When we arrive at the mansion, everyone is waiting for us. After congratulating us, we ask them to take a seat and explain what happened with Parrish and what we decided to do with the letters.
Hayes glances at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Earlier, when he arrived in town, he came to the practice to give us our letters too,” he says.
“Did you open them?”
He shakes his head. “No. Blaire and I were wondering if we should wait for everyone to get theirs.”
Blaire turns to Sophia and suggests, “You should open yours. We can save the rest.”
“Why hers?” Pierce protests.
“Because he doesn’t know me,” Sophia answers and Blaire nods. “He sent me a generic letter.”
Sophia pulls her letter out of her purse, shows it to everyone, and taps on the three words written on the envelope, To Henry’s Wife.
“It’s not fair for me to open this if Beacon doesn't have his yet,” I state, and Hayes agrees.
“Why do you think I’ll receive mine last?” Beac protests.
“You’re the baby, and maybe he’ll deliver yours at the end. The point is that one of us won’t receive it until…who knows when, and we should wait,” Hayes is the one who answers. “I agree with Henry. Let’s vote.”
It doesn’t surprise me that everyone agrees to wait until we all have our letters. Once it’s settled, Sophia takes a deep breath before opening it. Carefully, she breaks the seal on the front, pulls the paper out of the envelope, and unfolds it. She scans it before she smiles.
“What is it?” Blaire asks.
She hands it to me and when I read it out loud, I think everyone is as stunned as I am.
Henry’s wife,
I was William Aldridge, Henry’s father. He probably doesn’t have anything good to say about me. I don’t blame him. This might sound out of place, but I have two requests of you:
1) Show him that you love him. I missed my chance to do so, but I did love him. He was my first. His mother used him as a pawn, and I let my pride take over instead of my heart.
2) Help him be a better man than I ever was.
3) Remind him every day that he has a family who loves him.
Yours,
William T. Aldridge
“He loved me?”
“He made a lot of mistakes,” Sophia says, taking the letter from me and putting it back into the envelope. “You just witnessed what a man like your grandfather could do with their children. I bet your parents loved you. They just didn’t know how to love you freely.”
Leave it to Sophia to find a way to absolve my parents ,and I believe she’s right. Not because it might be the truth, but because it is what my heart needs today.
“I love you, Sophia Aragon. Marry me tomorrow?”
She laughs. “I’m good at organizing stuff, but not that great. Let me talk to Mom before I make any decisions about the dates, okay?”
“Anything for you, Babe!”
Epilogue
Henry
Sophia is great at organizing parties, including weddings. Not ours, but Hayes and Blaire’s. It’s a small ceremony at the house. Her brothers, her parents, and some close friends of both join the celebration. His mother excuses herself, claiming that in such short notice she can’t attend, but maybe she’ll do it when the baby is born.
I feel for Hayes. I wouldn’t want to be in a place where my mother couldn’t stand my wife.
My wife…well, our nuptials are something entirely different. Sophie wants a destination wedding, but since I wanted her to be Mrs. Aldridge right away, we compromised with a small wedding at the townhall with our family. Once we’re allowed to travel, we’ll get married wherever her heart desires.
Today we’re gathered at Leyla’s vet practice’s grand opening. For a man who doesn’t give two shits about his wife, Pierce went all out for her. He bought the lot. In case we fuck up, Leyla doesn’t lose her practice. The place is the size of a clinic, and she can attend to small and big animals. She also has kennels to shelter animals.
“Pup,” Arden points at a cute little dog coming into the store. “I want pup.”
“I want a baby, buddy, and you don’t see that happening either,” I tell him.
Sophia glances at me and smiles. “Really, you’re having a conversation with Arden about puppies and babies?”
“Just a few weeks ago you had me working really hard to accomplish it and so far, I don’t see anything happening,” I state, and she laughs.
“Poor thing, I tortured you for an entire week,” she says mockingly.
We decided to start a family right away. Our relationship isn’t new. We’ve been almost living together for three years—in my office, not in a house. But back when we started, we used to focus more on work than on life. These days we concentrate on our family and us—not in that order.
Though Blaire told us that it wouldn’t be easy since Sophia just stopped taking the pill, we could try a little harder the weeks she’s ovulating to increase our chances.
“You should make it up to me when we get to the office,” I suggest. “It could be an incentive in case I have to try harder next month.”
She rolls her eyes and bites her bottom lip to hide her smile.
We’re living in the mansion, but kept Sophia’s house where we have the office, guest rooms, and well…we still have our special room. Some Sundays we spend the entire day in there having sex, eating in bed, and just lounging. I understand Beacon’s need for space. Our family is important, but somedays you just want to be alone. In our case, with each other.
“Hey, let’s go. I want you to meet someone, Arden,” Sophia says, taking the toddler into her arms.
“Who?” I ask following behind.
“Emmalee,” she explains, trying to walk through the sea of people who came to support Leyla by bringing their pets on opening day. “Easton’s sister. I think she’d be great to help us with Arden now that Leyla is also working.”
