by Ella Brooke
He stormed out of the room after that. Brett tensed, moving to go after him, but Mom laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Let Sophia go. The two of you, you’re too much alike. One or both of you will end up with a bloody nose if you go out there right now.”
Mom had a solid point. I planted a kiss on Brett’s cheek, ignored his look of warning, and turned to go after my brother. Mark would never hurt me, and Brett knew it. As for a few scathing words, he didn’t have to worry about that. I could take it.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured Brett before I left. “I’ll be right back.”
“Famous last words,” my dad muttered under his breath, smiling when he stuck his thumb up at me. “Go get him, slugger.”
I couldn’t believe that my parents were so okay with this. Now that I thought about it, I probably owed Mark for telling them. I doubt they’d have been as calm if they hadn’t had some time to think it through. I doubted that all that stuff they said to and about Brett earlier were the first things that came to mind when they’d been told I’d gotten pregnant by him.
Mark was on the back patio, slumped in a plastic chair and staring off into the distance. He didn’t look at me when I took a seat next to him.
“Come to rub it in my face, have you?” he spat.
Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself that he had a right to be angry and that I wasn’t out here to fight with him, despite what he might say to me. “You know I would never do that.”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
“I know that we shook your foundations pretty hard with this. I’m shaken up myself.”
Mark sucked in a breath and shook his head. “At least you knew it might be coming.”
“True,” I agreed. “But you have to know that we didn’t mean to hurt you. We just couldn’t stay away from each other anymore. I’ve loved Brett for a long time, and he loves me, too.”
“Brett doesn’t know how to be in love. He’s going to hurt you, Soph. Why do think I tried to keep him away from you all these years? I knew you had a thing for him. I’m not blind. I tried to protect you from him!” He huffed out an exasperated sigh. “So not only did he betray me, but he’s blown years of friendship because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. There’s no way I’d ever be able to look at him again if he breaks your heart.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to ask you to listen anyway. It might’ve started because he couldn't keep his di—”
Mark held up a hand. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know or think about the two of you fucking behind my back.”
“Well tough, because I’m saying it anyway. It started with his dick, sure.”
“Soph,” he warned.
“I’m done with that part, I promise. That’s what it started with, but that’s not what it’s about anymore. He loves me. I know that you don’t think that he knows how to be in love, but I’ve known him as long as you have, and I’m telling you, he’s in love with me. We’re good together, Mark. If you’d give it a chance, you’ll see that.”
“And if he breaks your heart?” he mumbled.
“Then you help dad kick his ass.”
He let out a low chuckle. “Maybe.”
Reaching across the table, I placed my hand on his forearm, encouraged when he didn’t shake me off. “Both of us love you. I’m going to need you. You’re my big brother. I literally don’t know how to live without you there with me. Brett’s going to need his best friend, too. Please promise me that you’ll at least try to be there for both of us? I know that it’s a selfish thing to ask, but I’m asking it anyway.”
Mark was quiet for a long time, and I let him think. I didn’t want to push him, but I also wasn’t going anywhere until I knew that there was chance of getting my brother and Brett’s best friend back.
When he turned to face me with a tiny upward hitch on his lips, the spark of hope in my chest bloomed and grew.
“Fine, I’ll try. I’ve never really wanted to think about it, but now that I have, I think Mom and Dad might be right. You guys were probably always going to happen.”
“Does that mean—”
“Let me finish. I listened, so now it’s your turn.” He waited for me to nod before continuing.
“I love the both of you, too. I do, but the fact that neither of you told me the truth and that I had to find out the way I did, that burns like a bitch. I want to be there for you both and for the baby, I guess, but I need some time, okay?”
“Okay. Take as much time as you need. I’ll be waiting for you.”
I patted his arm and went back inside.
Brett was waiting for me in the kitchen, talking quietly to my mom. As soon as he saw me, he opened his arms, and I walked right into them, wedging myself between his knees where he sat at the island.
“Everything okay out there?” he asked.
“It’s all good,” I said. “He’s going to come around.”
Brett smiled down at me, love and joy burning bright in his smoky eyes, his dimples deep creases in his cheeks. “Just like that?”
I laughed softly. “Just like that.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
Brett
“It’s official,” I told Sophia. “I’m declaring our bedroom a disaster zone.”
“Who knew babies needed so much stuff?” Sophia asked, nodding her agreement.
“Not me.” I really hadn’t. Thank god for grandmothers and the internet. I didn’t think that we’d have survived without either.
People who were parents before the advent of the internet had been elevated to godlike status in my book, and I made sure that my assistant sent both my mom and Sophia’s flowers every week. They both protested that it wasn’t necessary, but it was. Mom finally moved into that house I’d bought for her when Sophia moved in with me.
