“I was going to do this at dinner tonight, but then Grace showed up.”
“Are you proposing?” Her question was loud enough they got a dirty look from a nurse. “Get up.”
“Are you saying no?”
She hit him on the chest. “Of course not. I’m saying yes. Yes, to being your wife. Yes, to having babies. All of it.”
“Then why are you curtailing the moment? You know how I feel about ritual.”
She pulled him by the hand toward the hospital doors. “Yeah, but I want to be the rose that blossoms on places that would get us arrested in public right now.”
“That’s my best girl.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I have to thank my editor, Kristine Swartz, for letting me write a rom-com about a Catholic priest, and my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for selling it to her. I want to thank my mom for letting me watch The Thorn Birds in the early nineties, Phoebe Waller-Bridge for making hot priests a thing now, and Sierra Simone for defining the trope in romance novels.
I knew I had to write a book for Father Patrick as soon as he made it to the page in Not the Girl You Marry. A huge thank-you to the readers who e-mailed, texted, and DMed me, asking when Father Patrick’s book would be out. I honestly might not havehad the stones to write this book without you. Thank you for allowing me to be as wild, creative, and vulnerable as I can bear to be. It’s truly the honor of my life that my words have made you feel seen.
Sarah MacLean always encourages me to “take the finger,” and I hope I did her proud. Kate Clayborn—thank you for talking me through writing a slow-burn romance on the train ride from New York in the summer of 2019. I want to thank Kennedy Ryan for reminding me—through her friendship and her books—that it’s good to try big, hard things.
I wrote this book during a wild time in the United States and the world, and I’m not sure I would have been able to get through it without my friends. Adriana Anders, Alexis Daria, Adriana Herrera, LaQuette, Tracey Livesay, Alexa Martin, Katee Robert, Naima Simone, Nisha Sharma, Joanna Shupe, and the Wicked Wallflowers (Jenny Nordbak and Sarah Hawley and the entire Coven) really got me through. I adore you all, and I can’t wait to hug each and every one of you again.
Finally, thank you to Brittney (@litandknits) for naming Madison’s husband “Tucker”—it’s truly the best/worst frat boy name.
USA Today bestselling author Andie J. Christopher writes edgy, funny, sexy contemporary romance featuring heat, humor, and dirty-talking heroes that make readers sweat. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School, she grew up in a family of voracious readers, and picked up her first romance novel at age twelve when she’d finished reading everything else in her grandmother’s house. It was love at first read. It wasn’t too long before she started writing her own stories—her first heroine drank Campari and drove an Alfa Romeo up a winding road to a minor royal’s estate in Spain. Andie lives in the Nation’s Capital with a French Bulldog, a stockpile of Campari, and way too many books.
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