I smacked his chest. “Of course you make this about you.”
Aiden settled between my legs as we kissed, his hand smoothing up and down my back, settling on my bottom. Even though we could take it further—Anya knew not to open the door when it was closed—I loved that he seemed just as content to kiss me on our big bed in the middle of the day.
He rolled us, tugging my shirt up so he could reach more of my skin. When I settled onto my back, arching my neck, the crinkle of paper had me freezing.
“What?” he asked.
My hand fumbled on the bed until I found the edge of the envelope. “Something else to show you,” I whispered.
His brows lowered as he took it. My hands smoothed up his arms as he pulled it open, and my heart raced as he saw the edge of what was inside.
“Isabel,” he breathed. His eyes snapped to mine. “Seriously?”
I nodded, eyes watering at the awe I saw in his face. Aiden brushed a knuckle under his eye as he carefully tugged the sonogram picture out of the envelope.
He stared at it, then at me.
“We’re having a baby?” he whispered.
My chin quivered. I couldn’t even nod in affirmation because I’d split wide open into happy, messy tears.
“I know …” I paused when my voice cracked, “I know it’s sooner than we planned, and I wanted to be sure before I told you.”
He wrapped me up in his arms so tight I could hardly breathe. “We’re having a baby,” he repeated, voice uneven.
I clung to him, tears streaming down the side of my face, disappearing into my hairline. His mouth was on mine in the next moment, and when he broke away, his eyes were red-rimmed and so full of happiness.
“Does this mean I get to marry you sooner?”
I laughed. “I’d marry you tomorrow, Aiden Hennessy.”
Resting his forehead against mine, he breathed a shaky exhale. “Of course we’d do this sooner than we planned.”
I kissed him again. “It works for us, I think.”
Aiden cupped the side of my face, stared down at me with so much adoration, I almost started with the messy weeping again.
“Yeah. It does.”
“Should we go tell Anya?”
“In a few minutes,” he said, resuming with the lifting of the shirt. He reverently kissed my belly, then moved up until he’d tugged my shirt off.
“Just a few minutes?” I asked skeptically.
Aiden sat up on his knees, between my legs, and yanked his shirt off. “You doubt me?”
With a soft smile on my face, I pulled him back down for a kiss. “Never,” I whispered against his mouth.
The End
Keep reading for a link to a bonus epilogue for Aiden and Isabel.
But first! If you’re curious how Logan and Paige got their epic start, here’s an excerpt from The Marriage Effect.
* * *
“So you’re like …”
I kept my eyes aimed up when I answered. There was no particular desire to see the look on her face when I told her something I’d managed to keep under the radar for more than two years. “Their legal guardian.”
Paige was quiet for a couple of seconds as she processed. “And he wants to be.”
“Yeah. He and his wife do.”
“And you don’t want them to be,” she clarified.
I dropped my chin so she could see my face again. “Definitely not.”
She cupped her cheeks in her hands and stared at me. “And me saying I was your fiancée was …” Was what? I wanted to ask. Because I had a few words I could drop into that particular empty space.
Perfectly timed.
Brilliant.
Crazy.
Fate.
Paige didn’t say any of those things, though. “It was really stupid, wasn’t it?”
I closed my eyes and wiped a hand over my mouth. I didn’t know why I thought Paige would make this easy on me. Why I thought her mind would follow the same path that mine was.
Probably because that path was certifiable, padded cell insanity.
Except it wasn’t. Not at all.
“I just … didn’t think, really. I’m so sorry, Logan. I don’t blame you for being furious.”
I dropped my hand and stared at her.
“Oh my gosh, would you say something? You’re starting to freak me out.”
“I’m not furious,” I told her.
She blinked a few times. “You’re not?”
“Nope.”
Paige sat back and exhaled audibly. “Well, that’s good. I thought you’d flip the hell out on me, tell me I should think things through better, blah, blah. That’s what Allie tells me all the time.”
“Oh,” I interjected, “you should think things through better, but I’m not furious.”
“Well, that’s good.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why? You’re not exactly Susy Sunshine, if you know what I’m sayin’. I figured you’d be breathing fire right now.”
I leaned forward and plucked her hand from her lap, turned it side to side so I could study the ring. When she sucked in an audible breath, I kept my eyes down because I didn’t want to know what was on her face. The skin of her long, graceful fingers was smooth and soft. No callouses like the ones covering mine. No scars from broken fingers or skin that had been ripped off by an overzealous lineman.
“Nick is an asshole,” I told her as I studied her fingers in mine. “But he’s married. He works a job with normal hours. During the season, I probably work a hundred hours a week. My housekeeper just quit, the third in a year. And under my watch, my sixteen-year-old sister just got in a car accident driving around with her drunk friend, so he’s going to try to take them from me because of it.”
Paige’s chest rose and fell with increasing speed. Her pink lips were full and open slightly as she watched me. The bridge of her nose was covered with light freckles, and it worked. All of her separate pieces, they worked really, really well together.
“He’s better on paper,” she said. “That’s what you’re trying to say?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He checks a lot of boxes that I don’t.”
A blanket of quiet fell between us, and I saw the wheels turn behind the bright blue of her eyes.
“What is it that you need, exactly?” she repeated, slowly pulling her hand out of my own.
Her eyes held mine. Turns out, I didn’t even need to say the words or try to figure out the best way to say it. She finally tore her gaze away, and it landed on the ring.
“Ohhhh,” she drawled. “You need a fiancée.”
“Actually,” I said slowly, gauging the finely featured face in front of me, “I need a wife.”
Paige’s face stilled, then the last—absolute fucking last—thing I expected to happen happened.
She smiled.
“Perfect,” she breathed.
* * *
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