Mark and Soph’s dad John were also rock stars with little Harper. I made sure to treat them with tickets to Wrigley Field often. Of course, nowadays, if I joined them, it was with a kangaroo carrier strapped to my chest.
Much to my surprise, I fucking loved it. If babies were little pinks lumps, Harper was the most beautiful little pink lump that I ever could’ve imagined. I was crazy about her. Absolutely mad. She had me firmly wrapped around her fourteen-week-old pinkie.
When I found out we were having a girl, that I was about to become the father of a daughter, I freaked the hell out.
At least I’d been a boy once, so I kind of knew what to expect. Kind of. But a girl? A girl who would eventually grow into a woman and start dating one of the little pricks out there? A mini meltdown was probably more accurate of a description of what I’d had at the time.
Because even though most of the boys she’d end up dating probably weren’t born yet, I just knew that they were all going to be pricks. Or assholes.
Mark backed me up. He knew it, too. It had taken him some time to fully accept our relationship, but when he came on board, he came with everything that he had and with absolutely no reservations. He organized a Man shower for me, which had actually rivaled some of the wilder bachelor parties I’d been to, and he helped me move Sophia into my place a month before the baby was born.
So when we found out it was a girl, he bought us both toy guns and solemnly swore to be there on the day that the first prick arrived to pick her up.
Sophia, on the other hand, loudly proclaimed that we both had issues and laughed so hard that I legit thought that she was going to laugh herself into labor. Apparently, that wasn’t a thing. The pregnancy hormones making her super horny, though? That was a thing. A thing that I loved so much that I was already looking forward to getting Sophia pregnant again.
She wasn’t on board with that idea, though. Not yet anyway.
If I was being realistic, she was probably right about it being too soon. I wanted just a little more time to dote on the girls who were already in my life.
And there were a few other things
that I wanted to get done first. The most important of which was burning a hole in my damn pocket.
Sophia was standing by her dressing table, in the middle of a sea of playmats and toys, staring intently at the screen of the baby monitor. Harper had gone down ten minutes ago, and while there was a second crib for her set up in our room, we really tried to have her sleep in her own nursery.
My Soph was tired but serene. I thought that she looked more beautiful by the day, but she didn’t agree. Even wearing cotton pajamas with her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and slightly dark smudges under her eyes, she was the most gorgeous woman on the planet as far as I was concerned.
I still got hard whenever I thought about being inside her, which was still all the time, and I was hopeful about my prospects for later. But there was something else in my pants that I needed to give her first. I smirked a little at my corny, internal joke, and Sophia’s lips kicked up into a smile when she caught me in the middle of it.
“What’s going on in that dirty mind of yours now?”
“It’s not filth all the time anymore, I’ll have you know,” I joked, walking across the room to wrap my arms around her.
“Maybe, but I know that look, and whatever it was this time, it was dirty or borderline dirty at the very least.”
She knew me well, but she was the love of life, so I was okay with having lost the mystery. Most of it, anyway. I could still surprise, and I was pretty sure that I was about to.
“Fine, you want to know what I was thinking?”
Sophia nodded. “Pray tell, oh filthy one.”
“I was thinking that there’s something in my pants that I’m desperate to give you.”
Sophia smacked my chest, laughed, and rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, you’re an animal. How many hours has it even been?”
I raised an eyebrow, grinning to flash my dimples, because I knew she loved them. “What do you think I’m talking about?”
She cupped my cock, and it reacted to her attention. Then she dropped her hand and gave me pointed look. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“It wasn’t that, actually. But you know that’s yours whenever you want it.” I reached into my pocket casually, trying to keep calm, even though my heart was pounding harder than Sophia had squeezed my hand just before Harper made her appearance in the world. “I was talking about this.”
I pulled the ring I’d picked up from the jewelers earlier out of my pocket and sank to my knee. Sophia stopped laughing immediately and stared down at me, blue eyes wider than golf balls.
“Sophia Love, you have given me everything that I never knew I wanted out of life. Everything that I was too afraid to ask for or dream about. You asked me a question once that changed my life for the better and forever. I’m really fucking hoping that you’re going to give me the same answer that I gave you. Will you marry me?”
“Why me?”
My heart wasn’t going to handle much more of this. “What?”
“You said you wanted the same answer you gave me,” Sophia said, a megawatt smile on her face. “Those were the first words you said to me after I asked you.”
I groaned. “Okay, smartass. I meant the ultimate answer, then.”
Sophia sank onto her knees, crawled into my lap, and grabbed my face between both of her hands, eyes blazing like a cobalt fire. “Yes. Of course, I will. I’ve loved you for a million years, Brett Kelly, and I’ll keep loving you till my dying day. A million times, yes.”
