“Thank you,” I said, and it was as close to stammering as I’d ever come. The door shut behind him, and I swept Tori up in my arms once more. “You’re serious, right?”
“Of course I am.” She gave my shoulder a playful smack, then moaned when I dropped my mouth to hers in a searing kiss. “Are you really excited, or are you just wrapped up in the moment?”
“You know I’ve wanted to start a family with you for ages. I’m really fucking excited, love.”
Smiling before sinking into my arms, she laid her head against my chest and released a contented sigh as she listened to my heart beating under her ear.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is excited. I think I’m still in shock, but I know you’re going to be a great father.”
“You’re going to be a great mother,” I said, giving her a look when she rolled her eyes at me. “I mean it, Tori. I think you’re going to be the best mom in the world and I can’t wait to see you do it. When did you find out? Wait, how do you already know it’s a boy?”
She let out a chuckle, blinking fast as if she still couldn’t believe it either. “You know how I’ve been complaining that I’ve been so tired lately?”
I nodded, and she chuckled again. “It turns out it’s not because I need a vacation, although I’m still all for your plan of going back to Indonesia to relax a little, but I went to the doctor this morning just to be safe.”
Panic gripped my heart at the thought of her going through that by herself. Instead of being there at her side, I’d left the house early to book us a surprise trip to Bali. We’d gone there for our honeymoon and had ended up loving it so much that we’d stayed for two months. With Tori not feeling well and constantly not being able to keep her eyes open past eight o’clock in the evening, I’d decided we needed another break.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have gone with you.”
Tori shook her head, still smiling as she ran her hands in soothing circles over my back and shoulders. “A few days ago, it occurred to me to check my calendar. We’ve been so busy that I hadn’t noticed that I was late. Like, really late.”
A soft, incredulous burst of laughter came out of her. “I suspected that it had something to do with why I’ve been feeling so off recently, so I made the appointment. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up before I knew anything for sure.”
I smoothed my hands over the locks of loose shining hair at the back of her head. “It’s my job to protect you, Tori. I’d never have been disappointed, but I might’ve started bringing up starting a family a little more often.”
“I know, but I promised to protect you too when we got married, or have you already forgotten my vows?” she teased, knowing that every second of our wedding day was burned into my brain like a brand.
It had been the happiest day of my life before this one, which would definitely rank right up there with it from now on. Our wedding had been nothing like my extravagant first one had been.
Where Nic had demanded the best and biggest of everything, turning into an absolute nightmare for months leading up to the big day, Tori had woken up one Saturday morning in the spring and decided it was a nice day to start planning a wedding.
It had been about a month after she’d accepted my proposal, and in the time between, she’d barely said a word about a wedding. She’d asked me a few questions about what I’d want here and there, but I’d honestly started to wonder if she’d gotten cold feet.
Out of the blue, while we’d been sitting drinking our coffee on a blanket she’d spread out in the shade in our backyard, she told me it was a beautiful time of year to get married. I’d agreed, though I’d thought she meant she wanted to get married the coming spring, but then she’d smiled and asked what my plans were for the next weekend.
I’d stared at her for at least five whole minutes before I realized she was being serious. After that, we might’ve spilled our coffee all over the grass when I pounced on her and made love to her right there under the tree.
The next weekend, in a small ceremony attended only by her remaining family, my parents, and Carl with his wife and kids, we’d gotten married under an arch in the exact same spot. Right there in our backyard.
I’d offered to buy a different house when she’d agreed to move in with me, but she insisted it wasn’t necessary. In fact, her words were more along the lines of it being a massive waste of money and that she loved the house just fine.
Tori, Kari, and their aunt had spent a couple of days the week before shopping, and had come home with strings of lights to hang in the trees, a few other decorations, and their dresses. Kari got the chef from her restaurant to cater, and he’d put out a spread of our favorite dishes. The dessert, of course, had been the Golden Dome. At least it had actually gotten eaten that time.
As the sun had set over Hartford that next Saturday, Tori and I had said our I-do’s, and then spent the rest of the night celebrating with our tiny crowd of guests under the twinkling lights hanging overhead. It had been nothing fancy, and yet it had been the most perfect day ever.
