by Crespo, Nina
In the kitchen, Betsy kept staring up at him adoringly as she yapped and fidgeted around him. Who could blame her? He looked wonderful.
Rome checked out the new back door. “Did you put it up yourself?”
“No. It was a two-person job.” And you weren’t here.
He glanced over at her as if reading her mind. “It looks good.” His gaze drifted over her. “Really good.”
Natalie’s skin heated from the inside out. Did he mean her, or was he really talking about the door? “Have a seat. I’ll bring everything out there.”
“Need help?”
“No, I don’t think she’s going to let you do anything but pay attention to her.” Betsy had already gone outside and retrieved her all-time favorite toy and laid it at his feet.
Rome picked up the blue ball he’d given Betsy. “She still has this, huh?”
“Never lets it out of her sight.”
Rome tossed the ball up and caught it. “Then I guess I should play with her for a few minutes before we sit down.”
“She’d like that.”
While he was outside with Betsy, Natalie prepared their salads and managed not to cut herself with the knife when she chopped the chicken, despite her trembling hands. What had he come to tell her? Was this some sort of final goodbye?
Once she’d brought out the salads, rolls, and lemonade, she called him to the table.
Rome took a minute to wash his hands, then came back and sat next to her at the picnic table.
Betsy, now content and slightly worn out, sat near his feet.
Minutes of companionable silence passed as he ate heartily, but she only nibbled at her food as anxiety tied her stomach in knots.
Rome paused mid-bite. “You’re not hungry?”
“I am. I was, but you said you came by to talk, and…”
“I’m not talking. Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic smile as he set down his fork. “We were doing survival training in the woods. I just got back yesterday. I haven’t had a real sit-down meal in a while.”
“So, is that what you’re doing now? Wilderness survival training?” Natalie sipped lemonade.
“No. Passing survival training was a requirement for me to get the position with Frain Security. It was more of an exercise to see how the other potential recruits and I handled ourselves in survival mode. The positions they have open are for instructors in crisis and survival training, mainly for company employees and executives.”
“When do you start?”
“I didn’t say I got the job.”
“I know you did.”
From the way he looked at her, déjà vu had kicked in for him, too, taking them back to when she’d been in California, working to impress the execs at Gull Beach Boots.
Suddenly, Rome slid away from her, swung his leg over, and straddled the bench. “Will you please come here so I can kiss you?”
“What took you so long?” She scooted toward him and practically jumped into his arms. As soon as his lips touched hers, desire went through her in a rush. He was really there. Holding her. Kissing her.
Rome broke from the kiss. As he released a long breath, he laid his forehead to hers and tightened his arms around her waist. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Excuse me?” She angled herself away from him and laid her palms on his hard chest. He not only looked more solid, he felt like it, too.
“I knew that as soon as I kissed you talking would become a problem. But not talking to each other is what got us in trouble.” He leaned away and looked into her eyes. “I got your letters.”
She’d opened her entire world to him, and now the moment of truth had come. “And?”
Rome kissed her forehead. “Your ex-husband is a dick. As far as your parents dying, I really wish you would have told me. You know your aunt was wrong for telling you that it wasn’t okay to be sad or let people know that you’re hurting?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“No.” He tipped her chin up. “Not ‘you guess so’. It was wrong. From what you mentioned in your letters, it sounds like she was taking out her anger at your mother on you. Do you even talk to her now?”
“No. I used to send her Christmas cards, but I stopped when she didn’t respond.” Natalie appreciated that he’d read those two letters, but, right now, they weren’t the most important ones. “And my first letter? The one with my apology? Can you forgive me?”
“No.” Rome kissed her hand. “Not for everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Natalie went to move out of his arms. “Then why are we talking?”
Rome held on to her. “Let me finish. I can’t forgive you for everything that happened with us, because I’m partially to blame. I should have been honest with you.”
In the early days of training, thinking about Natalie had become his main distraction from his aching body as he’d worked to make his leg, as well as his entire body, stronger. He’d come to realize a lot about his part in their breakup.
He tightened his arms around her. “I never wanted just a hookup with you from day one, but I thought if I asked for too much, you’d leave. As far as the photos, how could I have expected you to choose me, definitively, over your work, when you believed I was just a temporary option? I understand, now, why you hesitated to set things straight with the photos when it first happened.”
“But like I wrote in the letter, I should have trusted my feelings for you. If I had, the choice would have been crystal clear. You. But I still hate that I raked up something that was painful for you.” Natalie’s gaze dropped to where she traced the scar on his forearm.
Tingles of awareness spread as she touched him, making it difficult not to think about feeling her warm skin against his in bed. “About that.” He relayed to her what Xander had told him about Costa Rica. He’d even gotten a hold of the report, confirming it was true.
“So it wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s not so much about fault for me.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “People were hurt. Two people died. There’s no excuse for that, but I used what happened as an excuse to retreat behind the bar at Club Escapade, instead of doing what I was meant to do.”
“Protect people?”
“Yes, and in terms of what I’m going to be doing now, helping people understand how to protect themselves. I have you to thank for opening my eyes to that. Helping you led to me assisting Xander with security at the club, and that eventually woke me up to the truth…and the importance of being truthful with you.”
He laid his mouth over hers, hungry for the taste of her kisses. He needed to feel himself inside of her more than anything, but first, she needed to know she meant everything to him.
