“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?” Alex blinked. “Okay… what?”
“Okay.” She looked up at him, her green eyes meeting his blue ones. “One more chance. Just one. You said you want to prove yourself to me, right?”
“Right,” Alex agreed.
“I’ll give you the chance to do that. But you don’t have to sell your company. All you have to do is show up for me, always, no matter what happens. And the same for the babies.”
Alex nodded. “I can do that. I will do that.”
“And…” Grace bit her lip. “There’s something you should know.”
“What is it?”
Grace summoned every ounce of her courage. Every bit of bravery she’d built up over the last weeks and months. And she spoke the truest words she could, the ones she’d fought against and tried to deny. The ones she could now fully embrace.
“I love you, too.”
“You do?” Alex’s eyes widened, and he squeezed her hands.
“I do.” Grace smiled. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”
“You should.” Alex pulled her into his arms, and Grace went willingly. “You absolutely should.”
“Does this mean that we’re done pretending?” Grace asked as she allowed herself to relax into his arms. Her head restedagainst his firm, broad chest, and she could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and smell his masculine scent. “Next time we have a problem, we won’t just pretend it away—we’ll talk about it?”
“Yes.” Alex looked down at her, gently pulling back so that he could look into her eyes. “And now, I have a request for you.”
“What is it?”
“I’d very much like to kiss you.”
Grace’s heart lifted as she nodded. Alex bent his head, Grace lifted onto her tiptoes, and their lips met. They’d kissed before, months ago, the night the twins were conceived. In the following days and weeks, Grace had wondered if she’d imagined just how perfect that kiss had been. But now, as Alex kissed her again, she realized that, if anything, she’d underestimated the power of their connection.
As Alex kissed her, softly at first, the world seemed to freeze around them. Nothing else mattered—not the sound of the cars outside or the breeze from the open window or Patrick or their pasts or anything. All that mattered was the two of them, and the future they would build together.
Grace deepened the kiss, hungry for reassurance that this was really happening. Alex responded willingly, pulling her to him, kissing her as though she was all that mattered in the world. Her heart rate sped as he brushed his fingertips along her spine and threaded his hands into her hair.
After what could have been seconds or centuries, Alex and Grace broke apart. Grace’s lips tingled, and she brushed her fingertip across them, already reliving the sensations of the kiss.
“Wow,” she said. Alex grinned.
“Wow indeed.”
“Now.” She gently removed herself from his arms. “There’s something we have to do.”
“What’s that?”
“We have to fix this.” She headed for the door, grabbed her shoes, then laboriously sat down to try to put them on. Her pregnant belly was already getting in the way of a lot of things.
“Fix what?”
Grace looked at him as if he were an idiot. “The situation with Patrick. We can’t let him get away with this. You told me that he was the one who really stole the laptop and framed me, right?”
“None of that matters now.” Alex shook his head. “The only thing that matters is our family.”
“Agreed.” Grace smiled at him. “But also, this matters a little. Patrick hurt both of us. He almost made it so that we couldn’t trust each other enough to have a relationship. And he tried to sabotage the company you’ve spent your life building.” She shook her head. “We have to fix this.”
