The London Sisters: The Complete Series: Bonus Content Edition

by Abby Brooks

  When it’s all said and done, Max pulls me in close, wrapping his arms all the way around me and pressing a kiss into my hair. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been so scared,” he said. “When I heard you scream, I thought I lost you.”

  “I was pretty scared, myself. But I guess when the going gets tough, I get tougher.” I smile up at him, proud of myself. I like the way it feels, knowing that I didn’t let my fear of the guy cripple me.

  “There was a moment when I was afraid that I’d get upstairs and find you dead. That maybe even though my DNA doesn’t instantly make me a bad man, that maybe it makes me a tragic man. That just when I let myself love someone, I lose them.”

  I can see the swirl of memories in his eyes. “I’m still here.”

  He puts a finger to my chin and lifts, examining me for any damages yet again. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I promise. I don’t think he even got his hands on me.” I smile up at him. “I’m fine.”

  “I realized exactly how much you mean to me today. I mean, I already knew you were pretty much my everything, but today really helped send the message home. I love you, Chelsea.” He pauses and there’s so much emotion on his face, it brings tears to my eyes.

  “I love you, too, Max.” I look around my living room. The sterile colors. The utter lack of personalization anywhere. I’m kind of glad to be leaving it behind. “You know,” I say, giving Max a devilish look. “Now that the crazy guy is in jail, you’re off the hook with the whole moving in together thing.”

  “Are you kidding me? Did you not hear what I just said, woman?” Max swoops me up in his arms while I shriek in surprise. “Charlie!” he bellows, heading for the door. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Life goes crazy for a little while. Suddenly, the media cares about me again, but I’m not even a little interested in playing that game anymore. I avoid them until they forget about me.

  But that only settles things down a little bit because a lot of the craziness comes from the fact that Max and Charlie and I have to figure out how to be a family together. I don’t know how he did it, but Max pulled some strings, calling in so many favors to so many different people that I couldn’t keep things straight when he explained it all. But the long and short of it is that Max managed to adopt Charlie.

  Which, of course, I saw coming from a million miles away and completely and totally support the decision. Charlie’s a great kid. Smart. Hard-working. Eager to please. But we’ve definitely had our growing pains as Max and I got a crash course in parenting and Charlie got a crash course on how to be an actual kid.

  Things settled down around Christmas and over the last month and a half have finally started to find a rhythm that we’re all comfortable with.

  One thing’s for sure, I certainly don’t have time to devote myself completely to work anymore. I’ve got people who want and deserve my attention at home and that’s a very good thing. I’m still good at what I do, don’t get me wrong. Like Maya and Dakota always say, I excel at excelling. I think I’m just more balanced now. More complete.

  Whatever it is, I like it. I like getting up early to make my men breakfast before they leave for work and school. I like finding little notes from Max in the lunch he packs for me. I like helping Charlie with his homework at night. And I like laughing with them when we sit down to dinner on the nights we’re not running Charlie to some kind of practice or another.

  Life is good and we’re all happy. What more could I ask for?

  Well, this morning I think I could ask for not being late. Wouldn’t you know, on the very day that I’m set to start working with Hudson Knox again—poor guy is hurt again—I manage to burn our breakfast and then get caught behind the busses dropping Charlie off at school. Now, I’m swooping and swerving through traffic, thankful that the snow they’re calling for later this evening hasn’t started yet.

  Small blessings, you know?

  Of course, people are thoroughly pissed at me, honking and flipping me the bird and I just grimace and keep holding my hand up in apology. If I were them, I’d hate me, too.

  Funny thing is, I can’t stop smiling because it just reminds me so much of the first day I met Max. He was such an asshole that day, how could I ever have imagined that he’d end up being the absolute love of my life? How could I know that underneath that furrowed brow and etched-in scowl was a heart so big it would swoop me up, rescuing a small boy from certain disaster along the way?

  Although, given distracted I was by his sexiness at first—and totally surprised by it because he so wasn’t my type—maybe I did know, on some level, that he was everything I needed and then some. Maybe my soul took one look at his soul and said ‘hey, I know you!’ and that was the end of it.

  I flip on my turn signal and cut off some poor lady who looks too sleepy to be dealing with likes of me. “Sorry,” I say out loud, hoping to catch her eyes through the mirror.

  Instead, I catch the whirl of blue and red lights. The chirp of a siren. What is it about me that every time I speed I get caught? Am I just that bad at being bad?

  I pull over and slide my license and proof of insurance out of my wallet and prepare myself for the long wait while the officer pulls up my information.

  Imagine my surprise when there’s a knock on my window while I’m pulling my registration out of the glove compartment.

