* * *
Two weeks later, we have a housewarming party. Everyone comes to see the new place, including Talon and Tia, bringing presents even though I told the women not to bother. Shay cooked a huge meal for everyone—my favorite of course, lasagna and chicken, but also ribs, garlic bread, and salad. She did some fancy platter as well, with cheese, salami, crackers, carrots, celery, pickles, and different dips.
“The house is beautiful,” Faye says to me, looking around animatedly.
“Why are you pretending you haven’t been here already?” I ask, lips twitching in amusement.
“Because everyone else hasn’t been here yet,” she whispers to me. “I don’t want them to feel left out.”
“Why? It’s not like we invited you, you just showed up.”
We hadn’t told anyone where the house was, we were waiting to surprise them all, so imagine our surprise when Faye rocks up at the front door. The woman has no boundaries whatsoever. She’s lucky we love her, and that she’s the president’s wife, or I wouldn’t put up with half her shit. Who am I kidding—yes, I would. The woman is worth her weight in gold, but there are times she can be frustrating as fuck.
She elbows me playfully in the ribs. “I wanted to help Shay choose the colors for the house. So yes, I followed you back to the house, what’s the big deal? If you can’t stalk your family, then who can you stalk?”
“Preferably no one.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re insane.”
“You love it.”
“I hear you want to work with the feds to bring down more bad guys,” I say to her, after Sin had a talk to me about it yesterday.
He’s not happy.
“I do,” she says, nodding. “I think it will be a good experience, and I can help bring down the real corrupt assholes. The world needs people like me.”
“You realize we kind of are the bad guys, right?” I say, raising my brows.
She waves her hand again. “You’re all the best men I know. And with me working with the feds, I will make sure nothing ever touches you.”
“That sounds a bit corrupt,” I tease, making her shrug.
“Loyalty and family first.”
“Always,” I reply, my tone sobering.
“Remember when you had a thing for Allie?” she blurts out, wincing. “I accidentally brought that up with Shay once, but I didn’t say her name. Isn’t that an awkward story?”
I stare at her, blink, then say one word. “Sin!”
* * *
After dinner, I stand, getting everyone’s attention.
“Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for coming. You know you’re all the family I never had, and yeah . . . fuck, I’m not going to get all mushy and shit, but I’m thankful for each and every one of you.”
“Uncle Vinnie swore,” I hear Clover whisper to Faye.
“I know,” Faye whispers back.
I turn to Shay and pull the box out of my pocket. My hands start to shake. Fuck. Am I doing this? Proposing? Another thing I never thought I’d do. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Say the fuckin’ words, Vinnie.
“Shay, will you marry me?” I ask, opening the box, showing her the giant diamond.
Eyes wide, she looks at the ring, then back up to me. She then looks around at everyone at the table.
“Vinnie,” she says quietly, clearing her throat. “No, I won’t marry you.”
Wait, what?
The table has gone deathly silent.
She quickly explains, “You don’t care about marriage, I know this, it means nothing to you. Just a piece of paper, you said. I know that you’re doing this because you love me so much, but I’m saying no because I love you just as much, and I don’t need for us to be married to be happy. You’ve given me this beautiful home, even though I know you’d be just as happy at the clubhouse. You don’t have to give any more, Vinnie.”
She stands up and wraps her arms around me. “The fact that you’d do this for me means more to me than anything, but I can’t accept, Vinnie. I love you so damn much, and I know you love me. I don’t need for you to propose to prove that. Although the fact that you did just makes me love you even more.”
I lift her chin with my fingers and kiss her deeply.
Everyone at the table claps.
“That was the most romantic proposal rejection I’ve ever seen,” I hear Faye say.
“I’m sorry I said no in front of everyone,” Shay says, cringing. “I just couldn’t say yes, Vinnie, when I know this isn’t really what you want. You’ve already given me two of the three things you said you’d never give, so this time it’s me who’s going to give up something.”
“Fuck, I love you,” I say, kissing her again, and kind of wishing everyone would go home now so I can carry her up to our bed and have my way with her.
“I love you more,” she says, smiling at me, the happiness in her eyes proof that I’m not as bad of a man as I thought I was.
In fact, I might even be one of the good ones.
EPILOGUE
Shayla
Five months later
“OH my god, she was right; it’s like knives!” I yell, closing my eyes and trying to manage the pain.
Holy fuck.
It hurt so badly.
I want to scream.
I open my eyes and glare at Vinnie, who is holding my hand and telling me to breathe. “I don’t want to breathe!” I yell at him. “Why don’t you try and breathe through getting stabbed?”
“Do all women get this mean?” he asks the nurse, whose expression doesn’t change at his question.
“For the most part.”
“I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,” he says, staying completely calm. “You’re the one who didn’t want the epidural, trying to be some kind of warrior woman.”
The nurse hands me some gas, I suck it like it’s going to save my life, which I’m kind of hoping it will. Yes, I fucked up by saying that I didn’t want an epidural, but he didn’t need to keep reminding me of it. Now it was too late to have one, as the baby was almost crowning, or so the nurse keeps telling me.
“Fuck!” I yell as another contraction hits me. I want to cry, but it won’t help, so there’s no fucking point.
Finally, the midwife tells me it’s time to push. I don’t really want to, but I want this over with, so I push, through all the pain, I push.
“The head’s out,” Vinnie says, eyes wide as saucers. I don’t know when he moved to the other end, right in front of my vagina, but I’m pretty sure I told him not to look down there.
“Don’t look!” I all but beg, only to be ignored, again. Even I don’t want to look, and I’d rather he remember what my vagina was like before—not when it’s stretched out with a giant baby head coming through it.
“Vinnie, stand by my head!” I growl, then start whimpering. They keep on telling me to push, so I keep pushing.
“Almost there,” the midwife tells me, acting all calm. How is she so calm? I feel like punching her based on that alone. I close my eyes, block out Vinnie, still standing where he isn’t supposed to be, and the midwife telling me to keep pushing, and I just push. With everything I have, I push.
And then, something amazing happens—the pain stops. I hear a baby crying, and I feel nothing but relief.
“We have a daughter,” Vinnie says in awe. The nurse asks if he wants to cut the umbilical cord, and he does. I start crying. They place our little girl on my chest and she stops crying. She has a thick head of silky, dark hair, which I know she got from me, but when she opens her eyes, all I see is Vinnie.
“She’s perfect,” I say, tears running down my face.
After a little while, the nurse takes her from me, cleans her up and wraps her. The nurse then hands her to Vinnie, who holds her awkwardly, but without complaint. He sits down, and just stares into her eyes.
When a tear drops from his own, I know that Faye’s words were true.
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY KRYSTA GUILLE
CHANTAL FERNANDO is the New York Times bestselling author of the novel Maybe This Time , the Resisting Love series, and eight Wind Dragons MC novels and novellas. She lives in Western Australia and can be followed on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her website at authorchantalfernando.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Chantal Fernando
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition August 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-3957-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-3960-4 (ebook)
Untitled Book 2 Page 23