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This could be good news or bad. Or it could be nothing at all, if we choose for it to be.
“Do you want to know?” I ask Liam softly, looking up into his green eyes. In the first month of our marriage, as tumultuous as it’s been, our relationship itself has only grown stronger. Without Alexandre or Saoirse hanging over us, we’ve felt free. And though his injuries meant we’ve barely been able to be intimate, I feel as if a different kind of intimacy has been growing, bringing us closer together than we’ve ever been before.
There’s a ring on my left hand now, an emerald-cut diamond on a yellow gold band, with a sapphire baguette on either side. My birthstone and Liam’s. Next to it is nestled the plain gold band he gave me on our wedding day, a ring I love more than any other, even the beautiful engagement ring he gave me to make up for not having one when he proposed.
I’ll never take either of them off. Liam is mine, and I’m his, now and forever. No matter what happens, nothing can break that–not even the potential contents of the envelope. But still, I wait for his answer, feeling faint as if I can’t breathe.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Liam says firmly, as I’d thought he might. “You’re my wife, the love of my life.” He touches my cheek gently with his healing right hand, smiling down at me, his eyes full of love. “As far as I’m concerned, the baby is mine.Ours.” He pauses. “Do you want to know?”
I think about it for a long moment, turning the envelope over and over in my hands. And at last, I walk to the fireplace, squatting down in front of it.
It takes a few minutes to get the fire started. Outside it’s a hot summer day, but in here, the central air is cold enough that the heat from the fire almost feels pleasant. When the flames are leaping, I look at Liam to give him a chance to stop me.
“No,” I say finally, when he doesn’t move or say a word in protest about what he must know I’m planning to do. “If the baby is yours,” I continue, my hand tightening around the envelope, “then everything would be fine. We could put the past behind us, forever, with no trace of it left.”
“Of course.” Liam’s gaze searches mine. “But?”
“But what if it’s not?” I look up at him. “What if it’s Alexandre’s? You can claim the baby as our child and love it, but we’ll always know. We’ll never be able to forget it, and I’ll never be able to fully let him go. I don’t want to know, Liam. I want this baby to be ours, regardless of what the biology says. Like you said, it doesn’t matter. So we don’t need to know.”
“I agree,” Liam says softly. He steps behind me, his arms going around my waist, and I take a deep breath as I step forward towards the fire.
“I love you,” I whisper. “I love you, and only you.”
“And I love you, Ana. Only you, now and forever–and our baby.” Liam kisses my cheek gently.
“That’s all I need to know–and all our child will ever need to know.”
I reach out, throwing the envelope into the fireplace. It catches immediately, my heart leaping in my chest along with the flames as it starts to burn. As the edges curl, I turn in Liam’s arms, and he pulls me closer, his hand going to my face as he bends to kiss me.
It’s been nearly a month since we’ve really been able to make love. I’m hungry for him, ravenous, and I arch against him, my lips parting for his tongue as he tugs me backward, sitting on the couch as he pulls me into his lap.
“Careful of your hand,” I whisper, but he’s already pushing my dress up, fumbling with his zipper as he kisses me, hard and hot and deep, his fingers pushing my panties aside so the tip of his cock can find my entrance.
I cry out when he slips inside of me, his hand on my hip as I sink down onto him, and I clutch his face in my hands, kissing him fiercely as he starts to thrust, filling me completely.
“I love you, Liam McGregor,” I whisper, the way I had the morning of our wedding as we lay next to each other on the roof.”
Liam smiles against my lips, his hand in my hair as he rocks against me, the two of us as close together as two people can possibly be. “And I love you, Anastasia McGregor,” he whispers. In one swift movement, he topples me over onto my back on the couch, thrusting into me hard and fast as I cry out with pleasure.
I lose myself in him, in the sensation of his body inside of mine, his lips on mine, his body against mine, skin to skin. And as we make love, the fire crackles just beyond, the envelope turning to ash inside of it.
Burning every last trace of the past away.
EPILOGUE
LIAM
One Month Later
It’s taken a bit longer than expected, but as I get into the car for my driver to take me home, I’m anxious to get home to give Ana the good news.
I’m fully healed from the wounds inflicted at my trial of the Kings, if not without scars. My back will always have a few ridges of scar tissue and thin lines marking where the belt hit, and the flesh on my right thumb and forefinger is left with a divoted scar on the tip of each, the print gone.
The doctor had tactfully mentioned that there’s an excellent plastic surgeon they could refer me to, but I declined. I don’t mind the scars—they’re a reminder of what I endured to try to keep my place at the head of the Kings’ table and what I endured for Ana’s sake. To be with her. To have our family, our child.
I want to tell my driver to hurry as I text her that I’m on my way back to the penthouse. Since the trial, we’ve been forced to have careful sex, always conscious of my wounds and not reopening them or hurting me further, but now I can do whatever I like.
I’m fully healed, and I intend to put that to use just as soon as I walk in the door.
