Love Me Like I Love You

by Willow Winters

  “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.

  Thank you for reading! 100% of the profits from this anthology will be given to the Live A Thousand Lives charity.

  This charity donates audio players - equipped with hundreds of hours of classic stories - to low-to-no mobility patients in nursing facilities and hospitals.

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  About the Author

  Claudia is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. She writes alluring, thrilling stories about complicated women and the men who take their breath away. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and her youngest two children. She has a sweet Bichon, Macey, who thinks she’s the ruler of the house. She’s only partially right. When Claudia is not writing, you can find her reading, knitting, or just hanging out with her family. At night, she likes to binge-watch shows with her equally geeky husband.

  To find more about Claudia:

  website

  Sign up for her newsletter: News Letter

  Also By Claudia Burgoa

  The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers Series

  Loved You Once

  A Moment Like You

  Defying Our Forever

  Call You Mine

  As We Are

  Yours to Keep

  Against All Odds Series

  Wrong Text, Right Love

  Didn’t Expect You

  Standalones

  Us After You

  Almost Perfect

  Once Upon a Holiday

  Someday, Somehow

  Chasing Fireflies

  Something Like Hate

  Then He Happened

  Maybe Later

  My One Despair

  My One Regret

  Found

  Fervent

  Flawed

  Until I Fall

  Finding My Reason

  Christmas in Kentbury

  Chaotic Love Duet

  Begin with You

  Back to You

  Unexpected Series

  Uncharted

  Uncut

  Undefeated

  Unlike Any Other

  Decker the Halls

  Choose Me

  By RC Boldt

  Dedication

  To Matty,

  I’m so glad you chose to marry the loud, cackling Italian girl with fluffy hair. Otherwise, this thing called life would be pretty damn boring.

  P.S. I still love you more.

  A,

  You’re my favorite girl in the whole wide world and universe. Also, your use of sarcasm at age five is stellar and impresses me to no end. Keep making me proud, lovebug.

  PLAYLIST

  “Everglow” by Coldplay

  “Stone” by Alessia Cara

  “Mary’s Song” by Taylor Swift

  “Army” by Ellie Goulding

  “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars

  “In Case You Didn’t Know” by Brett Young

  “Adore You” by Miley Cyrus

  “Too Much To Ask” by Niall Horan

  “Falling In Love With My Best Friend” by Matt White

  “White Flag” by Dido

  “1,000 Times” by Sara Bareilles

  “All You Never Say” by Birdy

  “Lucky” by Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillet

  “You’ll Never Know” by Mindy McCready

  “Falling for You” by The 1975

  “Fix You” by Coldplay

  “Lips on You” by Maroon 5

  “Tin Man” by Miranda Lambert

  “Let Me Let Go” by Faith Hill

  “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down

  “I Love You” by Sarah McLachlan

  “Her World or Mine” by Michael Ray

  “Best Friend” by Jason Chen

  “The House That Built Me” by Miranda Lambert

  “This Is It” by Scotty McCreery

  “Speechless” by Dan + Shay

  “You Are The Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne

  Prologue

  HOLLIS

  Fairhope, Alabama

  I tug at the tie strangling me. Or it could be anxiety’s invisible grip tightening around my throat.

  Dammit, what the hell was I thinking? I can’t do this. I rake a hand through my hair, not giving two shits that I’m mussing it.

  Just a few minutes ago, I sneaked into her childhood bedroom to see her—to have one final moment with just the two of us. She looked so goddamn beautiful. The veil cascading down her back from her sparkly headband. That dress made her look like one of those princesses she used to talk about when we were younger.

  I wrote her a letter—one I never intend to give her. There’s no way I’m a bi
g enough bastard to confess my feelings on her wedding day when she’s minutes away from pledging her life to another man.

  I ease away from the crowd and lean against one of the rear posts of the enormous pergola. I’m not claiming one of those chairs because I’m man enough to admit the odds of me lasting through the entire ceremony are slim as hell. I reach inside my suit jacket for the flask tucked there. Sliding it from the inner pocket, I twist off the cap and take a swig of whiskey before pocketing it again.

  The backyard overflows with guests. Neat rows of white wooden fold-out chairs line each side of the walkway leading to where her grandfather stands, chatting with Ms. Margie, the owner of the local diner. A trio of violinists stand poised off to one side.

  This wedding might be in the backyard like she always claimed she wanted, but it’s far larger. It’s not small or intimate; it’s turned into a bit of a circus. But she’s getting her wish of having her grandfather officiate and her stepdad walk her down the aisle.

  The violinists play the first few notes of the wedding march, and my entire body stiffens with a mixture of anxiety, nausea, and pain. A thousand-pound weight settles on my chest and grows even heavier as I watch Magnolia’s stepfather usher her along.

  She’s getting her happily ever after.

  The one constant in my life, my best friend, and the only woman who’s ever owned my fucking heart and soul is getting married today.

  With every step she takes, her beauty robbing me of breath, bringing her closer to him, more anger unfurls deep inside me. I should’ve manned up long ago.

  I wish I’d had the courage to ask her to choose me.

  As soon as she turns and is halfway down the aisle to him, I hightail it to my truck. I can’t do this. I can’t stick around and listen to her exchange vows with another man while I wish like hell I were in his place.