And then, just like I had on that fateful day that kickstarted my life into the thing of beauty that I couldn’t live without today, I leaned forward and closed those precious few inches to capture her delicious mouth with mine.
Soph looped her arms around me, pressing her breasts up against my chest, melting into the kiss, and making those sexy little noises that still turned me to steel. She smiled against my lips. “Can I have it now?”
“Which one do you want?”
“Both,” she quipped. “Shiny one first. When we get to the other thing in your pants, I want to be wearing only the ring that officially makes me yours.”
“God, I love the sound of that,” I told her honestly, opening the hand that was still clutching her ring. In its center sat a large, brilliant cut diamond, with two rings of smaller sapphires around it. The band was inlaid with tiny diamonds and sapphires. “I had it made like this because the colors together reminded me of your eyes.”
Sophia gasped when she took her first real look at the ring. “Brett, this is stunning.”
I shrugged. “You’re stunning. The ring’s pretty.”
She held out her hand, and I slid it on, loving that it was my ring sitting on her finger. Perhaps her parents, and even Mark in the end, had a point. I would never have been able to watch her with another man. We were inevitable, because she’d been made for me, and now, finally, she was really going to be mine.
The stones shimmered in the light when Sophia held up her hand to admire them, sighing happily. “I could just look at this and revel in what it signifies for the rest of night.”
I squeezed her ass. “No can do, future Mrs. Kelly. You promised me that I was going to get to see you in only that ring, and since tonight is all about promises...”
“I don’t remember promising,” Sophia said, joy lighting up her eyes.
I recognized the emotion, because it was exactly what I was feeling. “The promise was right there in your tone.”
“Well, I guess if it was right there, then I’d better make good on it, shouldn’t I?”
Without another word, she stood up from my lap and started walking toward our bed. She turned to face me when she reached it and shimmied out of her pajamas, hooked her thumbs into her panties, rolled them off, and pulled the ponytail out of her hair to shake it free.
My mouth dried up, and my cock strained against my jeans, instantly hard for her. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
She placed her hands on her narrow hips and cocked her head at me. “Well then, Mr. Kelly, what’re you waiting for?”
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Jumping to my feet, I shed my clothes before I even made it halfway across the room and went to stand right up against my future wife, bending to claim her mouth for a kiss that sent a current shooting through my veins.
I put my knee on our mattress, then locked an arm around her waist, and guided her gently onto it. Sophia went willingly, her body following my movements easily.
Once she was spread out on the bed, I stepped back to marvel at the sight of Sophia Love, the girl I’d never wanted to notice but simply couldn’t miss, now my fiancee and mother of my child, naked on my bed.
My cock throbbed and pulsed, my heart nearly bursting from happiness. “I am the luckiest damn man in the world, baby. Thank you.”
I spent the next couple of hours showing her exactly how grateful I was for her presence in my life, that she’d given me Harper, and how fucking happy I was that she’d had the bravery to ask me that one question.
THE END
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Chapter One
Briony looked in despair at the velvet green gown on her bed, and then she looked at her sister. “Seanan, please, can't I just stay here tonight? I really don't need to go to the party, do I?”
Seanan lanced her with that look, and Briony knew it was useless to argue. She had been on the
receiving end of that look far too often to think there would be any sort of give to it at all.
“Oh come on, it'll be fun!” Seanan said. “There are going to be all kinds of exciting people there, so many people to meet and network with. You never know, little sister, this might make your career.”
Briony scowled, but Seanan took no notice. She never had. It would be utterly infuriating if Seanan didn't clearly have Briony's best interests at heart.
“I work in the admissions department of a not-so-great university,” Briony pointed out. “What good is Italian networking going to do for me?”
Seanan tossed a careless wink over her shoulder. “Stop being so doubtful! You just never know.”
It was in moments like this that the differences between the two sisters became obvious, Briony thought with bemusement. They were both of medium height with chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, and they both had low-pitched voices that were pleasant when speaking and slightly hopeless when singing. However, where Seanan's practiced smiles and warm air made people around her feel automatically comfortable, Briony always felt as stiff as a stick and twice as boring. Everyone who saw Seanan thought of her as a bombshell, and that combined with her acting talent had made her one of the breakout Hollywood stars of the last five years.
Of course, Briony knew better than most that “breakout star” meant weeks and months and years of auditions and tiny parts and networking and contacts, and she had sat up with her sister more than once over that lost job or that failed callback.
It warmed Briony like the sun to see her sister excel, and when Seanan tugged her over to the dreaded velvet dress, Briony went with only a little resistance.
“Is it so very awful being here?” Seanan asked, her voice sincere, and Briony had to sigh.
“You know it's not,” she said with a shrug. “Florence is beautiful, and we've both always wanted to go to Italy. I'm still so glad and so thankful you invited me.”