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“We can fall asleep to turtles and anemone.” Neri laughed.
“I can have the best sleepovers. My friends are gonna be so jealous!”
Neri laughed and grabbed Ayla’s hands. Together, they danced around the platform before diving off and disappearing into the blue with the dolphins.
My heart swelled.
My fingers curled around my champagne flute.
I toasted the love of my life and the life we were building together.
*
Two years later...
*
“If I wasn’t madly in love with my husband and slightly afraid of your wife, I’d kiss you,” Teddy muttered, his eyes round, his knees visibly jerking beneath his shorts as he stepped into our new house.
Not that it could really be called a house.
“I don’t...how can we...I mean...I had no idea this was your plan all along.”
I grinned. “You did say you’d be lost if I took Neri and Ayla away from you. And to be fair, your house was getting rather cramped.”
I flinched, remembering all the moments Neri and I had almost been caught fucking in the shower or during the quickie we’d indulged in in the pool. We’d always had a taste for impromptu, rough, delicious sex, and having two adult housemates and a nosy daughter meant we were playing with fire each time we touched each other.
We needed more space.
We all do.
“Yes, but...they’re yours,” Teddy argued. “We get that. We’ll accept our new role as the annoying uncles eventually. Besides, we see each other every day at Lunamare.”
“If you’d rather stay at your place, you are more than welcome,” I rushed, only now seeing how pompous this might seem. “I merely wanted to show you that I love you both, and I’ll always be in your debt for looking after Neri and Ayla when I couldn’t.”
They thought this was a surprise? Wait until I showed them the paperwork in my back pocket. Neri and Ayla were in on it, but Teddy and Eddie didn’t have a clue.
Nerves struck me.
Perhaps they wouldn’t like that either? Maybe I’d overstepped—
“Strewth, you built a house big enough for all of us?” Eddie choked, swaying on the threshold of the sprawling living room with sunken linen couches, gas fireplaces, and Turkish décor of bright colours and lamps blended with the subtle elements of the seaside.
“Aslan...I have no words, mate.” Eddie wiped his mouth, drifting toward me, almost drunk on shock. “I-I literally have no words.”
“When you invited us for your first official night in your new home, I didn’t expect this,” Honey said, gawking at us as she and Billy appeared through the Bali-inspired front door.
They’d flown up from Sydney last night to join in our housewarming.
“This is absolutely mental.” She blinked at the U-shaped house replacing four dilapidated bungalows along the coast above Port Douglas.
We’d moved out of town, but not by much...just enough to have access to the beach, a lush tropical garden, and an infinity pool.
Neri hadn’t known I’d bought the four blocks. I’d enlisted a local building firm to knock down the bungalows and an architect from Turkey to design the stone house I’d always wanted in Izmir. Granted the stone houses in my homeland were a twentieth of this size, but...it wasn’t just one family moving in here.
“Holy shit, this is nuts.” Billy scowled at the huge skylights above us and the polished concrete floors flowing out into the garden—a garden flanked by two wings of the massive house. One wing with its four bedrooms, four bathrooms, yoga room, sauna, and spa was for me, Neri, and Ayla. The other wing with its mirror image floorplan was Teddy and Eddie’s.
Neri was the only one who didn’t say anything as our friends drifted throughout the space, running awed fingertips over black marble countertops in the kitchen and opening the many stacking doors leading to the garden. The glass conservatory with banana plants, paradise palms, and sweet-smelling fruit trees added a riot of green against the sparkle of blue from the ocean beyond.
I sucked in a breath as Neri slowly slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. “You are the most generous, most amazing man I have ever met.”
I bowed my head and kissed her. “And you are the most special woman in the world.”
“Jesus Christ!” Eddie’s shout found us before he did. He bolted into the lounge with Teddy on his heels, his mouth scrunched up with emotion. “This is real? You want us to move in with you? You’re not just pulling our leg?”
“We just saw our room. The welcome letter on the bed and the monogrammed towels.” Teddy bowled into us, wrapping his arms around Neri and me. “Are you sure? Truly sure? Last chance to say no.”
Neri chuckled. “We’re sure. In fact...” Untangling herself from one of our best friends and business partners, she gave me a look. The look. “Shall we show them the rest?”
My heart kicked, and I couldn’t tell if it was from genuine concern or past abuse. “No time like the present.”
