, a woman in need of my help…
And of course, who is it?
Her.
That fickle b*tch.
That heartless whore.
I want to do to her body what she did to my heart:
Tear, plunder, destroy.
I want to wrench her hair back and make her scream my name.
I want to leave the imprint of my hand on her flawless skin.
I want to own her completely.
But she has shadows following close behind her.
Men who hunger for repayment in flesh.
They want her as badly as I do.
I have only one thing to say to them:
Too damn bad.
I will not rest until my lust is sated.
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