“This evening is going from bad to worse,” I grumble.
“I promise to make it up to you.” She brushes her thumb over my knuckles.
“You better.” I pull her closer.
“Let’s find our table.”
“Not yet.” I take her hand and lead us out of the ballroom.
“Where are we going?” Roxy tries to pull away from my hold.
I try a few doors, and finally, one opens. It’s a much smaller ballroom set up for the next day, with round tables and balloons.
“Sit.” I move a chair for Roxy to sit down.
She narrows her eyes, ready to argue. But she doesn’t. Always ready to assert her independence, these days she picks her battles. And she picks them well.
“Good girl,” I say in a low voice when she obeys, and her cheeks heat up.
I pull a chair for myself and bend down to lift her ankles.
“What are you doing, Liam?”
Laying her feet in my lap, I drop her shoes to the floor. “You said you needed to take these off for a moment.”
Pressing my fingers against her soles, I massage her swollen feet.
She moans. “You’re perfect.”
“I know.”
She giggles, but it turns into another moan when I press a sensitive spot. “This is good.”
“I… have a name,” I say.
Choosing a name for our daughter has been a point of tension, to say the least.
Roxy sighs. “We are not calling our daughter Gullwing or Bentley.”
I lift her foot higher and kiss her toe. “What about Ro?”
Her breath hitches, she swallows, and she blinks a few times. Then she swings her feet away and launches at me. Hugging me, she settles in my lap. “That is a perfect name.”
“For a perfect little girl with the most wonderful mother.” I kiss her.
“And with the best father ever. Thank you. I love it.”
She takes my hand and puts it on her belly, covering it with her palm. “We love you, Ro.”
And Ro responds with a little kick under my palm.
Roxy laughs into my neck.
I close my eyes.
Life has never felt this right.
One year later
