One Love

by Davenport, Fiona

  “I already sent her a text,” I announced with a wink at Gracie.

  She beamed and stood on her tiptoes to give me a quick peck on the lips. “I love you.”

  “Okay! Let’s go!” London chirped as she barreled out of her bedroom and ran down the stairs.

  “Love you too, Gracie,” I murmured with a chuckle before we followed after our crazy cousin.

  * * *

  “Um, Hudson?”

  I glanced up to see Audrey, Gracie’s other best friend, standing from her chair in the corner of the judge’s chambers and holding out my phone. Gracie had slipped it in her purse right before she handed it to Audrey when we arrived.

  We were waiting on the judge to return with the right paperwork, but I was surprised Audrey told me about a phone call. I started to tell her to shut it off, but she interrupted me.

  “I think maybe you should take this call.” She wrinkled her freckled little nose, and her pale green eyes looked worried. “It’s Gracie’s dad. And this is his third time calling in a row.”

  “Did he call my phone first?” asked Gracie.

  Audrey shook her head, her light brown ponytail swinging wildly behind her. “Do you think he found out?” she whispered.

  I shook my head but took my proffered phone from Audrey, concerned about why Jonah had called so many times. I was positive he didn’t know what we were up to, so it had to be something else important.

  “Answer it,” Gracie demanded with a crooked smile. “Or we’ll all be going crazy instead of focusing on our wedding.”

  “Kendall,” I barked after tapping the call button.

  “Hudson, you need to respond to the German company about their offer. I can only hold them off so much longer. I understand if you want to talk things over with Grace first, but at least let them know you’re considering it. Or not, I don’t give a fuck. But—”

  “Jonah,” I cut him off, thoroughly confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Jonah was silent for a full thirty seconds. “You're not in your office, are you?”

  I laughed. “If you thought I was lost in my work and ignoring you, why not just come down to my office?”

  I heard a giggle in the background and rolled my eyes. “You have company.”

  Gracie leaned back from trying to listen in and mimed gagging, making me chuckle. She hated it when she couldn’t pretend her parents' sex life was nonexistent.

  “Exactly. They won’t stop calling me, so I’m calling you. Check your email, respond, and...on a side note, don’t ever let me catch you with my daughter in your office.”

  I barely managed to contain my snort of laughter, but he hung up, so it didn’t matter anyway. There’d already been a couple of close calls during unexpected visits from Gracie. Those instances were an excellent example of how we’d ended up pregnant. Although, deep down, I was positive it had happened our first night together.

  “German company?”

  Gracie’s question brought me back to the present and reminded me that I had no idea what the hell Jonah had been talking about. I navigated to my email and immediately spotted the message he was most likely referring to. A quick read had my jaw on the ground. “They want to buy the software I developed last year. For...holy fuck.”

  Gracie’s brow puckered as she skimmed the email. Then her mouth opened in a wide O. “Holy shit,” she gasped. “Is that...ten zeroes?”

  “Are we ready to get married?”

  Gracie and I both jumped at the sound of the judge’s voice as he strolled back into the room.

  I grinned at my woman arrogantly. “Ready to marry your Sugar Daddy, baby?”

  Gracie smacked my arm and rolled her eyes. “Ew.”

  “Does this mean you’re not just marrying me for my money?”

  She laughed and put her arms around my neck. “You already know I’m marrying you for your cock and because you're an orgasm machine.”

  With all my blood in my pants, I cleared my throat and announced, “Let’s get this over with. We’re late for forever.”

  Epilogue

  Grace

  I was feeling kind of grouchy as I walked up the steps to Charlie’s house after my mom practically shoved me out the door of my own home. The twins—because of course Hudson knocked me up with two babies the night he finally took my virginity—were going through a hungry phase, and I hadn’t had much sleep the past few nights. All I’d wanted to do was put on my jammies to get comfortable, but she’d insisted that I get dressed up and head over here to take my cousin out to cheer her up. Withstanding my mom’s guilt trips was nearly impossible, so I’d put on a dress and heels, slathered some makeup on my face, pulled my hair back in a low ponytail, fired off a quick text to my husband so he’d know where I was at when he got home from a late night at the office, and headed over to her place.

  A sticky note on her door let me know it was open and directed me to the backyard. I strode through her house and pasted a smile on my face as I neared the French doors that led outside. I didn’t have to fake my smile for long, though. Not when I walked into a fairyland of twinkle lights and candles, with Hudson down on one knee in the center of all that beauty. “What in the world is going on?”

  He flashed me a cocky grin that made my heart flutter as he reached into the pocket of his suit pants to pull out a small, navy blue jewelry box. “I wanted to surprise you, baby.”

  “You definitely accomplished that.” I hurried closer, curious as to why he’d gone to such trouble to give me a present when today wasn’t a special occasion. “How come?”

  He flicked the box open with his thumb and plucked a diamond contour band that was a perfect match for my engagement and wedding rings. “Because my girl deserves the memory of an all-out romantic proposal.”

  “Oh my gosh.” I pressed trembling fingers against my lips as tears welled in my eyes.

