Couture Love
Page 24
“I want to tell you about my not date.” When I see a twinge of hurt come and go in his eyes, I take his hand and kiss the palm. “I was mad at you for that.” I nod toward but don’t look at the billboard with the picture reenacting his twenty-second birthday, when he swooped me up in the coffee shop. The picture of him and her, not him and me.
“I was wrong to agree to the photo, but when I realized how fucking catty it was, I told them it wasn’t to be used.”
“I know that now, but when I got back from Paris, I was ready for all of it, and then I saw that and all those feelings came back. I was able to quell them until the message.”
“I’m sorry you had to be a part of that.”
“I wish you’d told me, Eric.”
“Had every intention when you got back to the US.”
“Because you didn’t think I could handle it? I need you to stop doing that, okay?”
He looks at me from out of the corner of his eye.
“I’m serious. You always say truth, yet—”
He takes my hand. “Okay.”
“Stella’s man has been cheating on her for five years, and then Natasha, she, and I were all together and, well, I was feeling all sorts of pissed off at you, pissed off at Stella’s now ex, all girl power and fuck the man, and then I saw the cop giving me a ticket and, well … When I met him for a drink, I knew I was wrong, and I had one beverage and talked about you the entire time. I told him I loved you.”
“So, he got a date before me and heard those words?”
I look up at him, squeeze his hand, and hold the other over my heart. “I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is,” he sighs.
“But I do want to point out two things. One, we had a couple of dates, so that’s inaccurate. And I may have told him that I loved you first, but you knew it before.”
He smirks down at me.
“And in an effort to be honest, Angela knows how I feel as well. So, Eric Cartwright, this is kind of a big deal. And although I am so sorry—”
“Babe, you had me at I love you. Just don’t pull that shit again, and you come to me if you get messages, if you see that bitch. I am so pissed you didn’t file charges on her last fucking year. And Autumn, I blame me for that.”
We hold hands as we walk down the streets of New York, and guess what happens? The sky doesn’t fall.
He kisses me softly and sweetly while others are near, and the sun doesn’t burn out.
He holds me like a lover would as we sit on top of the mountain of rocks, drinking coffee, eating croissants, and he feeds me strawberries on a Sunday morning, in Central Park, and guess what …? It doesn’t rain so hard it floods. And if it did, he would have swum beside me and made it okay.
Epilogue
Eric
It’s that time of year again. Labor Day, and we’re spending it in the Hamptons.
Autumn baulked at the idea of staying at the pool house, but I talked her into it.
Dad knows about us, but he didn’t hear it from me. He heard it from the ex while watching me play my senior game of lacrosse at Duke.
I didn’t tell Autumn how irate he was at the time, or the fact that he spoke of her and Angela as nastily as he had, but I did tell her that, even pissed off at her, I told him that she was the only woman I ever loved.
On our way up, I told her that her parents were coming as well. They know about me; she had told them before she came back Stateside. She didn’t know that I had spoken to them, and she sure as hell didn’t know why until then, that I needed them to see she was in good hands.
She was only pissed off for a few seconds, because the parent intro didn’t feed her anxiety in the way that we would be making it very public at the de la Porte company picnic.
Even though everyone speculated already, due to last year’s shit show, it was an issue for her. I told her it was an issue to me if all those in our lives didn’t know.
Over dinner with just the six of us—Autumn and I, Dad and Suzy, and Rod and Rhonda Raynes—I got down on one knee, and she actually tried to pull me up, saying, “Oh my God, not here, not now.”
“No regrets.”
I proposed to her with the ring my father proposed to my mother with … and a telescope.
She didn’t just shed a couple tears; she sobbed into my neck as I held her, and yes, I may have shed one or two myself.
* * *
Sitting on top a blanket on the beach, next to a small fire, her back to my chest, a bottle of Dom at our feet and a telescope beside us, I try to point out the stars, but she just keeps holding out her hand and telling me how beautiful the diamond set in the platinum band is, telling me she loves me, thanking me for setting up the dinner party that she didn’t think she wanted, and laughing as she repeats, “This is crazy.”
“Marry me,” I whisper.
She wiggles her finger. “I said yes.”
“Marry me now.”
“Are you insane?”
I stand up and reach my hand out to her. “Marry me now, here, in this place. The place where we knew damn well there would never be anyone for either of us that could possibly be more right. Marry me in the place where we realized we’re already written.”
She grins and takes my hand. “Okay.”
“You sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
“No regrets?”
She smiles. “None.”
I stick my fingers in my mouth and give out a loud whistle.
“What are you doing?” she asks
“Marrying the love of my life.”
She looks around me and gasps. “This is crazy. You … No! I mean, yes, but no.” She palms her face when her parents and sister, who I am meeting for the first time, appear beside her. Then, when my entire tribe appears beside me, when she sees Angela and Bass, Natasha and Oliver, and Claudia, she looks up at me.
