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Reagan looks a little less thrilled by the new addition to our family. Her lips are pursed up and she’s looking at Leo with narrowed eyes.
“Rae, sweetheart, something the matter?”
She looks from Leo to Ruslan. “This baby isyourbaby. Yours and Aunt Emma’s.”
Ruslan gives me a fleeting glance. “That’s right.”
“Does that mean you love him more than me and Caro and Joshie?”
I suppress a laugh.She’s gonna be a ballbuster when she’s older, I have no doubt.
Ruslan just smiles calmly. “I can tell you right now: I loveallmy children equally. All four of them. And to prove it—” He walks over to the cabinet in the corner of the room where he’s stored his overnight bag. “—I have this to give to you guys.”
I frown.What is he giving them?
It turns out to be a stack of papers. He hands them to Josh. Josh’s eyes go huge when he reads the front page. He looks up at Ruslan as if in slow motion. “Y-you’re serious?”
“What?” Caroline demands, pulling on Josh’s sleeve while Reagan pulls on the other one. “What does it say?”
“These are… adoption papers,” Josh whispers in an awed voice.
I draw in a breath. It’s not a complete shock to me. Ruslan and I have discussed adopting all three kids. For us, it didn’t really matter. Josh, Reagan, and Caroline were ours no matter what. But this… this feels right.
“Adoption?” Caroline repeats.
“What’s that?” Reagan asks, entirely unimpressed.
“It means that legally, I will be your father,” Ruslan explains. “Which also means you get to take my last name—if you want it.” When there’s silence, he adds, “The choice is yours, of course, but—”
“Ofcoursewe want to!” Josh says, speaking for all three of them. “We want you to adopt us!”
“Yeah, yeah! We do.” Reagan jumps head-first on the bandwagon, even though she didn’t know what adoption was up until a few seconds ago.
“So we’llallbe Oryolovs then?” Caroline asks. She’s only just learned how to pronounce the name correctly.
Technically, I won’t be, but I’m not gonna be a party pooper and point that out. This is their moment. No point in ruining it, right?
Ruslan smiles cryptically. “Actually… it would be unfair of us to leave Aunt Emma out of the equation, wouldn’t it?” He reaches into his pants pocket and just like that, I feel as though all the breath has rushed out of my body.
What’shappening?
He pulls out a little black box and cracks the lid. Inside sits the most beautiful pear-shaped diamond I have ever seen.
“Ruslan!” I gasp, looking up at him. “Are you serious?”
He nods. “I want you to be my wife, Emma Carson. I want you to carry my name. I want to raise our children together forever. Will you marry me?”
I’d never imagined a proposal like this—literally surrounded by our kids. But I guess some things are just too damn amazing to imagine in the first place.
A happy tear slides down my cheek as I nod. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
Ruslan slips the ring onto my finger as Josh and the girls clap and shout and hug us clumsily. The baby boy in my arms gurgles impatiently, probably annoyed at all the commotion we’re making.
“You are so lucky, little Leo,” I whisper to him while the kids are hanging off Ruslan and screeching with joy. “To have such wonderful siblings. To have such a great father.”
As it turns out, you don’t have to be married to be true life partners.
But it certainly doesn’t hurt.
