“We had to let him out,” Vito grumbles. “My father found out what was happening and called up one of the guys.”
I turn away, letting out a sigh.
I’m glad that man didn’t die in there.
I walk over to Ryland, looking up at him with a question in my eyes.
“They’re almost here,” he tells me, tapping his watch. “And then this is all going to be over. This piece of shit tried to take me out. He failed. He almost got half his dad’s crew arrested. It doesn’t look good for you, Vito. The Feds have got enough to put you away for life.”
Vito sighs and keeps staring at the floor.
I reach up and touch my man’s strong, square jawline.
I love you, Ryland, I want to scream. I’m so happy everything is okay.
But I can’t bring myself to say the L-word, not yet.
I feel as though it would smash into this moment, crush it like wet paper, leaving us lost and confused.
For now, I’ll just enjoy this moment, the fact that Ryland is alive and we’re ready to properly begin our lives together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ryland
I stand at the top of the city, so close to the clouds it’s like I could reach out and touch them.
The sun hangs in the sky, glittering over the city, the light moving into my chest and making parts of me swell… parts I didn’t even know existed before I met my Rosie.
I turn to the rooftop, studying the garden I’ve had put together, luscious and green and verdant, a pocket of nature up here in the cityscape.
Jackie’s face lit up when I asked for her blessing.
She smiled and clasped her hands to her chest, smiling broadly.
“Oh, yes, yes,” she cried. “Of course it’s a yes, Ryland. I’m so happy you want to do this the right way.”
“Of course, ma’am,” I said. “That’s the only way to do things with Rosie. She deserves the world.”
A red carpet leads from the secret rooftop garden to the elevator. I stroll over across the garden, walking amongst the trees and the luscious bright nature, all of it throwing its scents at me, a whole conflagration of smells washing around me.
And yet beneath it all, I’m certain I can smell my woman getting closer, riding the elevator up, her womb and her perfume and her just-Rosie scent shivering closer to me.
We came through hell together.
Now it’s time to look for our heaven.
I pause next to the glass table and the silver chairs, so shiny I catch parts of my reflection in the metal. Everything is glistening and star-bright, but none of it burns with the passion I hold for my woman.
I sigh, relief seizing my chest, when I think about Vito’s fate.
He has been exiled by his family for the stupid move he made on me. And he’s been arrested by the Feds for countless charges. He’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and every Mob guy has been ordered to forget I exist.
The other criminals want nothing to do with me.
I was clever with how I took Vito out because a good predator knows when to use his mind as much as his brawn, but I could’ve charged out there and torn them to pieces.
I could’ve unloaded like it was a Western, taking them all out, or beat Vito to death right in front of them.
But I need to be better, more human, for my woman and for the children we’re going to make together.
Finally, the elevator beeps, calling me from my thoughts.
I stand up straighter, my heartbeat getting louder and slamming into my chest with more pressure.
It’s been two days since the craziness at the safe house. I’ve spent every second of it with my woman, in bed exploring her from head to toe… and walking Chopper with her, sharing laughter, smiles, things I never thought a man like me would be blessed with.
It’s all led to this, to here.
My heartbeat thunders against the ring box in my inside jacket pocket.
If I was a different man, maybe I’d wait a few weeks or a month.
Maybe I could hold off on branding her mine, just mine, for the whole world to see.
But my need for her is like a hot tattoo, marking me indelibly.
I wander to the edge of the garden, standing behind the vine-covered trellis. The weaving of the plants is just wide enough to let me see through and peer at the scene.
Rosie appears from the edge of the roof, walking over on short heels, her eyes moving down over the red carpet, around the garden, and finally settling on the glass table.
“Ryland?” she calls, spinning in a slow circle.
My whole body stiffens at the sight of her. It’s not just my manhood, but other parts of me, emotions I never knew I could even feel before I met Rosie. She calls for me with her body and her passion and her love—her love, because I know she feels the same as me.
She’s wearing the forest-green dress I left for her, framing her gorgeous thighs in a dignified way, cut high to cover her cleavage… so she doesn’t distract me when I’m down on one knee. It’d be all too easy to reach for her mouth-watering tits when I’m kneeling beneath her.
“Ryland?” she says.
I walk around the side, my hands behind my back.
“Why are you standing like Harold?” she teases, her face lighting up in a smile when our gazes meet.
I smirk, letting out a chuckle.
But beneath the laughter, another flare of relief fires.
Harold and Thomas are safe. Jackie is safe. My woman is safe.
We got through all this craziness alive and together.
“I love you,” I growl, striding across the garden and looming over her.
She gasps, gazing wide-eyed up at me. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” I tell her passionately, grabbing her hands and squeezing them tightly, hoping she can sense my love searing through my skin. “I loved you the moment I saw the photo of you. The moment I was told to kill you, I loved you. How crazy is that?”
“How us is that?” she counters, a sob making her voice crack. “I love you, too, Ryland. So, so much. This is all so amazing. I can’t believe you feel the same. I was terrified you wouldn’t.”
