Page 123 of Never To Be Mine

“Juno.” He took my hand. “You spent four nights here this week. Five last week. The nights you go home, I wake up at two in the morning and reach for you and you’re not there, and I hate it.” He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “Move in with me.”

I stared at him.

“I know it’s fast,” he said, the words picking up speed now. “I know it’s only been a few months and people are going to have opinions, and your dad just found out about us like six hours ago. But nothing about us has ever followed a normal timeline. I’ve stopped waiting for my life to make sense to other people. You basically live here already. I want it to be official. I want to wake up to you every morning.”

I looked at him and already knew my answer. The man was more than just a pretty face. He was smart. Kind. Generous.

And mine.

“Okay,” I said.

He blinked. “Okay?”

“Yes. I’ll move in with you.”

He grabbed me and pulled me across his body where he lounged in the chair. He kissed me, slow and deep. “Welcome home, Juno Young.”

Welcome home indeed.

EPILOGUE

HOLLIS

Six months later

Six months of living with Juno, and I still got a kick out of watching her boss me around in my own house.

Our house. She’d corrected me on that enough times that it finally stuck.

“The platter goes on the island, not the counter,” she said, relocating the cheese board I’d set down in the wrong spot. “People gravitate to the island. It’s science.”

“People are going to eat whatever is put out no matter where it sits.”

“It’s flow, Hollis. Party flow.” She pointed at me with a celery stick. “Behave.”

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against me, celery and all. “I can never behave myself around you.”

She kissed me, then squirmed free. “Now move. Your family descends in twenty minutes and I need everything perfect.”

“It’s my family. They love us no matter where the cheese plate sits.”

Juno had nothing to prove to my family. They’d met her a dozen times by now. My mother had taken one look at the way I orbited her and declared, “Finally.”

They loved her. Everyone loved her. Today was the first time we were hosting the whole clan at once, though, and Juno had been in full event-mode since Tuesday.

The doorbell rang at four on the dot. Juno’s eyes widened in panic.

“Relax,” I said. “It’s a party. Fun. No stress.”

What followed was a tidal wave of Blackwells.

Mom came through first, all elegance and cheek kisses, Tiana Blackwell still stopping traffic at an age she’d murder any tabloid for printing. Dad was right behind her, Max Blackwell carrying two bottles of wine and that power that clung to him as one of the biggest movers and shakers in the movie business.

“The house looks incredible,” Mom said, pulling Juno into a hug. “It needed a woman’s touch.”

Callum and Victoria arrived next, and I swore Victoria got more beautiful every time I saw her. The pregnancy was showing now, a neat little bump under her sundress that she kept resting her hand on without seeming to notice she was doing it. Callum hovered exactly one step behind. I would have made fun of him, but I knew I did the same with Juno.

Drew and Kensey rolled in with Jeremy and Beau in tow. Cleo swept in behind them, already on her phone apologizing to someone about a fabric snag or something.