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“Trust me, little spy. I do, too.” He shrugged. “All the things ye told me went through my mind on repeat last night. Viola gave me baby Torran to hold, and all I could picture was a bairn made of ye and me. Ye, Miss Walsh, I plan to wed, bed, and all the rest. So be ready for it.”
Tobi skipped back in and slapped the book on Valentine’s chest. While I stood there stunned to my core, he hoisted her to his knee and they read together.
The perfect happiness morphed into a vision for the future. One where Valentine asked Tobi if he could be her dad and she had another person to love her unconditionally. Where we gave her a baby sister or brother. Where a man told me he loved me and I was everything he wanted.
Abruptly, I choked on a sob and ran from the room.
A while later, once Tobi was asleep, I clambered up from her floor, exhausted and half in a daze from a near constant state of stress and worry over the past several days. Or weeks, or months. In the doorway of her room, Valentine leaned, watching me. Silently, he crossed the floor and lifted me into his arms.
“Bed,” he whispered.
I could only nod yes.
In our room, he peeled my clothes from my body then nestled me into the pillows, kissing down my body to take me to the brink of an orgasm in easy, confident slides of his tongue.
Just as I was getting there, he stopped, came up me, and notched his dick to my entrance. I wound my legs around him and bucked to drive him into me.
Valentine groaned and sank home, banding an arm around me, the other hand going to my belly. “I’m so in love with ye. I want ye. Need ye. One day, you’ll carry my bairn. Be mine, Mia.”
“I love you, too,” I managed, then all other words were lost.
He made me come then built me up for another. Made love to me then slept, holding me so close.
I’d made the best decision of my life when I’d leapt on the job advert that brought me to the McRae estate. Forevermore, with Valentine, I was home.
Chapter 40
Valentine – a couple of months later
“Can I ask Valentine to move in with us today, Mama?” Tobi skipped out the front door and along the concrete ground, asking the same question she did every morning.
“When we’re ready,” Mia replied with the prettiest smile for me.
The two of us sat on chairs on the porch outside the cottage, the early summer sun warming us. It was June now, and a gorgeous Saturday morning. The changing season was marked on the landscape around us, with purple and pink heather blooming and birds flying in and out of trees, nesting.
It was giving a man big ideas.
For weeks, since the showdown between Mia and me, I’d fought to prove I’d changed. I’d let her down with how I’dtreated her, and it broke my heart to remember the words I’d thrown her way.
In the same way that other aspects of life had settled for her, with Vanissa and her sons taking a payoff suggested by the lawyers instead of challenging the will, time was healing old wounds.
I only hoped what I had planned this evening would make up for it for good.
“It’s a shame we’re going out for the day,” Mia said with a sigh. “As much as I love spending time with Daisy and the other women and kids, I could just sit here in the warm sun and watch the world go by for hours.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll do exactly that.”
I leaned in and kissed her. Tobi grinned, staring between us. Where other kids might yell at their grown-ups showing affection, she seemed to crave our closeness. If we hugged, she’d wiggle between us and demand her share and to be squished with us both holding her. Slowly, Tobi had crept into my heart just as much as her ma.
“What are you doing today?” the girl asked me.
I raised my eyebrows. “I have plans with my brother.”
A truth, but hiding a thousand thoughts and sneaky conversations.
“Hope you both have fun. It’s so lovely that you’re getting close again. We’d better go.” Mia stood, ready to head out for a day of subterfuge planned by me.
As she passed, I tugged her hand, landing her back in my lap for a last squeeze. “Can’t wait.”
