by Elle Kennedy
Allie nods. “I was talking to Seraphina, and she helped me understand something important. My whole life, I’ve planned for everything. I like doing things in steps. It keeps me focused and, I don’t know, I guess it helps me not get overwhelmed each time I’m faced with some major change.” She shakes her head, more at herself than me. “But I’m not in this relationship alone. You’re here too, and my steps aren’t always going to align with your steps. We can’t always do everything my way.”
I walk over and sink down beside her. “No, I was an ass earlier when I said it was all about you. You were right. It’s always been fifty-fifty with us.”
“Yeah, but sometimes it shouldn’t be. Sometimes one of us needs to give a hundred percent to the other.” She reaches for my hand and twines her fingers through mine. “I love you, Dean. I’m one hundred percent yours. And until we have that wedding—which I know Summer and your mom will turn into a gigantic, extravagant production—every time we meet somebody new, I want to introduce you and be able to say, this is the man I’m going to marry.”
My heart is beating a little faster now.
“I want to marry you one day. And until that day, I want to be engaged to you.” Her throat dips as she gulps nervously. “So. With that said. Will you, Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis, be my fiancé?”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to fight the rush of emotion that tightens my throat. I swallow a couple of times, then I bring my free hand to her mouth and rub the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip.
“Of course I will.” My voice is so hoarse, I clear my throat before continuing. “If you’ll have me.”
“Always,” Allie says, leaning into my touch. “I’ll always have you.”
Then she throws her arms around my neck, and I bury my face in her hair, breathing in strawberry and roses. When I lift my head, her lips find mine in a kiss that goes from sweet to dirty in two seconds flat. The feel of her tongue slicking over mine sends a jolt of heat to my groin.
Breathless, I pull back and say, “Fuck. I wish I had the ring on me. But it’s at home.”
Curiosity fills her eyes. “Is it big?” she demands.
“Huge.”
“How huge?”
“Massive. Even your dad was impressed.”
“You showed your dick to her father?”
Allie and I startle when Garrett comes stumbling into the room, a sweatpants-clad Logan flying in after him.
“What the hell?” I snap at them. “You guys were eavesdropping?”
Garrett’s defense is, “You’re in my room!”
“And I’m just nosy,” Logan pipes up. He shoots me a pleased smile. “Good call bringing up the dick at the end. I told you, every proposal needs a dash of sexy.”
“We weren’t talking about my dick,” I growl. “We were talking about the ring!”
“Oh.” He blinks. Then glances at Allie. “That thing’s ginormous. It’ll break your finger.”
Allie swivels her gaze back to me, beaming brightly. “You know me too well.”
I wake up the next morning with Allie curled up beside me in our bed. One slender arm flung over my bare chest, her fingers curled over my hip. When I peer down, I’m nearly blinded by the diamond on her finger. I swear, the second she saw that rock when I pulled it out last night, she got so turned on, she had me naked in a heartbeat, my dick stuffed in her mouth.
Now, I softly skim my fingertips along the curve of her naked back and smile up at the ceiling. We’re engaged, baby. Other men might be freaking out a little, but I’m pumped. This blinding ring on Allie’s finger is like a billboard announcing to everyone we know and everyone we’re gonna know, that this woman is mine. She owns my heart.
The nightstand vibrates. I’m not ready to check my phone yet, because I anticipate a barrage of texts and missed calls. It was too late to make calls when we got home from Jersey last night, but we did text Allie’s dad and my entire family to share the news. Then we ignored five FaceTime attempts from my sister and mother, and screwed each other’s brains out instead. Right before we fell asleep, we got a text from Joe Hayes. A simple thumbs-up. I love that man.
But as my phone vibrates again, I realize it’s not a normal phone call. It’s doing that buzzing tone it does when the concierge is calling.
I quickly reach for it. “Hello?” I say drowsily.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Di Laurentis, but there’s a courier down here with a delivery for Ms. Hayes. Can I send her up?”
