Page 159 of Unwritten Rules

I shake my head, dispelling my romantic notions, and find Nate watching me with a smirk tugging on his mouth.

“I can read you like a book, you great, big broody wench.”

I burst out laughing as Bella lifts her head from Nate’s shoulder. Her face is all screwed up when she looks at me.

“What’s a wench, Mila?”

Her adorable innocence makes me laugh even harder, and that’s how Liv finds us.

My sister-in-law, as always, looks radiant, dressed head-to-toe in black. There’s a set of black cat ears peeking out of her blonde tresses, and it registers that she’s come as Catwoman.

“What’s so funny?”

Bella, having become bored with the lack of attention, scrambles to get down, shouting at one of her passing cousins, “Hey, Mia! No princesses allowed!”

The little spitfire chases her unwitting victim through the foyer and into the kitchen beyond as Henry and Caden wander in through the front door. Both men stop dead in their tracks when their eyes land on Nate.

“You absolute wanker!” Henry’s face, underneath his Batman mask, is turning several shades of red as Nate strikes his Superman pose, making Liv and me stifle our giggles.

“You broke with tradition, man. Not cool, so not cool!” Caden, dressed as the Joker to Bella’s Harley Quinn, is equally mad, though less visibly than my brother.

The boys continue to bicker when I turn to Liv.

“What’s with these guys? It’s just a costume.”

She giggles and rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “To us, they’re just costumes. To the boys, they represent their nicknames growing up.”

At the evident confusion on my face, she continues. “So one of Cade’s sisters always called Caden ‘Joker.’ I suppose it was a play on his personality?”

We both giggle at that. Caden plays the part of the clown to perfection.

“Anyway, one day, to annoy Nate, she called Henry ‘Batman’ and said that Nate had to be ‘Robin’ because he was only sidekick material. From all accounts, they teased him mercilessly – but you know Nate. He’d never have shown it!”

The escalation of the boy’s quasi-argument pulls us from our sidebar, and Liv speaks up in Nate’s defence.

“Oh, come on, you two. Nate can’t be expected to play Robin now. He’s the leading man in his own movie, after all.” She winks broadly at Nate and me, knowing full well that her husband will take the bait, but Caden gets there first.

“True.” He shrugs, turning to face Henry. “Besides, DeMarco, you don’t get to be greedy. Bash is your own mini Robin now. Time to let Superman and Wonder Woman here ride off into the sunset. We’re all aware at this point of how much they like to ride—”

Henry moves to slap an already-chuckling Caden across the back of the head, but the Joker dances out of Batman’s way. Cade howls with laughter as he scoots across the foyer, exactly like his daughter not five minutes earlier. The only difference being that he’s the quarry, with Henry chasing after him, no doubt in defence of my honour.

“And why aren’t you chasing Caden for those innuendos he’s made, hmm?”

I round on Nate as Liv moves off in the direction of her easily-risen husband. But he just quirks a brow, allowing his dimple to wink when he smiles dazzlingly.

“He’s not wrong, is he? You’ve proved, only this morning, that you do like to ride, Hellcat.”

Without missing a beat, I snuggle close, inhaling his pussy-tingling scent. “Aren’t you lucky, then?”

Echoing my words from this morning, his mouth descends upon mine. “Very damn lucky, baby.”

CHAPTER 44

NATE

TWELVE MONTHS LATER

The morning sun slowly edges into the suite of our hotel in Lazize, a small, picturesque town on Lake Garda in northern Italy. Her rays inch across every centimetre, gradually covering the sheet-covered body of the most stunning creature my eyes will ever behold.