Desire_A Romance Collection

by Mia Ford

  Liam screeches with excitement and he takes the gift from her, unwrapping it at the speed of light. He quickly finds another superhero toy in there which of course fills him with utter excitement. He races around the room with it in his hand making it zoom.

  “I think he likes it,” I say while hooking my arm around Katy’s waist and pulling her in for a kiss. “Good choice by the way. Oh, and we have a dinner for you. A birthday dinner that’s waiting in the dining room.”

  “Oh, that sounds lovely, I’m starving.” She rubs her stomach happily. “And it smells home cooked. What is it?”

  I don’t answer her, I just take her hand and lead her into the kitchen. Liam has scattered rose petals all over the floor, in a bit of a haphazard way, and there are champagne flutes on the table, one with apple juice in for Liam, and candles lit. The food is there too, but that’s the least important bit.

  “Oh my goodness, this is lovely.” Katy furrows her eyebrows in obvious confusion. “Am I forgetting something? Is it like an anniversary or something? If so I’m sorry. I’ve just been so…”

  “It’s not an anniversary.” I glance towards Liam and I can see that he’s bursting with the news. I know that if I don’t do it now he’ll end up ruining the surprise for me, so I tug the ring box out of my pocket and I fall to one knee on the floor in front of Katy. “But I might be about to make it one.”

  “What are you doing? She gushes while clapping her hands across her mouth. “Oh my goodness. Evan, what are you…?” She glances to Liam. “What is happening here?”

  “Katy.” I need to bring her attention back to me at the moment before Liam says anything. “I want you to know how much I love you. You’ve done more for me than I could have ever asked anyone to do and you’ve made me fall in love with you more and more each day as you have. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you now…”

  I can’t stop him anymore. Liam jumps in, but actually it comes at a good time as the lump in my throat balls up and thickens. “My daddy wants to marry you,” he declares. “He wants you to be my new mommy.”

  I freeze for a moment, wondering if that’s going to be too much, but Katy’s face breaks out into a bright, happy grin. “Oh my goodness, Liam, are you serious? You want me to be your mommy? I want to be whatever you want me to be. If you want me to be Mom, then that’s what I’ll be.”

  As they embrace, I almost chuckle to myself. It’s so typical of my new family that Katy and Liam would celebrate this before me, but that’s fine. That’s even better than I ever could have hoped for. The fact that they are so adoring of one another is wonderful, it makes my heart swell with absolutely pride and happiness. All the jigsaw pieces of my life have finally come together.

  Soon though, Katy drags herself away from Liam and she looks up at me. “So are you going to ask me?” she whispers. “Or are you going to just let Liam do it for you?”

  “Oh no, I want to ask you. I definitely want to ask you.” I prize open the ring box and grin up at her. “Katy Atwater, I love you very much. Would you do me the absolute honor of making me the happiest man alive and becoming my wife.”

  She glances into the box, looking at the princess cut diamond I picked out especially for her and she gasps happily. “Oh, my goodness! Of course, I will be your wife. I couldn’t think of anything I would like better than to be Mrs. Debroils.”

  “Famous lawyer, Mrs. Debroils.” I chuckle. “Or at least the famous lawyer who somehow manages to have a life as well.”

  As she embraces me and falls into my chest, I want to yell with glee. I’ve wanted to propose to Katy for a very long time but I’ve been holding myself back so I don’t act out too soon. Maybe it’s still a bit quick but I don’t give a shit. Me and Katy aren’t living our lives for other people, we’re doing this for us, to make us happy.

  “Can we eat now?” Liam calls out, breaking the magic of the moment. “I’m so hungry.”

  “Yeah me too,” Katy agrees. “And this all looks so amazing. You guys must have worked very hard on it.”

  “Oh we did,” Liam nods as he declares happily. “We did it all for you… Mom.”

  Hearing Liam call Katy Mom and seeing her happy reaction makes all of this feel even better. It’s scary, but in a great way. I absolutely love this journey.

  Epilogue – Katy

  Eighteen months later…

  “Mom!” Liam calls loudly to me as he stomps through the front door, slamming it hard behind him. “Mommy, are you here? School is finished now so I’m home.”

  “I’m just in the kitchen!” I call back with a smile on my face. “Everything okay, Liam?”

  “Yeah, just wanted to check that you’re here and not in the hospital.” As he makes it to the kitchen, his eyes flick down to my swollen belly. “No, still got a baby in your tummy.”

  I run my hand over my stomach, immediately feeling a kick. “Yep, shouldn’t be for too much longer though. I think the baby will come soon. You looking forward to being a big brother?”

  “Yep, I sure am. It’s going to be so much fun.”

  “Maybe, but be prepared for me and your dad to be very tired for a while with all the sleepless nights. You’re lucky to have a bedroom far away so you won’t get woken up so much.”