Rome forced himself away from her lips and cupped her face. “I don’t want us to figure out what we have as we go along. I want us on the same path in a committed relationship. I want us to stop switching between my condo and this house and find our own place. I don’t want temporary with you, Natalie. I want forever. I know we both still have some things to work on in our relationship, but once we’re in a good place, I want us to make what we have permanent. You, me, Betsy, and someday, a couple of kids. What do you think?”
Happiness flooded into her face. “I think it’s perfect.” Smiling, she kissed him.
Later on that night, in bed, as he glided in and out of her heat, he ached from the torturously slow pace he’d set and her pussy squeezing around his cock. But watching her absorbed in pleasure, the pleasure that he gave her, made him want to prolong the moment.
He kissed her, exploring the softness of her mouth with his tongue and devouring her moans and gasps. He eased away to see her face. Natalie stared into his eyes, not looking away. She was all there. With him. For him.
Rome paused, savoring the moment. “I love you, Natalie.”
Natalie laid her palm to his cheek. “I love you, too.”
Epilogue
One year later
&
nbsp; Take the cold and flu medicine or use the pregnancy test? Natalie stared at the two boxes in front of her on the guest bathroom counter. That morning, during a meeting at work, the scent of coffee wafting from the cups around the table had almost made her toss the dry toast she’d eaten that morning. She’d assumed it was a virus—a likely possibility, considering almost everyone was sick in her office. But on the way home, in the midst of picking up a few items she and Rome needed, another realization had dawned. She was late.
“Baby.” Rome knocked on the closed door.
Natalie whirled around, shielding the boxes from view just in case he decided to peek in. He didn’t. “Yeah?”
“I’m making a run down the street. You forgot dish soap and food for Betsy.”
“Sorry.” After she picked up the box with two pregnancy tests—an extra one, just in case she somehow messed it up—she’d rushed straight to the ten-items-or-less checkout line.
“Do we need anything else while I’m out?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Love you.”
She adored hearing those two simple words from him. It still made her heart swell with happiness. “Love you, too.”
His footfalls faded.
Natalie picked up the pregnancy test. She and Rome both wanted children. They’d talked about it several times. But she was getting ahead of herself. First the test. Sure, it was most accurate in the morning, but she couldn’t wait. What if she was?
She ripped the box open, took out one of the two sticks, and used it.
Ten minutes later, the word “no” revealed itself in the small digital window.
I’m not pregnant. A hint of disappointment crept into her as the vision of a brown baby girl with Rome’s eyes faded away. When she was stressed out, her cycle did become irregular.
Natalie smoothed her blue dress, stuffed the negative test and open packaging into the plastic shopping bag, and put it in the trash next to the counter. She picked up the box with the second unused test, planning to store it in the master bathroom. If she had been pregnant, what would Rome have said? She opened the door.
A form stood in front of her.
On a reflex, she threw the box before registering it was Rome.
She pressed her hand over her heart, which was practically beating out of her chest. “You scared the cra—”
In one swift movement, he grabbed her and pressed his lips to hers. Sweetness and passion flavored a kiss that had her rising up on her toes for more. He broke from her lips. “Is it really happening?”
“Is what really happening?”
As he smiled, intensity and love shone in his eyes. “Are you pregnant? I was driving your car. The receipt from the store was in the passenger seat. So, are you?”
“No. Well, at least the test I took says I’m not.”
Rome picked up the box with the unused test and laid it on the counter, then he took her in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Natalie laid her hands on his chest and smoothed his gray T-shirt. “If the test had said yes, would you have been happy about becoming a dad now?”
“Yes. What about you? Would you have been happy about becoming a mom?
Pregnancy and children would have meant big changes in her life, but… “Yes.”
“The way you threw that box at me, I thought you were pissed.”
“You scared me. It was an accident.”
“Uh-huh. That answer sounds familiar.” Humor sparked in his eyes. “Well, if you’re done throwing things at me, I have a question.”
Natalie whacked his arm. “I did not thr—”
The brilliant marquise diamond engagement ring on Rome’s pinky finger silenced her.
He slipped it off. “I’d planned on doing this over the weekend, in bed, with a chocolate martini.”
As he slowly knelt in front of her, Natalie resisted telling him not to take a knee. He was proud. He was strong, and he was all hers.
He took her left hand. “Will you marry me, Natalie?”
Her heart swelled inside of her. “Yes. Without a doubt, yes!”
After he stood, he took her in his arms.
Natalie welcomed a long, deep kiss. “So, bartender, is it possible for us to bring some of that chocolate you were planning to use this weekend into our bedroom tonight? Orgasms and chocolate definitely go together.”
Rome’s smile broadened against her mouth as he unzipped her dress. “Coming right up.”
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Acknowledgments
To my real-life hero and best friend, thank you for being my solid ground. A shout-out to my Saturday at the Pool sisters. You are still beyond fabulous! A big thank you to everyone who has invested time and effort in this book and the series, as well as love to all of the readers. I hope this book brings you joy as you turn the pages. And as always, my gratitude to Life, Breath, and Inspiration for providing the light and leading the way.
About the Author
Nina Crespo lives in Florida where she indulges in her favorite passions—the beach, kickboxing, a good glass of wine, date night with her own real-life hero, and dancing. Her lifelong addiction to romance began in her teens while on a “borrowing spree” in her older sister’s bedroom where she discovered her first romance novel. Curiosity about people and places, including what’s beyond the stars, fuels her writer’s imagination. This wellspring of inspiration allows Nina to create sensual contemporary stories and steamy paranormal tales, which she hopes will feed your own addiction for love, romance, and happily ever after.
Also by Nina Crespo
The First Rule of Hook-Ups
Take Me if You Dare
Naughty Little Wishes
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