Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
“You thought you’d get away from me?” He pins me to the wall. I wrap my legs around him.
“How did you get here so fast?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here. Now stop avoiding my question. You thought you could run from me?”
“I heard you.” I glance away from him, unable to meet his eyes, but he’s not having it. He grabs my chin and pulls my attention right back to him.
“Heard what?”
“This can’t work!” I shout, not wanting to say it.
“Heard what?” He pushes right back. Leo is really pinning me down here.
“That you don’t love me.”
“You think I don’t love you?” His expression turns to one of disbelief.
“I thought maybe it was a fling.”
“A fling,” he repeats. “How many times did I take you without protection, kitten? Anything about that scream fling to you?” I suck in a deep breath. That thought hadn’t even dawned on me. Jesus, I’m naïve. “I love you. I wasn’t giving that to those fucking cameras. I love you more than anything. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’m not going anywhere.”
“I love you too.” I sniff. “I’m not crying.”
“Liar.” He smirks right before he claims my mouth in a hard, possessive kiss.
I think Leo is going to fit in here way more than I ever thought.
EPILOGUE
LEO
“The cats are huge,” Serena says as she collapses in a lounge chair.
“That’s what she said,” chirps Emile. It surprised Quinn and me that these two ended up together. Quinn had said that she thought Serena would end up with Hudson, the vet, but after the show, the two lost touch. Serena was on vacation in Paris when she ran into Emile, and the rest is history.
Serena rolls her eyes and accepts a glass of lemonade. “I can’t wait until the baby comes out so I can have wine again. Marrying an Italian with a whole-ass vineyard and I can’t even drink a bottle is some kind of crime. How did you survive?” she asks Quinn.
“Distraction.” My wife’s eyes twinkle, but she doesn’t dare to look toward me because if she did, she’d likely turn red as a tomato. Already the tips of her ears look pinker than the rest of her body. We spent most of Quinn’s pregnancy fucking. Every spare second, I was taking her, whether it was in the feeder pen bent over a railing, in the kitchen on the table with her legs spread on either side of my ears, or the shower, the bathtub, the barn, the garden—which was a bad idea because I had spider bites on my ass for three weeks—the golf cart, which we drove to the back of the sanctuary to watch the sun set, and yeah, the bedroom.
“If you’re talking about sex which I know you are because your ears are red, forget it. I feel decidedly unsexy. The most I want from Emile is a foot rub.” She slides one of her flat mules off and plops her foot into the count’s lap. He downs his glass of wine and starts rubbing.
“As you are carrying my child, I’m happy to serve.”
“If I wasn’t carrying your child?”
“I’d be rubbing something more than your foot.”
“Fair, but that’s how we got into this situation.” She leans toward Quinn. “Thank you for drinking lemonade with me in solidarity even though you don’t have to.”
Quinn clears her throat. “Well, actually—”
“Don’t tell me you’re knocked up again,” Serena squeals. “We’re having babies together! Yay!”
Quinn beams. “I’m thirteen weeks along.” We have two others that are bedded down for the night.
“Mine will be older than yours, but they can still be besties, right?”
“Of course. Although you do live in Italy, and I live here.” Quinn waves her hand around the sanctuary.
“I’ll just have to spend more time here, and you can travel to us in the winter months. Ever since the show, you’ve been bursting with visitors, haven’t you? Enough that you can take time off now and then?”
“Yeah. It worked out really well. I’m amazed that they were able to use the footage and make it last six weeks.”
“I think it helped that the cameras followed us around afterward. Two couples lasting from a dating show has to be some kind of record. Did you hear about Hudson?”
Emile heaves a sigh. “Why are we bringing up the vet?”
“I wanted to know if Quinn had heard the latest.” Serena wiggles her eyebrows. “Have you?”
Quinn shakes her head. “Of course, you haven’t. You’re busy with your big cats.” Serena sends a wink in my direction. “So, after he ghosted me following the show, he apparently got addicted to pain killers and was nipping from the animal pharmacy. His boss caught him, and he had to go to rehab. When he was in rehab, guess who he met?”
“Who?” Quinn is all ears. To be honest, Emile and I are caught too.