  I whirl and find myself staring at a blue-clad torso, thumbs hooked in his utility belt. I roll down the window and crane my neck, trying to see the guy’s face. “I’m sorry, officer,” I say. “I’m running late…”

  “I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle.” Fear surges through me, but only for an instant, because I totally recognize that voice.

  “Max?”

  “Officer Santoro, ma’am. And I need you to step out of the vehicle.”

  I peer up at him and his eyes glimmer with excitement, the only normal thing in his otherwise completely stoic face. He steps aside to give me room to swing open the car door. The frigid February air hits me in the face and I shudder as I stand.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “Max, what’s going on?” I flare my hands, utterly confused.

  “Answer the question. Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “Because I was speeding? I’m really late. And if I don’t—”

  Max puts his hands on my shoulders and spins me around. Pushes me over so my hands go flat against the hood of my car. I gasp as he pats me down like a common criminal on the side of the road. He gives my hips and breasts more attention than I’m sure is professional.

  “What you’ve done is far more serious than breaking the speed limit.” His voice is hard. Almost foreign. “It’s inexcusable really.”

  He takes his hands off me and I just stand there for a second, hands on the hood of my car, legs splayed, totally freaked the hell out. Well, until I remember that this is Max and that no, I haven’t done anything other than break a few hundred traffic laws on my way to work this morning.

  Max’s hands come back to my shoulders and he spins me again, gently this time. He’s smiling when I come to face him. Nervous. It’s not a look he wears well.

  “So, do you know what you’ve done?” he asks. “Why I pulled you over?”

  I shake my head. “If it’s not the speeding thing, then I’m utterly clueless.”

  A slow smile twists the corner of his mouth. “You’ve stolen my heart, you sweet girl. Each and every day you’ve made it more and more yours and less and less mine and now, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever manage to live without you. You’ve made my house into a home, helped me through this transition with Charlie. We’re both better off because of you.”

  I’m smiling now, too, because this may be one of the sweetest things he’s ever done, even if I am going to be super late to work. “No, silly. I’m better off because of you guys.”

  Max shrugs. “Or maybe we’re all better off together.”


  “I think that’s probably the truth.”

  Max takes my hand in his and I look down. He has a ring poised over the tip of my finger. “Chelsea?”

  I look up at him, mouth open, eyes filling with tears.

  “Will you marry me? Be mine for the rest of our days?”

  I don’t hesitate because I think I’ve known my answer since the very first moment I ever met him. “I’ve always been yours, Max. And I always will.”

  And it’s the truth and it’s beautiful and I know, without doubt or question that we will live happily ever after for the rest of our days.

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  Brookside Romance

  Wounded

  Inevitably You

  Lexi’s story (Title and release date coming soon!)

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  The Moores Series

  Blown Away (Ian and Juliet)

  Carried Away (James and Ellie)

  Swept Away (Harry and Willow)

  Break Away (Lilah and Cole)

  Purely Wicked (Ashely & Jackson)

  Love Is…

  Love Is Crazy (Dakota & Dominic)

  Love Is Beautiful (Chelsea & Max)

  Love Is Everything (Maya & Hudson)

  Blissed Out

  Max & Chelsea’s Wedding

  Copyright © 2016 by Abby Brooks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Bill. My Bliss.

  Chapter One

  I’ve imagined my wedding day since I was a little girl. Too young to understand love, but hooked on Disney princesses and all the dreams of happily ever after that come along with Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

  I wanted a beautiful dress, all white and wonderful. A veil with a tiara that sparkled on my head and made the thousands of people watching me walk down the aisle gasp and hold their hands to their heart and wipe tears of joy from their gleaming eyes. I dreamed of my prince, so handsome in his tuxedo, smiling at me as I floated towards him, carried by singing birds, or fluffy clouds, or some other ridiculous nonsense.

  Turns out, real weddings aren’t like that.

  Not at all.

  I was under the impression that my wedding was going to be about Max and me, proclaiming our love for each other in front of the people who cared about us the most. And I thought planning it would be simple. We decide what we want and everyone is happy for us because it’s our day.

  We want to get married on a beach, so everyone in our family says: Oh, what a wonderful idea!

  We want to keep things small and intimate and so everyone in our family says: Of course! How lovely!

  Is that even remotely the way things are going?

  Hell no.

  You really should get married in a church, says Mom. Formal weddings are so much more respectable.

  Destination weddings are expensive, says Dad. It’s very selfish of you to expect us to take time off from work to travel. And pulling Charlie out of school…?

  Are you dieting? You’ve got a dress and a bikini to fit into. I’d be dieting if I were you.

  At least you don’t have to worry about being an old maid anymore.

