The Fortuity Duet

by Rochelle Paige

  In the time it took me to finish everything she’d told me to do, Faith had gotten dressed and climbed into the passenger seat of her Beetle.

  “Faith,” I growled. “We’re not taking your car. Get into the SUV.”

  “We are too taking my car.” She folded her arms and glared at me. “Or at least I am, so if you and Cynthia want to ride with me you’d better get in the car.”

  Cynthia was still sleeping, so I bundled her into the backseat and tossed Faith’s overnight bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe I’m driving this ridiculous car to the hospital while you’re in labor.”

  “Well, you’ll be happy to know we’ll be leaving it there,” she grumbled. “You’re finally getting what you want. One of my co-workers is buying it from me. I figured as long as we’re already going to be there, I might as well make it easy for her to pick it up. Now you won’t have to worry about me driving around with Cynthia and the baby anymore.”

  “I’m always going to worry.” But I’d worry a fuck of a lot less now that I could get her a safer vehicle. I hadn’t known she was talking to someone at work about buying the car, probably because Faith knew I would’ve offered to pay them to take it off her hands. After she had completed her master’s degree in only eighteen months, she’d decided to take the job offer she’d received from Southeast Memorial.

  It hadn’t been an easy choice because the county’s office for the Department of Children and Families also wanted her to come work for them as a caseworker for kids in the foster system. In the end, the hospital won out because they had a program which allowed their employees to use paid time to volunteer for up to twenty hours a year. Between that and the vacation time they gave her, she had enough free time to keep working with foster kids in high school to make sure they were aware of their college opportunities. The program had remained important to her, bringing her and my mom even closer as they continued to work on it together.

  She’d been working at the hospital for almost two years when we decided we wanted to try for a baby and talked to Dr. Stewart about it. She’d remained mostly healthy during all that time, with some anti-rejection medication adjustments needed here and there to keep her that way. He gave us the go ahead, but it took almost three years before we got a plus sign on a pregnancy test. I figured the wait had been meant to be, just like Faith and me, because we met the first child we took in as a foster a year into trying.

  Holly was a nine-year-old girl with severe asthma whose mom had passed away from congestive heart failure. Her father was in the military and was stationed overseas when it happened. They’d been in the foster system when they met, so there wasn’t any family to take Holly in until he could make it back home. Placing her in a home was difficult because her asthma was exacerbated by her grief over the loss of her mom. When Faith, as her hospital social worker, and Sarah, as the caseworker assigned to her by the state, put their heads together to come up with a solution to help her—Sarah got us certified on an emergency basis to take Holly in.

  After she was reunited with her father, Faith and I decided we wanted to get certified to take in more foster kids, and Cynthia was our first placement after the process was finished. And that’s how the delay in getting pregnant had resulted in us finding our six-year-old daughter and adopting her the same week we found out we were pregnant with the baby we were apparently going to have tonight—two weeks earlier than planned.

  When we arrived at the hospital, we were ushered up to the labor and delivery floor. Faith was pre-registered, and she knew most of the hospital staff, so we were set-up with a room right away. Her labor was quickly progressing, so one of the aides took Cynthia to play in the waiting room until my parents made it there. Less than four hours later, we were the proud parents of a baby boy.

  “You were a fucking rock star,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Maybe on the outside, but on the inside, I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life—counting all that time when I thought I was going to eventually die from kidney failure. I don’t think I want to go through that again.”

  “We’ve got our two, that’s more than enough for me.”

  “Our two,” she repeated, her eyes filling with tears. “I never thought I could love you more than I did on our wedding day, but the way you are with Cynthia and how I know you’ll be with our son...I can’t possibly explain how incredible you are or how much I love you.”

  “You don’t need to, baby. Because I feel the exact same way about you.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead and stared down in awe when they brought our son back over to us. We spent the next thirty minutes examining his fingers and toes, getting to know our son. Then one of the nurses reminded us that we had impatient grandparents and a big sister in the waiting room hoping to meet the newest member of the Montgomery family.

  “You ready for visitors?” I asked Faith.

