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“If this wasn’t about money, would you want to get married?”
“Never really saw myself getting married at all.” I could be honest about that, and there were more than a few measuring gazes on me. The weight of those assessments pressed in, yet they weren’t holding me hostage. “Guys, I never really thought much about my future, but the big wedding and the happily ever after parts were the fantasy we sold with the various shows I did.”
Even then, it was all so manufactured.
“Do you want kids?” Milo asked. It was the first time he’d said anything since Liam brought the subject up.
I lifted my shoulders. “I don’t know? I don’t think I do.” That test turning blue filled me with blind terror. “The thought of it scares me.”
Liam’s scowl deepened as he stared at me, and Vaughn wrapped his arms around my middle and tugged me more firmly against him.
Worry filled Milo’s eyes. “Why?”
“I honestly don’t want to talk about this right now…I don’t have to have a baby to get to my trusts. If we could afford to wait until I’m twenty-five, I wouldn’t even worry about getting married.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Kel said, his tone firm and his gaze steady. “I mean it, Sparrow, don’t care what money the Sharpes have. I can take apart Warrick’s business. We’ve been shutting it down and dismantling it. If necessary, I’ll sell it for parts.”
Even as he said it, the strain showed around his eyes. Kellan wanted nothing to do with that business. But he’d do it to protect all of us.
“Let me ask you this…” I licked my lips. “If I marry Liam, and we get my accounts transferred and drained. I know it won’t be an overnight process, but we can at least get it started. If we do that, what changes for all of us?”
“Changes?” Jasper asked. “Nothing. I don’t care if he has a legal claim on you or not. You’re stillourgirl.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Whether Jasper recognized it or not, the idea bugged him. Rome shrugged.
“Jasper is right. The only thing that would change is your name.”
“And you don’t need to get married to change that,” Milo grumbled. “It should be Hardigan anyway.”
Sharpe.
It had been my name for as long as I could remember. I’d always been Emersyn Sharpe. But being her came with a lot of baggage. No… beingmecame with a lot of baggage. The name came with my uncle, my father…
“I want to change my name, regardless,” I said abruptly. “And I don’t want to talk about having kids or any of that. There are plenty of kids out there who need a home, a good one, and to be parents like Liam’s were. Or parents like Vaughn’s mom or Kellan’s mother.”
I looked at Freddie, then Jasper, and finally at Rome, Liam, and Milo before I looked at Mickey.
“Little Bit, I don’t think anyone is focusing on getting you pregnant right now.”
“But practice is fun,” Jasper admitted. Instead of growling, Milo threw a pillow at Jasper and hit him upside the head.
“Talk about that shit when I’m not around,” Milo ordered, and Jasper grinned.
“Nope.” He flung the pillow back, and I hid a smile.
“Children,” Kellan said in an impatient tone.
“He started it,” Jasper muttered, and Liam actually chuckled. The laughter rippled around the room, crackling through the tension, and one by one, they seemed to relax.
“Look,” Kellan said as he stood. “We’re all getting agitated because we know Sharpe is out there. But if we startreacting, we will be playing into his hands. We’ve taken steps, and we got Moira out for Sparrow. Now we have Sharpe’s brother.”
Divorcing myself from the idea of Moira and Reginald as my parents, and Uncle Fuckbucket as family, was hard. I still loved Moira…she was still torn up about it all, and at the same time…
“I just want him gone,” I said softly. “I don’t want him to touch you guys again, or me, or anything in my life.”
“He isnevertouching you again,” Milo said with a kind of steel that demanded I listen.
“No,” Liam said. “We’ll cut his hands off.”
