I pick up the screaming child, wondering what I did to deserve a child louder than his mother.
When the other two start wailing, I plead, “Dear Lord, what will it take to stop you from yelling?”
A snicker sounds from the other side of the room, and I twist around and find my wife staring at me, leaning against the doorjamb and somehow managing to look sexier than she should when she’s dressed for business and not to impress.
She’s wearing a smart pantsuit, not her usual attire of shorts and a cami that always shows just enough to keep me hard if I eye her up, and her hair is twisted up in a bun that reminds me of a secretary.
I want that rope of hair in my hand as I pull her head back—
Damn, I really need to not have an erection right now.
Her smug smile has me narrowing my eyes at her. “You said three hours.”
She grins unapologetically. “The meeting went over.”
“You signed?” She wasn’t sure if the production company who wanted to produce the book she’d written about a priest who killed sinners in his parish would have the same creative vision she had, but from her smug smile, I get the feeling things had gone well.
Yeah, the story was cutting very close to the bone, but before I left Rome, I returned to France to visit my parents, and I changed my name.
I was no longer Savio Martin, but Xavier Martinez, and I was damn glad I had now. In four years of being together, she’d only managed to write one book.
The Vows We Break had been a bestselling hit, and the production companies have been at her for months about a movie.
With a different name, I don’t have to worry about anyone connecting the dots. Meager though they might be.
I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in a destiny that makes it so me and this woman, my angel, are tied together until the day we die, but that doesn’t mean life can’t get in the way of God’s will from time to time.
“I signed.” She winks at me. “Twenty million coming our way.”
I snort. “No way.”
She wiggles her eyebrows. “Yes way.”
My lips twitch. “You’re too rich.”
“We are.” She shrugs. “Plus, it’s for them, isn’t it?”
The three children who are more like hell spawn than angels for my comfort.
My nose wrinkles. “Why did we have triplets again?”
“Because my body is overactive and you have super sperm?” she teases, strolling in with more of that loose-limbed gait that has my dick hardening.
Again.
At forty-six, I should be too old for these instant boners that remind me of when I was a teenager, but I figure I have a long time to make up for.
When she picks up one of the snuffling toddlers who had stopped wailing when their mama made an appearance, I haul the others into my arms.
There’s Grayson, Thiya, and Arabella, but Grayson is the biggest baby of them all.
When his mama isn’t around, he sulks like mad.
Huffing now that he’s in Andrea’s arms, like he’s pissed because he was always supposed to be there, me and the girls just roll our eyes at him, but at least they stopped their sobbing too.
I hate hearing them cry, hate it for so many reasons, but though it can make me murderous, how can I slay a table corner they bumped into? How can I slaughter a bottle of ketchup for being empty?
Kids cry at the most random stuff, and I have to be honest, it both amuses me and drives me nuts. I think, to a certain extent, it’s also tempered me.
I never expected to have kids, so having three is a gift. But at the same time? My punishment.
My mouth curves at the thought, and I press my lips to both golden heads.
They all take after their mother, but Grayson has my darker coloring. I’m glad though. They’re all angels, and only have my temperament when they’re hangry.
Andrea holds the back of Gray’s head and flops down into the sofa, making him giggle. I prop myself up beside her, and inform her, “Your mom called.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Why?”
“To remind you about tomorrow’s appointment.”
“I’m fine.”
I have to laugh. “I know you are. But let’s just confirm it.”
Her nose wrinkles harder, but she nods.
There’s no way in hell she isn’t going in for her checkup, but I get it. She hates the MRI machine, and I can’t blame her.
We found out she was pregnant pretty early on when I first left the priesthood, and it was at a bad time. She had some health issues that necessitated her staying in the hospital for a month or so, needed another round of surgery, but I used that time to help us get to know one another.
As much as I felt sure we were destined to be together, fated, I needed her to be sure.
Needed her to know what she was tying herself to.
A homicidal maniac with parasomnias who would kill to keep her safe, who would slay all her demons to protect her.
One dog, two different houses, three children, and four years later, that hasn’t changed. What has? My hair. It’s speckled with gray from the toddler spawn.
“You’re thinking hard.”
My smile deepens as her words have me shooting her a look from under my lashes. The girls are cuddled against me on the sofa, and Grayson is a true genius—his head is propped on her breasts.
For us, this is quiet, and I love it.
I never expected to have it, and it’s all the more precious for it.
“Not thinking hard, just thinking about things.”
“Good things?”
My eyes twinkle. “Is there anything but good in this world of ours?”
She beams at me, and I know I just made her happy.
We don’t lead a regular lifestyle.
I don’t go out to work, neither does she. We raise our kids, and her royalties pay the bills, and we just live.
No walls, no locks, no rat race.
Our house is deep in the countryside with more open space around it than we know what to do with. It’s a running farm and we pay people to keep it going, but I do my bit. Being outside, working the land? It’s probably the best therapy out there for a man like me.
My father-in-law doesn’t approve, but he’s an army man. Solid, stolid. He thinks I’m taking Andrea for a ride, and little does he know I am, just that it’s the ride of her life.
Beyond the sofa where she’s seated, at her back, is a bay window that overlooks the rolling fields that all belong to our family.
It’s a quiet life, even if things have gotten a little crazier since Andrea released this last book. She told me once that she missed writing, but it had never flowed for her since her surgery, so when she started plotting, I’d been happy for her.
Until she told me what she was writing.
Talk about merging the past with the present, and in a way that endangered us.
But my job in this life?
To make her happy.
To make sure that she’s fulfilled in all things, so watching her write again was a gift.
I don’t think she expected it to be successful, don’t think she thought it would do well, but here she is, signing up with production companies with new awards on her office desk.
I’m proud of her.
More than she will ever know.
“I like that smile on you,” she whispers. “Like it even better if I could taste it,” she purrs, switching to Italian.