“Really?” I ask, sliding my hands up her body, framing her face.
I love holding her like this, feeling the warmth of her cheeks through my palms, spreading up my arm, telling me how alive she is, how fertile, how ready to bring our family into this world.
“I thought it would be too fast,” she murmurs.
“That’s insane,” I say. “There’s no such thing as too fast with us, Rosie. We’re going to go a hundred miles per hour together, a thousand—a million. However fast we need to go to get to our dream life.”
I let go of her face and slide fluidly to my knee, gazing up at her as her expression shifts from shocked to disbelief, waving her hands in front of her face as though fanning the onset of her tears.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Ryland, really?”
“Rosie Smithson,” I say huskily, reaching into my inside jacket pocket.
I take out the ring box, holding it in my closed fist. A closed fist is fitting because it’s violence and blood and tension that brought me here. But inside my fist is a glittering piece of metal, a piece of heaven that represents what I’m going to build with my mate.
Nobody can ever take this away from us.
“I love you so much,” I say. “I stopped believing I was capable of feeling before we met. But the moment I laid eyes on your photo, I loved you. I needed you. Now I know I could never live without you.”
“Oh, Ryland,” she whimpers, squeezing her hands together.
“I want us to start a family together,” I tell her. “I want to watch you grow your dream into a massive success. I want to give our children a chance at a better profession than mine. I want us to be together, happy, safe, for the rest of my life. Rosie Smithson, will you marry me?”
I open the box, revealing the subtle but sizable diamond, set within a band of icy si
lver. It’s the perfect blend of elegance and gorgeous size, just like my Rosie.
“Yes,” she cries.
I slide the ring onto her finger, just about able to push it onto her trembling hand.
We magnetize into each other’s arms. Our lips melt into each other burningly, our hands all over each other’s bodies.
“I thought you were going to ask if it was a trick,” I smirk in a break from the kissing.
“I’m done being skeptical,” she breathes, shivering against me.
“You never have to be,” I tell her, kissing the edge of her mouth.
She smiles and turns away from me.
“Still shy?” I tease lightly.
“I’m getting there,” she whispers. “I’ve always been so shy, but with you, Ryland, I feel like I can start becoming somebody else.”
“You don’t need to,” I rumble. “You’re perfect. I want you to be the person you can be, with a little help, with a little less stress… with your man always at your side, ready to kill and die to protect our family.”
“With love,” she moans. “Don’t forget love.”
“Of course, love,” I smile, bringing my lips to hers again, tasting her, needing her. “Always with love, my sweet Rosie.”
She moans through the kiss, the scent of flowers all around us, the sun resting hotly on my neck as she drags her fingernails across my skin.
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
Rosie
“I feel much better,” Mom says, raising her coffee mug to her mouth and taking a dainty sip.
I giggle, waving a hand over Ryland’s – over our – luxurious estate. I have to keep correcting myself. My instinct is to shy away from any sense of ownership, but Ryland has sternly told me to consider everything he owns mine as well.
“We’re a family,” he snarled last night, his hand smoothing over my sex-sweaty back.
“Duh, you think?” I giggle. “Look at this place. Feel how comfortable these chairs are. Anyone would feel better here.”
She smiles over at me, her face shadowed beneath her wide-brimmed sunhat.
“Okay, smartass,” she laughs. “But it’s the truth. I don’t want to tempt fate, but I think this last bout of chemo, I think it was it, Rosie. Seeing you get engaged, seeing all the happiness between you and Ryland and little Chopper, it’s changed something inside of me.”
“I hope so, Mom,” I whisper, blinking back a tear.
“Hey, none of that,” Mom says.
I giggle, pawing at my cheek.
“It’s not a sad tear.”
“A happy tear, then?”
“Um, maybe,” I say, running my hands up and down my thighs as my eyes flit over the garden, to where Chopper jumps and yaps at the sky, snapping his teeth together like he’s catching butterflies only he can see.
“Maybe?” Mom says fiercely. “Make some sense, girl.”
“I’m pregnant,” I say.
I feel like I’ve dropped a heavy weight when I say the words aloud, as though all my anxiety has been storing in my belly, and now it’s finally released.
“Rosie,” Mom whimpers, laying her mug down with a trembling hand. “Is it true? This isn’t some millennial trick, is it?”
We’re so alike in that way, always fearing the tricks. But Ryland is helping me to progress from that, for us to grow and change together.
“No,” I say. “I’ve done four tests. I’m pregnant.”
I stand up, throwing my head back, letting out a crazy laugh.
“I’m pregnant,” I cry, letting my voice carry in the sky.
I’m laughing with relief.
I’ve kept this to myself for a day, but it feels like a year.
“I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant.”
Mom loops her arms around me, pulling me into a hug.
I cradle her close to me, holding her softly. She cries quietly into my chest, barely moving at all with each sob, and then leans back and wipes tears from her eyes.
“This is such a gift,” she whispers.
“Rosie.”
We turn to find Ryland standing at the balcony door, wearing a pair of shorts, his body dappled in sweat for the gym.
