by Fawn Bailey
"Not if he loves her," I grinned at him wickedly, and my man laughed out loud, giving me a deep kiss, his hand wandering down my front and touching the bump where our child was growing.
"Think he's getting excited to come out?" he asked me, and I gave him a mysterious smile.
"Probably," I said thoughtfully. "Judging by the amount of his kicking, I would definitely say so."
Thorn twirled me around, and for a moment, I felt like I was dancing again with my feet off the ground. It only lasted a second or two and brought a smile and a memory to mind. I hadn't thought about dancing in so long. It seemed like such a distant part of me... Something I'd done a long time ago, but that had been replaced by the all-consuming, all-encompassing love I felt for my life partner.
We'd spent three blissful, warm and gorgeous months in Bora Bora. We discovered layers of one another we hadn't known before, and on our last day, we got married under the sun, just the two of us. Our real life began the next day when we flew to New York and Rueben carried me over the threshold into his penthouse apartment.
I fell in love with our home right away.
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of my flat in London, because I felt free there. Free to be me, free to belong to Thorn completely. Finally free of the shackles I'd placed on myself, and happier than ever in the ones Thorn had put on my wrists and ankles.
I submitted to him completely, yet he still loved me independent. In those first few months in New York, we fought like crazy. Like I never thought we would. Screaming matches and shattering glasses and screaming obscenities at one another, only to end up in bed together, the taste of real life making us cling to one another more desperately than ever. I was afraid that I would lose him at first, but he clung to me with the same fierce stubbornness I was known to display during our arguments.
We got through the rough patch and fell deeper in love. I found myself doing little things here and there to surprise him, to make him smile, and he returned the favor.
We never went back to the Mansion, but Madame came to visit us. She was my only friend the first time she came over, and the one that had told me to try and make more friends in the city, to go out more, to try harder for our relationship. My conversation with her convinced me to try harder, and our relationship recovered.
I loved him deeper than I ever thought I'd be able to, and he stood by my side through anything.
Receiving the letter that my father had passed away and breaking down despite him being the monster that he was.
Thorn held me as I told him the true story of my mother's death and made it all better when I cried and sobbed into the next morning.
He was the one who brought home flowers, and ice cream, and all kinds of treats when I got pregnant.
He was the one who held me when I lost the baby, convinced I'd done something wrong, convinced I was cursed.
He did it again the second time around.
This was our third attempt, and I was in my last trimester. This time, the doctor assured us nothing would go wrong. Only a week or so left and I would have a happy, healthy baby boy in my arms.
Still, Thorn babied me, making sure I was safe, warm and well-fed at all times. His deep caring for me brought us closer, and I found myself falling in love with him all over again. He was gentle with me when I was pregnant, careful not to hurt me or the baby. We made love more often than we fucked, and every single time, he turned me into an emotional mess. How he handled those months, I'll never know.
But now our bright future lay mere days ahead. Just the wedding to get through and I'd be admitted to a private hospital in a few days, when my due date came up - since I was a high-risk pregnancy, they wanted to make sure everything happened supervised.
The wedding was in New York though, and it filled me with curiosity. I still remembered the raven-haired girl who'd tried to help me escape the Mansion once, and now I knew her name was Ophelia, and she had invited Thorn and me to her wedding in the city.
Perhaps this was my chance of making my new friend.
Thorn seemed convinced of the idea and told me as much as he knew about my mysterious former friend. I told him how she'd tried to help me, and though he wasn't pleased, he said he understood her desire to keep me safe.
On the ride to the church, I held Thorn's hand and he stroked my baby bump.
"Rose," he said gently. "Are you happy?"
I looked at him. at his handsome chiseled face, which I'd fallen in love with and that still made my heart race after all this time. At his stubble that drove me crazy when it scratched up my skin. At his gorgeous eyes, and the way he held me, at the love plainly visible in his eyes that told me he would never let go, and I would always, always belong to him.
"I am," I whispered. "Are you?"
"More than ever," he replied without a pause, grinning wickedly. "Now let's go show ourselves at this wedding so I can make love to you one last time before my son is born."
"Your son?" I giggled. "Isn't he ours?"
He grabbed my chin and pulled me closer, whispering against my lips.
"What's yours belongs to me, sweet little Rose... Just like you do."
More information…
Get the rest of the Rose and Thorn series:
Blood Red Rose
Pure White Rose
Last Broken Rose
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Also by Fawn Bailey: new mafia dark romance series, Gilded Cage
Book 1: Wings
Book 2: Flight
Book 3: Nightbird
Be the first to preorder my next series, Gilded Cage! It follows the fate of Harlow’s friend Ophelia and her twisted love story involving two brothers, and a villain dead-set on destroying them all…