Since our building security is tighter than Fort Knox, I know it’s not some bullshit request, so I say, “Yes, no problem. Thank you.”
I hang up and attempt to disentangle myself from Allie’s possessive grip. She doesn’t budge. “Baby doll, you need to move your arm,” I tell her, sliding my hand down to lightly pinch her hip.
She murmurs something unintelligible.
“Gotta answer the door. We have a delivery.”
Sleepily, Allie rolls over, flashing me her bare ass. Ugh. It takes all my willpower not to rub my suddenly hardening cock over that sweet crease. Stifling a groan, I force myself out of bed and swipe my boxers off the floor. I shove them up my hips then make my way to the front door, scratching my chest and yawning.
“Delivery for Allie Hayes?” a short girl with pink hair and a nose ring says when I open the door.
“That’s my fiancée.” Yup, never gonna get sick of hearing that. “Does it need a signature?”
“Nope. It’s all yours.”
The next thing I know, she’s shoving a medium-sized box in my hands and heading back to the elevators. I study the label, raising a brow when I discover the sender is Grace Ivers. Clearly Logan wasted no time spilling the big engagement news to his girlfriend.
“Who’s it from?” Allie’s sitting up when I enter the bedroom, her hair rumpled. She rubs the sleep from her eyes.
“Grace and Logan,” I tell her.
“That was fast.”
“Right?”
I set the box on the mattress, peel off a corner of packing tape, then rip the entire strip.
“I can’t wait to show this off at the wrap party tonight,” Allie gushes, admiring her ring as I open the box.
I find a folded piece of paper lying beneath the cardboard flaps. The message inside is short and to the point.
Congratulations on the engagement! The three of us are so happy for you!
“The three of them?” Allie’s reading the note over my shoulder, her eager hands now reaching into the box.
A sick feeling creeps up my throat. I have a horrible suspicion I know exactly what—
“No!” she moans when the porcelain doll emerges from the box. “Oh my God, Dean, he’s on our bed! We have to burn the sheets now!”
I glower at Alexander’s red cheeks and vacant eyes. “Motherfucker,” I growl. “You realize Logan would’ve had to ask Grace to overnight this? This is literal betrayal.”
“Next-level betrayal.”
We both stare at the doll, neither of us wanting to pick him up and move him. I know I’m the one who opened this grotesque Pandora’s Box when I bought Alexander for Jamie, but how many times do I have to apologize? Why do these sociopaths keep sending him back?
I grit my teeth. “I can’t fucking believe Logan would do this to us. And after we complimented his dick?”
My fiancée sighs. “We?”
“Oh, like you weren’t impressed too,” is my accusatory reply.
“Fine, I was,” Allie relents. She offers a shrug. “Mrs. Logan is a lucky woman.”
I nod in agreement. “A very lucky—” I stop abruptly. “Wait. What?”
Part III
The Honeymoon
22
Tucker
The Day Before
Nothing humbles a man like fatherhood. I used to walk the cobblestone paths of Briar University in my hockey jacket while starry-eyed chicks threw themselves at me. Now, I’m walking through our Boston suburb at the begi
nning of June with a miniature person in pink bedazzled ruffles leading me by the hand. Then again, I could be the dinosaur’s dad. All over this indoor playground, the costumed characters that have inhabited our kids like demon possessors fight mythical battles and create complex societies in their secret language that both perplexes and alarms.
The other dads and I are huddled in our corner, watching the children play. Most of the men are in their thirties, which makes me the youngest dad of the bunch. When they found out I had Jamie at twenty-two, half were impressed and the other half asked what I had against condoms. I get it, though. Raising a kid is exhausting.
“Christopher’s six weeks into his dinosaur phase,” Danny, the dinosaur’s father, says when someone finally asks about the stage-worthy outfit. “First he stopped using utensils. Now he eats with his mouth straight off the plate because ‘dinosaurs don’t use hands.’” He punctuates with air quotes and exasperation. “His mom has all the patience in the world, but I’m gonna draw the line at serving my three-year-old raw meat on the floor.”