“Just an idea here, shouldn’t Mills be meeting her first?”
She gives me one of those sideways glances that says, obviously, your idea is shitty.
Thankfully we’re stopped by Blaire who says, “Everything is here!”
“Are you sure?” Sophia asks, forgetting about the whole babysitter thing.
“We just tried the machine. As I said, I can’t promise you anything, but we can try,” she tells her and I’m suspicious about these two.
Ever since the Martina incident, I’m question their intentions about almost everything. What if the next time instead of taking over a company she decides to take over a country?
I still feel strange about owning Edelstein Electronics. Finding the right person to run it wasn’t hard. Yet, there are a lot of issues we’ve been ironing out.
“If you’re planning on taking over some new venture, I forbid it,” I say. Both women glare at me.
Sophia gives Arden to Vance because we can’t bring him with us, and we make our way to the clinic. Blaire takes us to the second story and to the last room.
Hayes is there staring at a grainy picture that I assume is his child. “Baby’s first pic?” I joke.
He smiles like an idiot in love. “Meet your nephew,” he states.
“Godson,” I correct him and give him a hug. “Congrats, man.”
When Blaire enters, she starts turning on a machine monitors, and changing the paper sheet on top of the examining table.
“It’s too early, if she’s even pregnant,” Hayes says.
“If she is, we can see the sack,” Blaire retorts. “But she’s actually peeing in a cup since we got the pregnancy tests along with the machine.”
Suddenly, I realize they are talking about my woman, and I want to be with her. I turn to look at Blaire, “Where is Sophia?”
“In our private bathroom. She’s waiting for you,” she answers.
“Is it time to try?” I ask as I enter the bathroom.
She sighs looking at the already filled cup and then at a thin blue strip next to it.
“What is that?”
“My pee and a medical pregnancy test,” she answers and stares at it. “According to Blaire, they detect if there’s human chorionic gonadotropin in my urine.”
“So we dip it?” I ask taking the strip of paper and submerging it inside the full cup. I stop at the line and wait for a few seconds as the paper instructions read. “And if we’re not?”
“We keep trying,” she answers. “Remember, I have been on the pill for years so it can take a long time.”
“We wait three to five minutes?” I groan. “This could’ve been faster if we had sent Julian to Happy Springs for a test.”
“He’s on vacation,” she reminds me. “And we’re not sending people to do stuff we can do ourselves.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Blaire doesn’t even wait to ask if she can enter. She just makes her way inside.
“Let’s just use the machine,” she suggests. “We can find out faster.”
“If I’m not, it’s going to be sadder,” Sophia sighs.
“This woman just wants to play doctor, let her be. Nothing is going to appear because you can’t be too far along,” I say trying to keep both of them happy because I swear, it seems like they are both going to cry.
Maybe having two pregnant women in the house is a bad idea and I should wait for my turn. They walk to the sonogram room, Hayes leaves so Sophia can get comfortable, and Blaire gets to work. There’s a knock on the door. My brother enters with a wide smile and then looks at the monitor.
My pulse accelerates because maybe he has good news. Then again, he’s always smiling like an idiot when he sees his wife. Not that I blame him, I’m no different when Sophia is around.
“You got it on the screen?” Hayes says, coming closer to the monitor.
Blaire nods, pushing buttons on the keyboard and taking pictures she whispers, “Do you see what I see?”
I don’t want to say it yet, but I think…we are expecting a baby.
“Do you see this black dot here?” Hayes asks, pointing at the monitor with a stylus. “That’s a gestational sac. It’s too early to see more than that but…”
“We’re pregnant,” I state.
He nods looking at us expectantly as if we’re missing something else.
Sophia gasps and mumbles, “There are two black dots.”
Blaire grins, “There are!”
My heart beats fast as I listen to them speak.
“They are about two and a half millimeters each, I’m saying they are four weeks along,” Blaire concludes. “We can call them baby a and baby b.”
“Two?” I ask, staring at what they called sacs. There are two tiny dark circles. “Our babies.”
“Our babies,” Sophia repeats, tears running down her cheeks. “We’re…we’re four now.”
“I love you,” I whisper in Sophia’s ear.
I kiss away her tears, and then lean to kiss her abdomen. “I love you too, little ones.”
Blaire and Hayes leave the room and after Sophia is dressed, I take her in my arms. “When I think it can’t be possible to love you more or be happier, you manage to prove me wrong.”
“Love you just as much,” she says. “I can’t think of anyone better than you to raise these little ones.”
Some days I still can’t believe I flipped my life upside down and risked changing for her. Not because she’s not worth it, but because I never dared to see beyond what I owned and who I thought I had to be. She injected me with enough courage to believe that we could be happy. I don’t know why my father wanted me to live in this town, but today I’m thankful that he was an asshole who couldn’t leave enough alone.
Thanks to him, I found my miracle.
My miracles, I repeat inside my head holding my entire life in my arms.
Excerpt
I hope you enjoyed reading A Moment Like You, keep reading for an extended excerpt of Loved You Once (Hayes story).