  “Absolutely!” She beamed up at me. “I’m always ready for our family.

  The nurse went and got them, and my mom made a beeline for the baby as my dad carried a sleepy Cynthia into the room.

  “Meet Declan Lloyd Montgomery,” I said as I lifted my son off Faith’s chest and handed him to my mom.

  “You named him after your brother and father?” she sobbed. My dad moved to her side and peered down at the baby. Cynthia rested her head against his chest, smiling around the thumb she shouldn’t have had in her mouth at her brother.

  Faith and I had agreed that we didn’t want to know the baby’s sex before he was born. Instead, we wanted to savor every moment of the pregnancy and wait to see what fate had in store for us since we hadn’t been sure if we would be able to get pregnant. We’d picked out boy and girl names, but we hadn’t shared them with anyone else.

  “Faith insisted,” I explained, looking down at my wife while she smiled up at us from her hospital bed.

  “I wouldn’t have my Declan without yours,” Faith replied.

  My mom managed to pull herself together as she stared down at her first grandson. “And so we’ve come full circle.”

  Bonus Scene

  Dillon

  “How much longer do I need to wear this?”

  I laughed softly as Faith tugged at the blindfold I’d made her put on when the helicopter was only a few minutes away from our honeymoon destination. She’d complained a tiny bit since it was her first ever ride in a helicopter, but she’d let me slide it over her eyes after I’d promised we’d head back to the airport in one on our way home when the trip was over.

  The receptionist who was escorting us to our cottage answered, “We’ll be there in a little more than a minute.”

  Faith couldn’t see where she pointed ahead of us, but I was happy to know that the place I’d rented for the next week looked exactly like its pictures online. I rubbed my thumb over the wedding band I’d slid on her finger just one day earlier and reassured her, “It’ll be worth the wait, baby.”

  Her plump lips turned up at the corners. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that you’re right. Not with the way you’ve been strutting around like you’ve come up with the most brilliant honeymoon plan ever...one you’ve refused to share with me.”

  “If I’d told you”—I bent low, swept her off her feet, and lifted her in my arms—“then it wouldn’t have been a surprise.”

  The receptionist led us up the stairs and opened the door for me. “I’ll skip over the usual tour and leave the keys here for you.”

  I heard the door shut behind us as I carried Faith over to a large window and set her on her feet. When I tugged the blindfold off her eyes, they went wide with surprise. She pressed her face against the glass and peered outside, quickly spotting the balcony off to the side. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked, tugging on my hand as she raced over to the balcony door and flung it open.

  I wrapped my arm around her side when she leaned over the rail to look down. “Careful, baby.”

  “It is! It really is!” she twirled a
round and rose up on her toes to press her lips against mine in a quick kiss. “No wonder you seemed so proud about your honeymoon choice. You remembered what I told you about treehouses and found us a grown-up one to stay in!”

  “Of course I did, baby. I remember every single thing you’ve ever said to me.” I tugged her back into the room.

  Her brown eyes twinkled as she wiggled her eyebrows up and down, jerking her head towards the big, black and white tub directly across from the bed. “Like how much I love Jacuzzi tubs?”

  “Trust me,” I growled. “I have plans for that tub and the steam shower, too. But first”—I picked her up and tossed her onto the mattress—“let’s break in the bed.”

  I quickly followed her down and covered her body with mine. Bracing myself on my elbows, I kissed along her jawline before lifting her shirt over her head. “My beautiful wife.” I ground my hard length against her. “I need you so fucking much.”

  “It’s only been six hours since you were last inside of me.”

  I couldn’t resist taking her one more time when we woke up, and we’d barely made it to the airport in time for our flight up to New York. But it didn’t lessen my need for her. Not even a little bit. “That’s six hours too many.”

  “I thought old, married couples didn’t have sex that often.”

  “We might only be here for a week.” I tugged her skirt and panties off her body and tossed them on the floor. “But I’m never going to let the honeymoon phase end for us.”

  She dropped her bra over my head and gasped, “I love the sound of that, Dillon.”

  “We’ve been through too much and finally made it through to the other side. It’s only good things for us from now on.”

