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32
Have you ever woken up thinking that a dream was real?
How about when you think reality might be the dream itself?
I’d had a few of those moments in my short life. When Sofia was born.
And the morning after Xavier Parker, Duke of Kendal, said he not only loved the little girl we made together, the daughter he never knew he had, but that he also loved me too. Small, inconsequential, nobody Francesca Zola.
But not to him.
The light shining in through the window above my bed seemed exceptionally bright this morning. Warmer than usual, even for a gorgeous May Saturday where I was alone without the wake-up call of my daughter or the rustle of Matthew (who seemed to have stayed with Nina last night).
But it wasn’t the glow of spring or the house’s quiet outside that cast the world with such a perfect hue. It was the golden aura of the man surrounding me on my tiny twin mattress.
“Xavi,” I whispered, more to taste his name on my tongue than because I wanted anything.
“I’m awake.” His voice was scratchy but had the warmth of a fireplace of embers.
I just hummed and pressed my face into his chest. Is this how Rapunzel felt when the prince finally found his way up to her tower?
Who knew? Or even cared?
Right now, not I.
“Who are you pretending to be now?” Xavi wondered.
I smiled but shook the character away. I wasn’t trapped in an attic or a tower, or any other sort of place. I was in my own bed, in my own home, nestled with the man I loved. A man who had spent the majority of the night showing me in every way possible just how he loved me too.
Francesca Zola, this is your life.
“No one,” I said honestly. “Just me.”
I turned and set my chin on his chest, if only so I could look up and catch the light on the edge of his cheekbone.
He looked down. “If you tell me this can’t happen again, Ces, I’m more than happy to show you all over again why it must.”
I grinned against his pec. “It can’t happen again.”
“Minx.”
“Devil.”
For that, I was flipped onto my back, Xavier caging me against my little mattress. My bed frame shrieked in protest, and Xavier cringed.
“I need to get you out of this bed,” he said. “It’s too bloody small.”
“Why are you so tall?” I wondered as he nosed his way down my neck. “Aren’t Japanese people usually on the smaller side like me?”
“As it happens, the height is from the Parker side. My grandfather was apparently six foot six. But that’s a gross stereotype, Ms. Zola.”
“Yes, but isn’t it kind of accurate?”
He chuckled. “I did bang my head in parking garages in Japan. And shower nozzles only came to my chest.”
I giggled, imagining Xavier smashed inside a tiny shower.
“You laugh, but it was sort of miserable.”