The rest of us burst out laughing.
Considering the alternative, Jamie’s princess phase is light work. Gluing rhinestones back on every night after she’s spent all day wreaking havoc in that dress is not the worst daddy detail I could get.
When Jamie saunters over a couple of hours later, eyes heavy and wavy auburn hair falling out of her ponytail, I notice she’s short a few accessories.
“What happened to your tiara and jewelry, little darlin’?” I scoop her up because she’s liable to fall asleep on her tiny feet. “You lose them in the rope tunnel?”
“I gave them away,” she answers, resting her cheek against my shoulder.
“Now why would you do that?”
“Because Lilli and Maria wanted to be princesses too, but they didn’t have any princess stuff so I gave them princess stuff.”
“Aw man,” Danny says to Mark. “How come he gets the sweet princess, and I get the kid who tries to eat the dog?”
“Are you sure you don’t mind parting with your things?” I ask Jamie.
“Nope! There should be more princesses.” Then she snuggles closer, and I almost melt into a goddamn puddle.
She’s such a sweet kid. I hate having to say goodbye to her tomorrow. I’m going to miss the heck out of her, but this honeymoon is long overdue. It’s been a month since the wedding. A whole damn month. But now that Sabrina’s officially graduated from law school, I can finally pry her away for some adult alone time.
My plan is to spend the next ten days making my wife come six ways to Sunday.
“See you in a couple weeks, fellas,” I tell the other dads, before picking up Jamie’s pink sequined bag and carting my sleepy daughter out of the building.
When we get home fifteen minutes later, my mom’s car is parked in front of the bar. Doesn’t matter how many times I see that sign—Tucker’s Bar—I still get this surreal feeling washing over me. I opened this place right after Jamie was born, and in nearly three years I’d already turned a profit and opened a second location near Fenway. What I hadn’t gotten around to doing yet is moving my little family out of the upstairs apartment. I mean, there isn’t anything wrong with living on top of a bar, and sure, our loft space has plenty of room for the three of us. But I want Jamie to have a yard. I want Sabrina to have a proper office. Maybe one for me too.
Now that Sabrina’s done with school, it might be time to do some house hunting. I make a mental note of it as I carry Jamie upstairs via the narrow staircase at the side of the brick building. I hear Mom and Sabrina in the kitchen when we step through the front door.
“We’re back,” I call. I put Jamie down, and she groggily waddles toward the sound of her mother’s voice.
“She usually wakes up between seven and eight,” Sabrina is telling my mom, standing at the kitchen island. “She’ll tell you what she wants for breakfast. She’s got cereal and oatmeal in the pantry. Some yogurts in the fridge. I precut fruit for the next couple days, or you can slice some bananas on top. She’ll tell you she wants toast or a muffin, which she can have, but she’ll only take a couple bites and then demand the yogurt, so you may as well have it ready.”
Sabrina hardly notices me. On autopilot, she lifts Jamie in a seat to make her a snack before her afternoon nap.
“We’ll get along fine,” Mom assures her with only a little annoyance. Sabrina can get kind of high-strung about this stuff.
The closer we’ve gotten to our trip, the more intense Sabrina has become about planning for Jamie’s routine. Our house in plastered with sticky notes reminding Mom where stuff is and when Jamie’s bedtime is and whatnot. It’s a lot. Thankfully, my mother is taking it in stride.
“This isn’t our first rodeo. Right, kiddo?” My mother ruffles Jamie’s dark red hair and gazes down adoringly at her granddaughter. Mom loves this kid as much as we do. Maybe even more. I mean, hell, she relocated from Texas to Boston to be near us, this woman who hates the winter. Like, loathes it.
“Where’s all her stuff?” Sabrina asks me after noticing Jamie’s accessories are gone.
“She wanted to share with her friends. Mom can take her shopping for more.”
Her frown tells me she isn’t satisfied with that answer, but the kid’s falling asleep in her fruit and veggie plate, so Sabrina picks her up, and I follow them down the hall toward Jamie’s room.