“Marry me, Autumn Jora Rayne. Marry me tonight.”
“Okay!” She laughs. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
We exchange traditional vows, at her father’s request, in the middle of a circle made of tiki torches and family, with sand beneath our feet, underneath the stars.
* * *
Six Months Later…
Autumn
While getting ready for our weekly picnic at the park, I hear my husband yell up the stairs, “Hey, babe, we got the call.”
“Are you …?” I pause and stand up from the dressing table, unable to think straight. Then I run out of our newly remolded bedroom and down the stairs. I run toward the office and skid to a stop in front of our large mahogany desk. “Are you serious?”
He’s grinning—no, beaming—and nodding his head.
“When can we go?”
“They said we needed to come down and sign paperwork ASAP.”
* * *
Sitting in our new Rover, I hold my hand over my belly. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Six months, babe. How fucking blessed are we? Six months.”
Six months ago, we decided we wanted to adopt, and ever since, we have been impatiently waiting.
* * *
Walking into the clinic, I have a death grip on Eric’s hand and my palms are sweaty.
“We got this, babe.”
“We do, I know, but Eric, she’s really going to be ours. Yours and mine forever and ever—”
“And ever.” He laughs as he pulls me in closer and wraps his arm around me.
Once at the reception desk, the woman looks up. “Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright?”
I look up at him. “God, I love the sound of us.”
He grins back at me. “Not as much as I do.”
“Probably more. No, definitely more.”
The receptionist laughs. “Are you ready to meet her?”
“Yes,” we both answer at the same time.
* * *
Eric
“I can’t believe you.” I laugh at my wife as she buckles one of our girls in while I buckle the other.
“Be happy we didn’t end up with all four of them.” She kisses the top of our little Frenchie’s head.
We’re parents to two seven-month-old French bull dogs who were dropped off at a shelter because the breeder hadn’t been able to sell them and they were moving out of state.
“You ready to get them home?”
She nods. “Most definitely.”
Driving back to Soho, I watch as she sits in the back seat while fussing over them. Without a doubt, Autumn would have been a great mom. And I would have made one hell of a father, but to have the choice as I do is something much different than what she has gone through. Maybe in the future she’ll want to adopt a child, and if she wants to, I will do what she wants. But I honestly never felt the call to procreate.
Sometimes there is a stigma about people without children being selfish. I know it not to be true. Autumn has shown me that over and over again.
When I open the door to the house, she guides them in and says, “Welcome home, babies, welcome home.”
### The End###
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author MJ Fields write books that scorch pages and melt hearts. Her style is raw, gritty and authentic. Love an alpha and a strong heroine? She does too.
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Ladies of Love and Steel
Also by MJ Fields
The Steel Series (World)
The Men of Steel Series
Forever Steel • Jase • Cyrus • Zandor • Xavier • Raising Steel
The Ties of Steel Series
Abe • Dominic • Eroe • Sabato
The Rockers of Steel Series
Memphis Black • Finn Beckett • River James • Billy Jeffers
The Match Duet
Match This! • ImPerfectly Matched!
The Steel Country Series
Hammered • Destroyed • Wasted
Tied In Steel
Terzetto • Valentina • Paige • Gia (Coming in 2019)
LRAH Legacy Series (World)
These families’ stories are intertwined starting with The Love series, they move to the Wrapped Series, the Burning Souls series, Love You Anyways, 27 Truths, 27 Lies, Her First Kiss, His First Crush, and Their First Fall.
Many more series will spin off from these supporting characters already mentioned and each will be a standalone series but for those of us who love a story to continue I recommend reading in this order.
The Love Series
(Lucas Links Story)
(Must Be Read In This Order)
Blue Love • New Love • Sad Love • True Love
The Wrapped Series
(Brody Hines Story)
Wrapped In Silk • Wrapped In Armor • Wrapped In Always and Forever
Burning Souls Series
(Maddox Hines Story)
Stained • Forged • Merged
LRAH Legacy Additions
Love You Anyway • Love Notes
The Truth About Love Series
(Ava Links story)
27 Truths • 27 Lies
Firsts Series
(London Fields story)
Her First Kiss • His First Crush • Their First Fall • 27 Truths About Their First Goodbye
Standalone Series
The Norfolk Series
Irons • Shadows • Titan
The Caldwell Brothers Series
(co-written w/ Chelsea Camaron)
Hendrix • Morrison • Jagger • Visibly Broken • Use Me
Timeless Love
Cinq A Sept • Amour Battu •Hearts So Big • Couture Love
Standalones
Offensive Rebound
Acknowledgments
To the reader of this book
Thank you so much for accompanying me on the journey.
You are true blessings.
Forever Steel,
MJ