Maybe It's Real

  When Chloe was panting beneath him, Owen entered her smoothly and rocked deep inside as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He kept his thrusts slow and demanding, making her writhe and pull at him, drag him closer, and as they neared completion he held the side of her neck and wouldn’t let her look away.

  She saw everything he felt when she came apart beneath him, and when he followed seconds after?

  Chloe saw the rest of her life.

  She laughed into his kiss as he rolled her over him and brushed her hair back over her shoulders. He held it gathered at her nape, away from her hot face, and traced a fingertip the length of her nose, his chestnut eyes focused and intense, following the movement.

  She blinked when he tapped the end of her nose.

  “You and me?” he asked, voice rough.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You and me. All the way.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Epilogue

  Owen was in the car with Jim, again. Waiting for a potential witness to arrive at his place of work.

  Again.

  Rain drummed on the roof and the windows were fogged up. Owen was working on some overdue reports while Jim kept his eyes on the dark street.

  Owen’s phone chimed with a text notification.

  “It’s Chloe,” Jim grunted.

  “Stop looking at my damn phone.”

  “It’s right there on the console, Owen. I can’t help seeing it when it’s right there.”

  “It’s upside down, Jim. Takes effort to read it upside down.”

  “Are you going to read it?”

  “In a minute. Finishing this first.”

  “What if it’s important?”

  “Then she’ll call.”

  “Huh.”

  They were both bored and cranky with being cooped up in the car, but when Owen read the text ten minutes later, he smiled.

  Chloe had never stopped her habit of narrating their dates to him via text at random intervals, except these days, instead of pretend dates, she texted him dates she intended to take him on, or requested that he take her on.

  Or—his favorite—she texted her memories of dates they’d already been on over the past eighteen months they’d been together.

  CHLOE: Remember this? The sea was turquoise, the sand was white, your skin was red because you forgot sunblock? We ate at a seafood shack and watched the phosphorescence at night. Back at the hotel you gave me a cramp trying to massage my feet. We drank champagne in a bubble bath, then made love until you gave yourself a cramp trying to bend in a way no man is meant to bend.

  She’d attached a photo from their honeymoon two months ago.

  He had a thousand like it on his phone already, photos that he’d taken, or that she’d taken and shared. Chloe always held some back, and liked to send them to him every now and then. This one?

  He could see why she’d held it back.

  It was a selfie. She’d gone up on tiptoes to squish their faces together but had lost her balance as she’d snapped it. Instead of their heads being together in the classic posed couple shot, Owen was gaping down at her, and all you could see of Chloe was the top of her head.

  She’d fallen into the sand, he remembered, and flailed so hard going down that she’d taken him with her.

  Owen replaced his current wallpaper with the photo, and smiled.

  “What’s funny?” Jim said.

  Owen turned the phone to face Jim.

  Jim burst out laughing. “That,” he said, “is a Christmas card photo if I ever saw one.”

  “Nah,” Owen said. “Not this year. It doesn’t have my spawn in it. I heard that people like to see the spawn in Christmas cards.”

  “Huh,” Jim said as he handed the phone back.

  Owen swiped to the picture Janet had emailed him earlier this afternoon. He hadn’t been able to make it to the hospital with Chloe for the follow-up scan, and Janet had enthusiastically volunteered.

  He waited for the meaning of his words to sink in.

  Jim straightened.

  There it was.

  “Your kids?” Jim said.

  Owen handed the phone over. Jim squealed almost as loudly as Janet had when Chloe had told her she was pregnant.

  Owen winced. “You want to take it down a notch? Sound like one of those things off Lord of the Rings.”

  Jim twisted to face him, thick eyebrows in a straight line, dark eyes squinting. “Did you just call me a hobbit? Because I’m shorter than you? I’m a very respectable height.”

  “Sound. Sound like. Not look like. You sound like the flying screeching things. The dragons?”

  “Nazgul?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Well, excuse the hell outta me for being excited for you, Daddy.”

  They looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment.

  “Yeah, I won’t call you that again,” Jim said.

  Owen cleared his throat. “Appreciate it.”

  “So. When is Chloe due? How did she tell you? Is it a boy or a girl? Wait, let me see the scan again, I’m great at these things.”

  Owen twitched his phone out of reach. “We’re waiting.” Owen had a suspicion Chloe knew, but he wanted to be surprised.

  “Did you cry when she told you?” Jim asked. “You cried, didn’t you?”

  He wasn’t about to admit it to Jim, but…something…beyond his control had happened.

  Owen hadn’t thought that Chloe could make him any happier than she already had, by first pretending to be his girlfriend, then by loving him, then by marrying him.

  He hadn’t even known how much he’d wanted children until the night she’d blissed him out with a very thorough massage, and then given him a big glass of water and made him drink it before informing him that he was going to be a father.

  His reaction was something they did not discuss.

  Chloe swore up and down that she’d deleted the video she’d been taking to record the special moment.

  She was lying.

  Owen was a detective, after all, and he could detect a big fat lie. He’d also heard her playing the video to herself in the bathroom late one night, and he’d cringed at hearing the abruptly cut-off sob that had burst out of him.

  It was embarrassing, but he didn’t even bother pretending to himself that it was down to the emotional release from the massage, because he’d already had a release.

  And it hadn’t been the sobbing kind. It was the other one.

  “Of course I didn’t cry,” he said to Jim.

  “I’d love to see you try that again with a polygraph, buddy. No shame in crying.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  “What, you’re too tough? I don’t care, I admit it, I’ll shout it from the rooftops. Cried my damn eyes out when Karin told me about Mads. Although,” he added thoughtfully, “by then we already had the girls, so. I knew what was coming.”

  Owen stared at Jim. “What does that mean?”

  Jim’s smile grew. “I hope you’re ready. You think shift work is hard? Hah. Also, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but, Owen?”

  “What?”

  “Projectile vomiting is a real thing.”

  “Way to ruin a beautiful moment.”

  Jim cackled. “Beautiful moments are off the table for you at least for the next three years. Strap in. Ride of your life.”

  “I’ll handle it. Lucky for me one of my kid’s godfathers is an experienced family man, who will share many helpful parenting tips, as well as babysitting regularly and often.” Owen waited. Nothing. “Do you need a coffee or something, Jim?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not exactly sharp today.” He waited again.

  “I suppose, if you’re offering, I could go for a latt—oh my god, yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!”

  Owen winced. “Seriously, calm yourself—

  “Are you asking me to be the godfather?

  “Yes.”

  “Then no, I will not be calm.”


  Owen couldn’t say that he was excited about the…projectile vomiting, really?…but as long as Chloe was by his side, and he was by hers?

  He was ready for anything.

  About the author

  Isabel North writes contemporary romance fiction and believes that love, like life, is best served with laughter. Her stories feature alpha heroes with a sense of humor, and quirky heroines who can handle the awkward moments on the way to their happily ever after. Isabel is the author of the Love, Emerson series, and if she isn't writing, she's reading. Or eating ice cream. Sometimes both at the same time.

  twitter.com/isabelnorthauth

  isabelnorthauthor.wordpress.com

  * * * *

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed Maybe It’s Real. If so, don't forget that you can leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads, which helps readers like you to find it.

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