  He reached for my other hand and placed the ring on the tip of my finger. “Gracie, my one love. Will you do me the honor of marrying me again?”

  “Yes,” I gasped.

  He slid the ring into place and wrapped his arms around my thighs, lifting me as he stood and twirling me around in a circle. Then he slowly lowered me, kissing his way up my shoulder and neck as my body slid against his. When I was back on my feet, he claimed my lips in a deep kiss that left me breathless.

  “You seem awfully happy that I said yes.” I peered up at him, tilting my head to the side. “I’m not sure how you didn’t realize I was a sure thing since I’m already your wife and the mother of your children.”

  He grinned down at me, humor shining from his gray eyes. “It’s probably because I had a brief flashback in time when I referred to you as my girlfriend to Charlie’s guy right before you got here.”

  My nose scrunched up as I asked, “Why’d you do that?”

  “I needed them to get out of there and didn’t want to waste time explaining why I was proposing to my wife.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “And it worked because they were gone before you arrived.”

  I couldn’t imagine that it would’ve taken very long to explain what he was doing, but I tried to avoid asking too many questions when guy logic was involved. “You’re such a boy.”

  “You’re such a girl,” he retorted with a huge grin on his gorgeous face. “Which is why I know you’re going to love putting together a huge wedding where we can renew our vows with all of our family and friends surrounding us this time.”

  Hudson had given me the perfect proposal, and I could hardly wait for us to have the wedding of my dreams. “I really will.”

  * * *

  Four months later

  It was a good thing that Hudson and I were already married because our wedding was turning into a comedy of errors. On the way to the venue, the limo broke down, and my bridal party and I had to wait thirty minutes for a new car to rescue us. By the time we got there, my hair was a frazzled mess. Audrey called the hairdresser and resorted to shameless begging to get her t
o agree to come fix the style that had taken her almost an hour to do earlier.

  Then we discovered that the florist had somehow mixed up the bouquets for my bridesmaids with the ones for another wedding across town. She was hurriedly trying to create three more for me since the other bridal party was smaller than mine. Luckily, the colors were similar enough for us to get away with using them because the other bride had apparently been reluctant to give up the gorgeous arrangements that were a match to my bouquet. I’d assured the florist that I was totally fine as long as she figured out a way for all of my bridesmaids to be holding flowers of some kind in time for us to walk down the aisle.

  But the trouble hadn’t stopped there. The zipper on my dress broke, and my mom had to do a quick makeshift repair so that it would stay up. The clasp on my diamond bracelet wouldn’t catch until my dad came in and used one of the tools on his pocketknife to clamp the metal together. Then Kate, my daughter, pitched a fit and wouldn’t calm down until she saw her mommy. So my mom brought her to the bridal prep room when they should’ve been taking their place in the first row where she could’ve waved at her daddy who was already waiting for me.

  By the time I calmed her down, we were running almost a full hour late. But I refused to allow anything to take away from my dream wedding day. I pasted a big grin on my face while my mom carried my daughter out of the room.

  Audrey thrust a glass of champagne into my hand. “Here, you look like you could use this.”

  Everyone giggled over how quickly I gulped down the drink. Charlie brought the bottle over and filled my glass again. “If you drink that fast enough, I just might be able to pour you a third before we have to go.”

  “That’s probably not a great idea.” Faith yanked the glass out of my hand when it was still half full. “With everything that’s gone wrong today, you’d probably end up breaking something if you try to walk down the aisle after three glasses of champagne.”

  I’d barely eaten anything today and wasn’t much of a drinker, so I couldn’t argue with her logic. “You make an excellent point.”

  Allison eyed my stiletto heels and strode across the room to grab a few French pressed sandwich bites from the tray my mom had dropped off when she arrived. After dropping them onto a small plate, she brought it over to me. “Here, you’d better eat something while you still can.”

  I shoved one of them in my mouth and hummed in pleasure at how delicious the sandwich was. I only managed to eat one more before the wedding planner knocked on the door to announce that it was time to line up. Setting the plate down to grab my bouquet, I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

  Faith was the first one to the door as she mumbled, “If I ever fall in love, I’m going to give serious consideration to eloping. Then I won’t have to worry about all the stress of a wedding.”

  After how our dad had reacted to the news of my courthouse wedding, I briefly considered warning my sister off an elopement. But then I decided against it because I could remind my dad of what she’d done whenever he complained about how Hudson and I got married.

  I followed my bridal party out of the room and eyed the bathroom door. Figuring I had just enough time to run in and swish my mouth out with water before popping a mint—since I didn’t want to taste like champagne and sandwiches when Hudson kissed me—I poked Audrey in the back. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  “You better hurry up,” she warned.

  “I’ll be super quick,” I promised as I darted down the hall to the bathroom. Even though it didn’t take me long, Audrey was already all the way down by where my dad was waiting to walk me down the aisle. In my rush to join them, I tripped over my dress and would’ve probably broken something like Faith had said if someone hadn’t caught me from behind and settled me back on my feet. Glancing over my shoulder, I mumbled, “Thank you,” to the guy who’d saved me. He was wearing a black suit that looked as though it had been made for him and added to the air of danger he exuded. I didn’t recognize him, but Hudson had invited some people from work, and I could easily picture this guy doing heavily classified black ops work.

