Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“I know it is,” he said, teeth nipping my earlobe as his hand slid up my belly.
I glanced down, seeing the ring on his finger I’d slipped on just four months ago. I still got all warm and gooey inside when I saw it. And finally understood why, all during our engagement, he would always turn my hand to look at my engagement ring on my finger.
It had been a gorgeous wedding.
Lots of flowers.
All of our loved ones.
Even some of the other Five Family members had shown up.
One of them, Anthony Costa, who’d done most of the work on our condo, had nearly knocked over our wedding cake, but had been pulled away by his tie at the last possible second by his wife.
But other than that, it had gone off without a hitch. Save for a particular floral arrangement that had caused a lot of stir, all of the capos standing around talking in hushed voices with concerned eyes until Saff had grabbed my hand, dragged me over there, and demanded that Rico tell me what was going on.
And that was that the flowers had been sent by my brother.
He hadn’t made contact since Rico and the others had driven him out of the city. I honestly hadn’t even cared to keep tabs on him, to know what he was up to. After what he’d done in my past, he’d forfeited his right to my future.
The flowers had been daisies, my favorite when I was a kid. And the card had been a simple I’m sorry. You deserved better. I hope you’re happy.
I didn’t hate Jake. Even after everything.
But that didn’t mean he was forgiven.
It didn’t mean he would ever be allowed in my life again.
I had my real family now.
The ones who would do everything in their power to protect me, to support me. The ones who genuinely loved me.
“This is very unprofessional of us,” I said as Rico’s hands slid under my shirt and slipped under the cups of my bra, cupping me, teasing.
“When has that ever stopped us?” Rico asked, grinding his hardness against my ass.
“That’s true,” I said, thinking of all the times we’d been just like this in the office of the meat shop. During workdays. After hours. We could never keep our hands to ourselves.
So I took a little lunch break with my husband.
Seven weeks later, when I was two weeks late, I was pretty sure we could pinpoint that little rendezvous as the moment we conceived our first child.
Rico - 3 years
“You’re not going to break her,” Renzo told me as I hesitated to lift our grumbly daughter out of the incubator in the room while Lore helped Kick in the bathroom.
“She’s fucking tiny,” I said, watching as she wriggled hard against the tight straight jacket thing she was stuffed inside of.
I’d been close to her, had run a finger down her face, had stuck my finger in her little hand. But I hadn’t held her yet.
I tried to make it sound like it was because she needed to be close to Kick for feeding and shit like that. But the truth was, I was terrified to pick her up, sure I might crush or drop her simply because I had no idea what I was doing.
“Here,” Renzo said, scooping up my newborn, giving her a little rock to settle her, then pressing her against my chest, giving me no choice but to put my arms around her.
She weighed nothing.
I was pretty sure Evander was twice her weight, easy.
“Finally,” Kick said, making me look up to see her coming out of the bathroom taking shuffling steps with Lore holding her arm. “I was starting to worry she was going to think her Uncle Bass was her daddy.”
Yeah, I had to give Bastian credit, he had no fear.
He’d walked in a few hours after Kick delivered the baby, scooped her up, and started to tell her all the ways the two of them were going to make her parents’ lives more difficult. It was a plan that began with toys that sang and ended with a drum set. And, potentially, an entire litter of puppies.
I had no idea where his ease with kids came from since he, arguably, had spent less time with them than I had. But I was going to have to take a page out of his book and get comfortable with the delicateness.
Lore and Renzo excused themselves, having their own family to get back to, and I brought the baby over to the bed with Kick to nurse.
“She’s perfect,” Kick said.
“She gets that from you,” I said.
“I’m sitting here with ice panties on and two-day-old greasy hair,” she said, scrunching her nose up. “I’m far from perfect.”
That was where she was wrong.
Because lying there in the bed with our baby, I was pretty sure she’d never been more gorgeous.