“I think I’ll give you two a minute,” Mom says, striding from the balcony.
She blows me a kiss as she walks into the bedroom, something she hasn’t done in years. It reminds me of when I was very young and I thought she’d live forever.
“Tell me I heard you right,” Ryland says, walking onto the balcony.
His chest shimmers in the sunlight, his abs tight and well-defined. My body hums warmly when I think about how quickly he moved when he defended us, tackling Vito.
Like a lion, he protected our territory.
And he’ll do the same with our family.
“Did I hear you right?” he growls, walking right over to me, his scent enveloping me. “Please tell me I heard you right.”
“I’m pregnant,” I sing.
“Yes,” he roars, looping his arms around me and lifting me off my feet.
I giggle as he spins me around and around, cheering and squeezing me close to him. The joy blurs through me at a million miles per hour, making my whole body light up like a Christmas tree.
He puts me down and lays his lips against mine, both of us gasping and moaning through the contact.
“I’m so happy,” I cry when he releases me, keeping his face close to mine just in case he wants to kiss me again.
I’m starting to learn my man’s lustful ways like only a fiancé can, and I wouldn’t change a freaking thing.
“You sound surprised,” he smiles.
“I guess I thought… I don’t know, that we were moving too fast.”
He grins, happier then I’ve ever seen him. “But that’s—”
“Impossible for us,” I say, running my hands through his silver hair. “I know. Isn’t this amazing, Ryland?”
“Amazing doesn’t even come close,” he growls, stepping back so he can bring his hand to rest on my belly. “I can feel him, her—our child. I can feel our child.”
But that’s impossible, a voice says, but it falls quiet before it can take control of my lips.
I can feel the life within me to.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Ryland
I stand at the classroom window with baby Jacqueline in my arms, rocking her softly as I gaze across the bright colorful room.
Baby Jackie sighs softly in her sleep, her cheek resting against my shoulder.
Rosie keeps saying she’s a Daddy’s girl because she’ll fall asleep instantly in my arms. She’s always smiling as she says it, with her wifely radiance, so I know there are no hard feelings.
And it’s not like little Jackie doesn’t sometimes collapse atop her chest for a nap, making it so she can’t move for hours at a time… and smiling with each passing moment.
I glance down at Chopper.
“No growling, little man,” I murmur.
He grins up at me as if to say, Yes sir.
The room is full of children, sitting cross-legged on the floor as they gaze up at my wife. Rosie is wearing a dress as colorful as the classroom, billowing around her and catching the late-spring sunlight.
I carry Jackie to an open window, gazing through at her.
Rosie’s eyes move over to us, and a broad grin spreads across her face. When she smiles like this, it reminds me of our wedding day, when she lit up beneath the altar, like any second she could erupt into starlight.
She shone with her post-pregnancy glow, and as her smile widened, the more certain I became that I needed to be with her.
Which was a shock.
I didn’t think I could get more certain about her.
“What are you looking at, Mrs. Radley?” a young boy asks.
Hearing her name with mine attached causes more certain life to thunder awake inside of me.
Anytime I hear it or read it, I feel this same s
ureness, moving through me as passionately as my need to have more children.
“My husband and my daughter,” Rosie says, pride brimming in her voice. “Say hello, children.”
They all turn and wave, saying hello in cute unison.
I smile and wave back with my free hand, and then turn little Jackie so she can nod a hello. Chopper even lets out a low rumble, as though in greeting.
I aim my smile at my woman, radiant as she beams back at me.
Happiness has flooded into our lives.
Jackie – who our Jackie is named after – is in remission, getting better every day. Harold and Thomas are doing well. My wife has started her path in life, volunteering as a creative writing teacher for underprivileged kids to get vital experience.
And I’ve started to teach unruly youths – kids who need a second chance – martial arts, discipline, respect.
“Anyway,” Rosie says, giving me one of her cute-as-heck mock glares, “let’s get on with the class.”
I smile, drinking in the sight of her, and then kiss my daughter on the top of the head.
This is happiness.
This is love.
And it’s all ours.
Forever.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
TEN YEARS LATER
Rosie
I stand at the barbecue, my hand on Ryland’s arm as our children run up and down the garden together.
Two boys and two girls.
Just like we discussed on our first real date.
The sun flutters down over the scene, making the pool and the water coming from the sprinkler sparkle in the summer light.
Jackie runs over to the sprinkler, giggling as she drags our youngest, Bucky – named after Ryland’s father – through the water. Bucky laughs and kicks his legs, a big grin on his face.
Jackie is so good with our four year old.
Kelly and Elijah skip over together, hand in hand as the seven-year-old twins often are. Kelly’s hair is absolutely beautiful, jet-black like Ryland’s used to be, long and wavy down her back. Elijah’s hair is black, too, cropped close like his father.
“Dinner smells good, Daddy,” Kelly says.
Ryland smiles down at his children. He’s still got the glint in his eye I recognize from the delivery room after I gave birth to Jackie, the absolute wonder and gratitude. I don’t think he’s ever going to lose that.
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