“I don’t think Gail’s heard a word I’ve said all morning,” Sabrina whispers, tucking Jamie into bed.
I fight a smile. “They’ll be fine, darlin’. They always have fun together.”
“For one night. But ten days is a long time. This was a bad idea.” Sabrina bites her lower lip. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I know what I was thinking. I was thinking we’ve been married for a month, and I haven’t been able to properly fuck my wife because little ears hear everything that goes on in this apartment. And Sabrina won’t let me lock our bedroom door because she has nightmares about Jamie trying to run in to warn us the house is on fire and not being able to. Like she’s a golden retriever. I’ve been good at not voicing my frustrations, though, because I know how difficult the months leading to graduation have been for Sabrina, especially when she had to juggle law school with motherhood. She works so hard to be superwoman, it feels wrong dumping my shit on her too.
“Come here.” Outside Jamie’s room, I pull her into my arms and sweep her dark hair away from her face.
I stand there, momentarily mesmerized by her bottomless dark eyes.
“What?” she asks, smiling at me.
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “You’re beautiful, you know that? We hardly get five minutes to ourselves these days. I think I keep forgetting how gorgeous you are.”
Sabrina rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”
“Seriously. Fucking gorgeous. And this isn’t a bad idea. You need this trip, darlin’. You’ve barely had a single day off in years. Same goes for me.” I shrug. “We need this.”
“Do we?” She’s still stressing.
“Absolutely we do. Sun and sand and sleeping in as late as we want,” I remind her.
It sounds like heaven saying it out loud. Ten days in St. Barth’s at Dean’s family vacation home. The plane tickets courtesy of Mom’s wedding present. It’s going to be the perfect cocktail for rest, relaxation, and generally screwing Sabrina’s brains out because having a tiny human running around this place has been a nonstop cockblock. Like, I love the kid, but Mommy and Daddy need to do dirty things to each other.
“Trust me,” I assure her. “It’ll be magical.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I don’t know. It’s been a while. You might not want to overpromise.”
“Ha. If anything, I’m under-promising.” I take her around the waist and bend down to kiss her.
Sabrina kisses me back, then pulls away and draws a breath. She closes her eyes. Exhales. “You’re right. We deserve a getaway. This’ll be good.”
&nb
sp; It’s become a mantra. Convincing herself to take some time away, that her world won’t collapse if she does. While planning this trip, she’s careened from excitement to dread at least six times a day. If I can get her out the front door, I’ll consider it a win.
23
Sabrina
Day 1
Tucker started plying me with wine at the airport bar. In the air, he doesn’t let a flight attendant walk by without asking for another glass of champagne to shove in my hand. Not that I’m complaining. I admit leaving Jamie was more difficult than I imagined, but he’s right: she’s in good hands with Gail. And if anything goes wrong, it’s a short flight home. We’ll survive.
“I saw you staring at her shoes, Harold.”
“I swear to God, Marcia, I have never noticed a woman’s shoes.”
“Don’t patronize me. I know what you’re into, you pervert.”
The middle-aged couple in front of us in first class, however, might not last the flight.
“I’m Team Marcia,” Tucker leans in to whisper at my ear. “He’s up to some shady foot stuff.”
“No way. This is her kink, not his. She likes to start public fights with him to keep the spark alive.”
They’ve been at it since they sat down. Arguing about sugar packets and the in-flight entertainment system. Marcia scolding Harold for asking for a gin and tonic. Harold making loud, animated gagging sounds at her overwhelming perfume that he swears she bought just to aggravate his allergies and kill him.
I’m so glad Tuck and I don’t fight like that. Hell, we don’t fight at all, although my friends have differing opinions on that. Carin thinks it’s a good thing, that it means our relationship is a cut above the rest. Hope, meanwhile, insists it’s not normal for couples not to fight. But, really, what can I do about it? Tucker is the most chill man on the planet. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him lose his temper.