Happy Reading xox
Loved You Once
Blaire
The Aldridge brothers are like a force of nature. They’re like volcanic lightning, fire tornados, bismuth crystals, nacreous clouds, or typhoons echoing through lost caverns. They’re passionate and chaotic. They carry the strength and wisdom of redwood forests and the pride and anger of minor gods. Am I giving them too much credit by painting them to be larger than life?
…Perhaps.
It’s all about perspective. Some people compare them to a nuclear meltdown.
To say they’re interesting is an understatement. The Aldridge brothers are handsome, arrogant, and sinful.
Henry, the hotel mogul, is callous.
Hayes, the doctor, is handsome, nerdy, and detached.
Pierce, the lawyer, is an unrelenting know-it-all.
Mills, the hockey player, is reckless.
Vance, the former Delta Force member, is impulsive.
Beacon, the heartthrob musician, is rebellious.
Make sure to add as fuck to each of them. They all have an alpha side that’s infuriating,
I haven’t heard from them since their brother, Carter, died. Until their father died two weeks ago and they came barging back into my life. Am I ready to face my past?
I don’t know. All I care about is what I’ll get at the end of this deal. This will be like walking through a rose field under a volcanic eruption. Once I cross the bridge into their world, there’s no going back.
Hayes
“I didn’t think I’d catch you tonight,” Mom says when I answer the phone. “Are you still working at the hospital? Maybe you should quit and just focus on your practice.”
Obviously, distance doesn’t matter. A mother’s nagging is just one phone call away. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to fight the pounding headache that this conversation creates. We don’t speak often so I let it go and just listen. It’s nothing a pair of painkillers won’t fix once I hang up with Mom, but as she keeps talking, the pounding grows louder. I fight back a groan.
Today has been a long day. I’m tired after the back to back surgeries and almost half asleep. The accident on Highway 5 this morning brought in multiple patients who needed bones reset, consultations, and a couple of amputations. Fuck, I thought being an orthopedic surgeon would be easy, but when things like that happen, it makes me rethink my career.
“I spoke with Hilda Jennings,” Mom says on the other side of the phone.
Walking to the kitchen, I grab a tumbler glass and head to my home office where I have my whiskey. I pour two fingers and take a gulp. I remind myself that there’s an ocean between us, and she’s trying her best to be a part of my life in her own way.
“Sorry, I was working at the hospital, and I had to stay longer than I thought,” I apologize, before she lectures me that I canceled my date a couple of days ago.
“Well, her daughter is waiting to hear from you to reschedule,” she says. “She’s a fashion designer, beautiful and smart, too. You two have a lot in common.”
What can I possibly have in common with a fashion designer? I think the comic book author she introduced me to last year was more my speed, and yet, we didn’t connect.
“I’m sure she’s a nice young lady that comes from a great family,” I say in a high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like her, but I try my best.
I hold the laugh when she grunts, “You’re not funny, Hayes.”
“You love me, Mom.”
“Well, I really think she is who you need in your life,” she insists.
Obviously, she doesn’t understand who and what I need, or she’d be leaving this alone—me alone.
“Mom, just let me be,” I request for the millionth time.
“I just don’t understand you. There’s nothing wrong with the women I set you up with. Is there?”
“I’ve never complained about them, have I?” I reply with a question of my own, hoping she’ll get tired.
“Which one was that one?” I swear I don’t keep track of them.
They all looked about the same: light hair, slender, beautiful on the outside, but I’m not interested in getting to know them.
“Hayes, I’m doing this because I love you. Every woman I set you up with has a career, a bright future, and is lovely. Why not take a leap and try to find your happiness?”
“Sounds like you screen them well before giving me their contact information. Have you thought about coming out of retirement and starting a matchmaking company?” I try not to sound sarcastic but fail miserably. “You should stop setting me up and profit from it.”
“You’re thirty-five and still single.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being single, Mom,” I insist, pouring myself another two fingers of whiskey.
If this conversation continues the way it always does, I’m going to be drunk soon and nursing a hangover for the rest of the weekend. I’m glad my next shift at the hospital isn’t until Sunday afternoon.
I admit, the social piece of my life is a little pathetic. But dating some socialite from San Francisco won’t fix it—it might make everything worse.
“You’re alone,” she says with a sad voice.
“Oh, Mom.”
What else can I say?
I understand she wants me to be happy, but she has to stop emailing me numbers, descriptions, and pictures of all her friends’ single daughters, insisting I take them out for dinner and get to know them.
Humoring her isn’t hard; I take them out for dinner, but nothing goes beyond a second date. Don’t get me wrong, the women she’s introduced me to are beautiful, but they’re all hoping to be the one who’ll get a ring. I’m not in the market to settle down—ever.
Several times I’ve been close to reminding her that settling down and being part of a couple isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I don’t want to bring up memories of our past. Her first marriage—to my father—was a joke. A complete and utter fucking joke. They divorced when I was only seven.
A Moment Like You (The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers Book 2) Page 24