  “No problem,” he assured me on a raspy growl.

  My dad must’ve rushed over because he gripped my arm and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I probably should’ve gone with a smaller heel.” I lifted the hem of my dress and wiggled my foot. “Luckily, someone was here to rescue me from myself.”

  “Who?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and realized it was just the two of us in the hallway now. It was as though the guy had disappeared into thin air, reinforcing my belief that he was someone Hudson worked with. But it didn’t really matter who he was because the music shifted to the bridal march. “Never mind, we need to get in there before anything else goes wrong.”

  “Be careful, sweetheart. You don’t want to jinx yourself,” my dad rumbled as he tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow and guided me toward the doors.

  My dad’s warning was the first thing that popped into my head less than ten minutes later when we were in the middle of the ceremony and the fire alarm went off. “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I cried as Hudson swept me off my feet and rushed me out of the building.

  The wedding planner guided everyone across the street, where we all waited until a fire truck came racing down the street and screeched to a halt in front of the building. Hudson held me close as a bunch of firefighters ran inside, while my mom and Faith each had one of our twins. Hope, my youngest sister who wasn’t even a full year older than my babies—because of course my dad wasn’t done knocking my mom up yet—was trying to get my dad to put her down.

  Laughter bubbled up my throat, and I buried my face in Hudson’s chest while the chaos of our families surrounded us. My husband made soothing noises, stroking my back while I blocked everything else out except for the feel of being close to him. We stayed like that for however long it took the firemen to clear the building. When one of them crossed the street to speak to us, Hudson tucked me into his side.

  The firefighter pulled his helmet off and wiped his brow with his forearm before announcing, “It was a false alarm. You’re cleared to reenter the building.”

  “Of course, there was a freaking false alarm right in the middle of the ceremony,” Faith sighed, drawing the fireman’s attention. A muscle jumped in his cheek as his gaze dropped to where she was holding Kate, who wasn’t paying any attention to him because she finally caught sight of me and started to shriek for her mommy.

  “I’ve got her.” Hudson dropped a quick kiss on the top of my head before striding over to grab Kate. He lifted her in the air until she squealed. I searched the crowd for Audrey, hoping she still had the little bride care kit that she’d put together on her because I really could use an ibuprofen right about now. I didn’t see her anywhere, though. I couldn’t imagine that she’d gone very far since the fireman had just announced it was safe to go back inside. Hopefully, I’d be able to find her soon.

  “C’mon, Rush,” one of the other firefighters called, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the truck. “We can’t leave without you since you’re the one driving the rig today. Quit gawking at the pretty girl and get your butt over here.”

  Faith didn’t tear her eyes away from the guy who’d been shamelessly checking her out until he climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. Mindful of the fact that our dad was standing only a few feet away, I lowered my voice as I teased, “Maybe you’d better start researching the best places to elope sooner rather than later.”

  My sister rolled her eyes and huffed, “I’m not even eighteen yet.”

  “True.” I pointed at our mom, who was holding Joshua, and quirked a brow. “But I got pregnant with twins the day I turned eighteen, so you never know what’ll happen when you fall in love.”

  “Whatever.” Faith gave one last look at the fire truck as it pulled away from the curb. Her shoulders slumped a little as she wandered o
ver to take her niece back from my husband.

  Hudson sidled up next to me and flung his arm over my shoulder. “Ready to head inside and get back to our ceremony?”

  “I have a better idea.” Tilting my head back, I grinned up at him. “How about we bypass saying our I do’s again since we’re already married? Celebrating with everyone we love is what really matters, so I think we should just skip straight to the festivities.”

  “Whatever you want, baby.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Hudson agreed so quickly. My gorgeous husband had always been all about giving me what I needed.

  Epilogue

  Hudson

  Four Years Later

  As I walked downstairs after getting our two youngest to sleep, I heard the twins squabbling in the living room. This wasn’t anything new for Joshua and Kate. Ever since they hit the terrible threes, they started to show their love for each other by bickering. Sibling rivalry was alive and well in the Kendall household.

  “You’re such a boy,” Kate grumbled with a stomp of her foot.

  “You’re such a girl,” Joshua retorted, rolling his eyes.

  Our children echoed the back and forth that Grace and I had been saying to each other for years, but their version was meant as an insult. “Okay, kiddos. That’s enough.”

  “But Dad—”

  Joshua’s complaint broke off mid-sentence when he caught the glare I leveled his way. “I don’t want to hear it. Especially not when your mom is trying to hit an editing deadline and needs quiet.”

  “It’s not like she can hear us,” Joshua argued, crossing his arms against his chest.

  “Yeah, she has her headphones on,” Kate chimed in, mimicking her brother’s pose.

  I’d bought Grace a top-of-the-line pair of noise-canceling headphones so she could block out all the racket the kids made whenever creativity struck. All of her years of reading had paid off big time when she hit the bestseller list with the first children’s book she wrote, back when she was on bed rest for the last month of her pregnancy with the twins.