  I pulled my pants off while she got rid of my shirt. “And we both know where your happy place is.”

  “Damn straight.” I nudged at her entrance with my cock and buried myself balls-deep with one powerful drive when I discovered that she was wet and ready for me. “Inside of you.”

  She flung her head back against the pillows, thrusting her tits up close enough for me to suck one of her nipples into my mouth. When I bit down on it gently and flicked the pebbled skin with my tongue, her legs tightened around my hips and her pussy walls clamped down on me. I’d already felt close to losing control, and having her wrapped around me like a vice only pushed me closer to the edge. “Fuck yeah, baby. Just like that. You’re so damn perfect.”

  “No, it’s us. You and me. We’re perfect together,” she panted.

  It was enough to send me over, but I refused to go alone. Sliding a hand between our bodies, I circled my thumb around her clit until her body tensed and she screamed my name. “Yes,” I hissed, pounding into her as we rode out our orgasms. Together, just like we were meant to be.

  When we were done, I buried my face in the crook of her neck as I tried to catch my breath. “Give me thirty minutes, and I’ll be ready for that shower we missed this morning.”

  “Mmmm,” she sighed as she cuddled into me. “Only because you distracted me with orgasms.”

  “What can I say? I wanted to start our honeymoon off right.”

  She pressed a kiss against my shoulder. “No worries there. We aren’t even halfway done with the first day, and you’ve already blown me away.”

  I had plenty more surprises in store for her. With everything else I had planned, from a couples massage to breakfast in bed, this was only the beginning.

  Next up in the Fortuity world is Corey’s story, Fidelity. If you’re in the mood for another new adult read from me, you could try Push the Envelope which is free (as of April 10, 2020)! And if you sign up for my newsletter, I’ll send you a copy of Hit the Wall!

  Acknowledgments

  Fortuity wouldn’t have happened without the help of so many people. I owe thanks to LJ Anderson (Mayhem Cover Design) and FuriousFotog for how beautiful the cover turned out. Ellie McLove (Gray Ink) and Manda Lee for their eagle eyes during the editing process. Elle Christensen, Ella Fox, and S Van Horne for their input on the story as it developed. Sarah Ferguson from Social Butterfly PR for all her help in spreading the word. Kathy Snead Williams for holding my hand while also giving me lots of nudges along the way. Becca Hensley Mysoor for her insight during a wonderful lunch. The #DreamTeam and DHI for cheering me on. My Racy Readers for their continued support over the years. Dear friends like Aurora Rose Reynolds and TM Frazier who’re always there for me when I need them. My mom, whose transplant journey provided inspiration. My sons, who put up with all my craziness when I’m writing and continue to cheer me along. I’m sure I’m missing some incredible people because it truly has taken a village to bring this project to life, and I’m blessed to be surrounded by such an amazing village.

  Thank you!

  Rochelle Paige

  Also by Rochelle Paige

  BLYTHE COLLEGE SERIES

  Push the Envelope

  Hit the Wall

  Summer Nights (novella duo)

  Outside the Box

  Winter Wedding (novella)

  BACHELORETTE PARTY SERIES

  Sucked Into Love

  Mixed Into Love

  Checked Into Love

  Married Into Love

  CRISIS SERIES

  Identity Crisis

  Protection Crisis

  FATED MATES (BLACK RIVER PACK & McMAHON CLAN)

  Crying Wolf

  Shoot for the Moon

  Thrown to the Wolves

  Bear the Consequences

  Bear It All

  Bear the Burden

  Ask for the Moon

  BODY & SOUL SERIES

  Bare Your Soul

  Save Your Soul

  Sell Your Soul

  Feed Your Soul

  STANDALONES

  Star Pupil

  About the Author

  I absolutely adore reading—always have and always will. When I was growing up, my friends used to tease me when I would trail after them, trying to read and walk at the same time. If I have downtime, odds are you will find me reading or writing.

  I am the mother of two wonderful sons who have inspired me to chase my dream of being an author. I want them to learn from me that you can live your dream as long as you are willing to work for it.

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