  “Yeah.” He screws up his nose. “I think you are right, but I still want to help you when I can.”

  Liam is so mature these days, he’s grown up so much over the last year and I think that’s down to having his dad around a lot more. Starting school has probably had an impact as well. Evan now completely mixes his time up between work and his home life and he’s managed to achieve the perfect balance. I was working on it, but at the moment I’m all about family since I’m about to have a new born baby. That can’t be helped, but the foundation of my company is there. I certainly have something to go back to when the time is right. I’m much more suited to being a lawyer in my own way anyway. I didn’t realize how little I liked the rules of working for Harrison and Associates, all the unnecessary hoops I had to jump through to get anywhere.

  Still, it hardly matters now, that I left it far behind me.

  “Daddy is just getting some stuff from the car,” Liam tells me as he grabs something to eat from the fridge. “He won’t be more than a minute.”

  “Sure, sure. How was your day…” All of a sudden, a hot pain radiates through my stomach. I clutch onto myself and bend over double. Well, as double as I can bend with a massive stomach rolled out in front of me. “Oh, my God, that hurts.” I breathe deeply, but it doesn’t help at all. If anything, it makes it worse. “That hurts so badly. It’s agony.”

  Liam doesn’t even ask me what I need, he races from the room yelling his father the whole time. This must be my daughter being born, she was due yesterday. I’ve been expecting something like this to happen all day long, but I didn’t think it would feel like this. I’ve been to all the baby classes that I can get to, and I’ve listened intently to all the lessons, but none of them could have prepared me for this. This must be my first contraction, and it’s killing me. It’s horrible. It’s the worst thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. If this is just the first part, the easiest part, then I don’t know how I’m going to cope. How am I going to give birth when it feels like my body is already being torn apart?

  “Oh my goodness, Katy, are you okay?” Evan races to my side and he wraps his arms around me. His touch comforts me a little, but it isn’t enough today to calm me down. “Is it starting?”

  “I think so,” I gulp down some loud breaths. “I think this is my contractions starting.”

  “Do we need to go to the hospital now? Shall I call Nancy to come and watch Liam?”

  “I don’t think we can go right away… argh!” I yell as more pain tears through me, but this time I seem to recover a lot quicker. “But yes, it might be a good idea to call Nancy in just in case. She’s been on standby since yesterday, hasn’t she?”

  “Yep, yeah, sure.” Evan tugs his cell
phone out of his pocket. “Okay, I’ll call Nancy. You take a seat and relax… well, relax as much as you can until it gets too much.”

  I stagger into the living room and fall onto the couch with Liam by my side. He immediately flicks the television on and switches it to something he thinks I might like to watch.

  “Shall I get you a drink or something to eat?”

  The thought of food makes me feel sick right now, but I’m not going to say that to Liam. He’s only being nice. “A drink sounds awesome,” I gasp through the pain. “Water please.”

  Once I’m alone in the room, I rub my belly and I talk to my baby girl like I have done constantly since I found out that I was pregnant – that happy little surprise that I’ve been excited about for nine long months.

  “Hey, little Delia. How are you doing in there?” Admittedly my tone isn’t as soft as it’s been for the last nine months. The sheer pain is bursting through my tone. “I can’t wait to meet you, me, your dad, and your big brother are very excited.” I rub her, hoping that I can soothe her. “Now I’m a little scared too because it’s going to be a painful journey to get you here. Don’t hurt me too much? Please?” A contraction bursts through me again. “Okay, okay, I get it. It’s going to have to hurt. It’s probably not going to be the nicest time for you either. But you’re already very loved, you know that, right? We all love you dearly, you’re being born into a very loving family.”

  Evan dives into the room with a pale, panicked and very stressed face. “Okay, that’s it. Nancy is on the way, she said that she should be here in about ten minutes, is that long enough? How are you doing? Do you need anything? What can I do for you?”

  “I’m okay at the moment, I think. I just need your hand to hold…”

  Then Liam runs in the room too, clutching onto my glass of water like it’s the holy grail. “Here, I have your drink. Is this okay? Do you need anything else?”

  “I need your hand too. I have to hold on to both of you to stop the pain.”

  As I hold onto both of these two, I know that I’m not going through this alone. The birth part is scary, but I can get through it with the support of this pair, and I know it’ll be totally worth it when Delia arrives and our awesome family expands even more. This journey is an amazing one, I love being with my husband, my son, and soon to be my daughter. I don’t ever have any doubts about where I am, I don’t wonder what it would be like if I’d taken that partner job and continued with my career dreams.

  This right now, my happy ever after, is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  More Steamy Romance by Mia Ford

  Mia is a contemporary romance writer who loves to write about strong, gorgeous, Greek God like alpha men who love protecting their sassy and sexy women.

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