  What about your great aunt Sally? I know you haven’t seen her since you were six, but she’s going to be so offended if you don’t invite her…

  And on.

  And on.

  And on.

  And on.

  It’s no wonder I’m a nervous wreck.

  But, on the upside, all the barbed remarks from my parents have proven just exactly why Max is everything I have ever needed. For every doubt someone else plants in my head, he gives me a reason to trust my instincts and feel better about myself.

  He loved the simplicity of a beach wedding and after I suggested it, we spent one whole week scouring maps of the coastal states and Googling favorite tourist destinations. Max was the one who found the town we eventually settled on. I wasn’t sold on it at first, but after hearing his explanations, I couldn’t be more excited about where we chose to get married.

  It’s a small town in South Carolina. So small it barely exists. I can’t imagine there’s much to do there, which is why I kind of put up a fight when he first suggested it. But then Max explained why he loved it so much.

  “First of all,” he said that night, pulling the phone with the million open search tabs of possible wedding locations out of my hands and kneeling in front of me. “Look at the name.”

  “Bliss?” I remember wrinkling my nose and shrugging my shoulders.

  “Yes. Bliss. Can you think of a better place to get married than a town called Bliss?” I remember the way he smiled and I remember the way he looked at me.

  Open.

  Honest.

  Warm. His bullet blue eyes didn’t look like weapons that night while he kneeled in front of me. There was too much love in them to look even remotely dangerous.

  “Well, when you put it that way, it’s actually really poetic.”

  He had smiled and nodded before continuing. “But you know what else, Chelsea? Don’t you think the very fact that there’s nothing to do but lounge on the beach and drink and fuck makes this the most perfect place for us to get married? You need some down time. You need to unwind. You push way too hard, baby. I mean look at you, your shoulders are so tense they look like they’ll break if I touch you.”

  And of course, everything he said was true. So true that tears stung my eyes. I remember just nodding, my voice caught in the emotion locked in my throat. Leave it to Max to plan something for the way I need it to be done, not the way I think it should be done.

  When I asked him when he wanted to get married, he didn’t hesitate while he came up with an answer. He already knew.

  “October,” he said. “That’s when I first met you, and that’s when I want to make you mine.”

  It had all seemed so perfect at the time. I cried and hugged him and we planned the whole thing out the way we wanted it, my parents be damned. And in the months leading up to it all, I couldn’t have been more pleased with myself.

  Of course, now that we’re here, none of it seems right.

  “My parents are going to hate this,” I say as Max navigates us through the one street of shops and buildings that makes up downtown Bliss, South Carolina.

  “This isn’t about your parents.” Max smiles and peers through the windshield to get a better view of our surroundings.

  Charlie pipes up from the back seat. “Even I know that. He’s had to say it enough.”

  Max drives slowly down the street and my back is so straight as I study the town we’ve chosen to get married in that I must look like a meerkat, especially given the way my head is swiveling from side to side as I try to take in everything all at once.

  The shops look appealing, and there’s something very quaint and welcoming about the store fronts. There are a handful of restaurants and cafes, all locally owned, nothing commercial anywhere. People are out on the sidewalks, waving at each other
as they pass and stopping for conversation. We get more than our fair share of curious looks as we drive by with our unfamiliar faces and Ohio plates.

  “So, here’s the question that really matters,” Max says as we leave the populated part of Bliss and head out to our rental house on the beach. “What do you think?”

  I take a minute to process my response. The ocean is off to our right, completely visible during our entire trip through town. I’m struck by how vast and open it is. I don’t know if anything could have prepared me for the simple beauty of water meeting sky. Combine that with the inviting shops and restaurants and I think I might be in love with Bliss, South Carolina.

  “Honestly?” I ask, propping my elbow on the back of my seat so I can rub the back of Max’s neck. “It’s adorable and I love it and I can’t think of a better place to get married.” I consciously force myself to relax into my seat. If I stop worrying about pleasing my parents, I find these moments where I’m so totally happy I can’t help but grin. I love my fiancé so much. I love Charlie so much. I am so ready to make us a real family and am so glad to do it our way.

  “What do you think, bud?” Max looks through the rearview mirror at Charlie.

  “It’s pretty cool,” he says, eyeing the water. “You think there’s sharks out there?”

  Charlie’s been adapting really well, but he still approaches almost everything from a place of fear. He’s so wary. His eyes look like they belong to a hardened adult rather than a ten-year-old boy. Although, there are times—sweet and wonderful times—when that look fades away and he just looks plain old happy. The way a kid should look. Those are the times I wait and work for.

  Max shrugs his shoulders and meets Charlie’s eyes through the rearview. “Sure. Sharks live in the ocean, don’t they?”