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For now, I’m thankful that we’re alive and safe and our baby is going to be here soon.
We’re going to move forward together without anyone threatening to hold us back.
The shower steam clouds the glass walls as I take my time washing the blood from Hadley’s hair. The cuts on her body are small, but they’re there. Rage fills me when I think about how Felix attacked her and kidnapped her.
“I love you,” I say as I kiss her shoulder, avoiding a cut near her neck. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I thought that Rio would be there to protect you. I didn’t know he wasn’t there.”
Hadley smiles and runs her hands down my torso. “Jovan, it’s fine. We’re okay now. Felix would have come after me one way or another. There is no way you would have been able to protect me every hour of every day.”
I frown and she reaches up to smooth away the lines at the corner of my mouth. “How are you feeling?”
“I love you.” Hadley kisses the corner of my mouth. “I don’t feel great right now. The doctor said that the baby was fine when he checked over me. It’s just everything else that is making me feel like shit. It’s been a long day.”
I pull her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. You are nothing like your parents. I lashed out because I was scared of losing you, even after promising that you could walk away if you needed to. The thought of losing you almost destroyed me.”
“It’s okay,” she says softly as she kisses my collarbone. “We’re okay now. We’re going to work to be the best that we can be for each other and neither of us is going to lose our family ever again.”
The water starts to run cold as we stand there holding each other. I turn off the shower and get out, wrapping Hadley in a towel when she follows me.
As we get in bed a few minutes later, I finally feel at peace with everything going on in my life.
“You look like you have something on your mind,” Hadley says as she trails her fingers up and down my torso.
“What do you think about permanently moving in with me? I’ve still been paying your apartment so if you want to go back there, I’m not going to stop you. However, if you want to be here, I want you to be here. So much.”
Hadley gives me a smile that makes my heart skip a beat. “I think we’re already past the point of asking me to move in with you.”
“Is that a yes?”
She kisses my shoulder. “I can’t think of anyone else I would rather spend forever with.”
As we settle down for the night, I hold her tight in my arms, kissing every inch of her that I can reach. She laughs and cuddles up to me, her eyes closing as she puts her head on my chest.
When I run my fingers along her spine, tracing patterns on her skin, I know she was right when she said that everything happens for a reason.
My life has been shit, but all of those horrible things led me to my forever.
EPILOGUE
HADLEY
One Year Later
“We can’t spend forever in the house,” I say as I carry another box of children’s books to the door. “I only have the rest of the afternoon to finish setting up my classroom and Kennedy has been watching Giovanna for a while already.”
Jovan chuckles as he carries my office chair into the front hall. “We’re going to get back with plenty of time. I’m sure Kennedy will be fine with watching Giovanna for a few more hours.”
“Watching a baby is a lot,” I say, stopping in the hall to look over my shoulder at him. “I don’t want to have her and Rio looking after our daughter for too long. You know she hates napping.”
“Our daughter is fine and Kennedy knows how to take care of her.” Jovan puts down the chair and walks over to me, spinning me around and pushing me up against a wall. “It could be worse. Alessio could be the one watching her.”
My mouth drops open. “Giovanna may never recover from that. Thankfully, Alessio has already dealt with his insurgents, but I doubt he wants to deal with a baby.”
Alessio is still trying to hunt down Paolo Marino. The last thing he needs is a baby to deal with. He has to focus on keeping control of Atlanta before the man he used to call an older brother destroys it.
I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
“Good, so stop worrying about her for one night and focus on me.”