My wife had even found her dream dress in a thrift store, a slinky, lacy number that’d made her look like she’d stepped out of a fairy tale. Her hair had been loose and her makeup minimal and natural. Dangling from two thin ribbons and tucked underneath the wildflowers of her bouquet, there had been two small pictures of her parents in silver frames.
The image of her walking toward me over the bright green grass, looking more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen, would stay with me until the day I died—and possibly even after that.
“I’ll never forget your vows,” I said, feeling an unfamiliar burning sensation in my eyes as I looked into hers.
“Wait a second. Are you crying?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting as she stared at me.
I shrugged, realizing that she was absolutely right. “I am, and I’m not even a little bit embarrassed about it. This is the happiest I’ve been in my life, Tori. And it’s all because of you.”
“Same here,” she replied, her own eyes misting over. “It’s still too early to tell for sure, but the doctor seemed rather confident that it’s a boy. He said I’m about thirteen weeks along. Barely out of the first trimester, but he has these fancy machines that he did a sonar with. Apparently, the machine is powerful enough to even check the lenses of the baby’s eyes.”
“That’s incredible.” The heat spilled out of my eyes, tracking along my cheeks.
She wiped the tears away with her fingers, smiling as she pressed a sweet kiss to the underside of my jaw. “I’m glad you think so because we’re going back to the doctor this afternoon so you can experience it all with me. I wanted it to be a surprise if my suspicion turned out to be right, but I thought you might like to meet our little man yourself later.”
“There’s nothing in the world I’d love more,” I said honestly. “When this one comes out, what do you say we get started on number two?”
Tori laughed, bringing her hands down to cover mine that had folded over the tiny bump in her belly. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time, Mr. Reed. We’re not in a rush, are we?”
“Never. We’ve got the rest of our lives together, don’t we?” Lowering my mouth to hers, I kissed her like she meant the world to me.
Because she did. She didn’t even just mean the world to me. She was the world to me.
Seven and a half months later, my world expanded once more to include baby Robert—the namesake of my father-in-law that I’d never met but couldn’t thank enough for having raised my amazing wife.
Barely two years after that, numbers two and three came screaming into the world just minutes apart. Identical baby girls who had my black hair and Tori’s gorgeous eyes.
The day we took them home, I leaned in the doorway of our bedroom and watched my wife in bed with Robert sitting against the headboard next to her. The twins were sleeping in their bassinets beside our bed, and my little boy leaned against Tori’s s
houlder and smiled at the story she was reading him.
We’d come a long way from the series of screw-ups that’d nearly cost me the overwhelming happiness that still brought tears to my eyes as I looked at my family. I vividly remembered getting home that night after the first time I’d seen her, how lonely and quiet the house had been.
It was never quiet around here anymore, and it was never clean or tidy either, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I still hosted poker night once a year, but it had become more of a family-friendly cookout in the yard with the occasional game of cards being played.
Baby Kylie woke up just as I moved into the room, and I grinned at Tori, motioning for her to stay put. She smiled, and I recalled Carl’s words to me the day I put the plan into motion that’d ultimately allowed me to win her over.
Just when we’d thought we’d be getting out of the diaper phase soon, the girls were here. We were starting the baby stage all over again. With two babies at once this time around.
Into the breach once more, he’d said. And as I carried the fussing baby to the changing pad before she woke Kira, into the breach it was.
Thankfully, there was no place else I’d rather be and no one I’d rather be doing it with. I still loved all of Tori’s moves, but my favorite one was when she’d stolen my heart and changed the entire course of my life in the process.
That one was by far the best damn move I’d ever seen.
The End
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About the Author
Hey there. I'm Weston.
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I'm a former firefighter/EMS guy who's picked up the proverbial pen and started writing bad boy romance stories. I co-write with my sister, Ali Parker, but live in Texas with my wife, my two little boys, a dog, and a turtle.
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The Parker’s Wicked Playground
Love Your Moves
A Billionaire Valentine’s Romantic Comedy
Copyright © 2021 by Weston Parker
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and plot are all either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons – living or dead – is purely coincidental.
First Edition.
Editor: Eric Martinez
Cover Designer: Ryn Katryn Digital Art
Love Your Moves: A Billionaire Valentine's Romantic Comedy Page 25
