But I’d also been around April enough to know she wanted the best for Shea. The best for Kallie. And just like my guys, she would support Shea through whatever decisions she made.
The day passed, and Shea and I ordered dinner in, sat at that big table set for eight and ate over candlelight. We fed each other pieces of lobster and steak and cheesecake, pretty much acting like a couple of lovesick teenagers, which was exactly the way I felt.
When we finished, I pushed our spent plates aside and set Shea in their place. In the gentle flames of the candles flickering across her face and glowing against the vast bank of windows in the backdrop of night, I made love to my wife.
I spent the rest of the weekend taking her in every room, on every surface, in every way. Fucked and tasted and adored.
Then just like I warned her I would, I turned right around and did it again.
Best. Birthday. Ever.
“YOU DON’T REALLY BELIEVE in Prince Charming, do you, Butterfly?” April teased, lifting the to-go coffee cup to her mouth.
Giggles floated on the breeze gentling through the afternoon air, and Kallie kicked her head back and let her sweet laughter free as she held her own tiny cup filled with hot chocolate between two chubby hands.
Her big girl drink.
“Uh-huh, Auntie April,” she said with all the childish authority she could muster.
She sat on her knees, chair pushed up close to the metal patio table where we relaxed on the wide sidewalk outside our favorite coffee shop in the old part of Savannah. Overhead umbrellas protected us from the sun, and a quaint, peaceful feeling held fast in the atmosphere.
“There are so, so, so many princes! I’ll show you. I got lots in my books right up in my room. And me and my momma are gonna get on a plane and fly far, far away and go to Cowiforna and my daddy is gonna take me to Disneyland and I’m gonna meet all of ’em.”
Love filled me so completely it became difficult to breathe. Every time my precious daughter called Sebastian daddy it stole my air.
And now it was becoming a true reality.
Permanent.
I’d been home for three days. Married for four. God, it still blew my mind.
I was married to Sebastian Stone.
Did I worry? Fear Sebastian and I had rushed into things too fast?
Of course. I was human…and a mother. A mother who’d lived as a single mother for a lot of years. I’d held onto old insecurities for so long, sometimes it was difficult to let them go, especially after Martin had returned.
But being with Sebastian made me feel freer than I’d ever felt.
And the truth was, I believed in us.
Life wasn’t worth living if we didn’t take the chance to go after what brought us the most joy. Wasn’t worth living if we didn’t fight to be with the ones we loved or work for the relationships that brought beauty into our lives.
Sebastian was all those things, and he was worth it.
Tamar smirked across at me, blue eyes twinkling as she wrapped her painted red lips around the straw of her iced cappuccino.
She’d been giving me crap about the whole eloping thing since the second she’d caught wind.
I hiked up a shoulder in a What? And if you even say a single thing I will kill you sort of way.
Her amusement only grew. “So the infamous Sebastian Stone became your knight in shining armor, isn’t that right, Shea?”
April chuckled and Kallie giggled like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
“If the bill fits…” I trailed off suggestively.
“Oh, come on, Tamar, you’re just jealous you don’t have a superhot rocker there to worship the ground you walk on,” April cut in, taking a swig of her coffee and sitting back in her chair.
“Pssh.” Tamar rolled her eyes, pure sex and sass. “Like I need some cocky guy to make me feel good.”
Uncontainable laughter burst from April and me. I knew we were both struggling to hold back every inappropriate retort itching to fly from our tongues.