Page 30 of His Cabin Obsession

“Aar…” Dad cuts himself off and pulls off his sunglasses, looking at us both again. “Aaron proposed?”

“I know it’s sudden,” I start.

“Damn right, it’s sudden. Who even is this creep?” Dad asks, wheeling on Aaron. “What kind of man stays with a girl who must be – what – half his age? In a cramped space like that? Instead of being a gentleman and letting her have it? And then proposes in less than a week?”

“If I may,” Aaron says calmly. I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to speak, but what can I do to stop him? “The kind of man that has fallen madly in love with your daughter.”

Dad looks furious. He’s almost spitting as he talks. “This is ridiculous. Olivia, get in the car.”

“Actually,” Aaron says mildly. “I was thinking she could come home with me. It’s good of you to drive all this way, but…”

“But nothing!” Dad wheels and grabs me by the arm. “Olivia, get in the car.”

“Hey.” Aaron takes a single step forward. He’s taller than Dad, more imposing. He’s in great shape with his broad shoulders and muscular arms, and Dad immediately looks intimidated. “Let her go. She can make her own choices.”

“No, she can’t,” Dad snaps. “She’s not even an adult yet.”

“Well, I mean, I am,” I try to interrupt.

Dad shakes my arm to shut me up. “You’re a teenager,” he says. “That’s what the part at the end of your age means. You know? The ‘teen’?”

“She’s old enough to know her own mind, and to legally marry without your consent,” Aaron points out.

This is going very, very badly.

“I don’t care if she’s sixty-five,” Dad shouts. “She’s not getting married to someone she’s known less than a week!”

“I’m not suggesting she should.” Aaron is somehow managing to hold his cool, which I’m grateful for. “We’re engaged, yes. And now Olivia should come and live with me for a while. Get to know each other better. Speaking of which, we haven’t even been introduced. My name is Aaron Stoneforth.”

There’s a small silence. I’m just as shocked as Dad is at Aaron’s words, because I did know his last name until now.

And now everything makes sense. The dinners, the way he could get anything he wanted up here at an hour’s notice. The assistant, the car, the suits.

“Stoneforth?” Dad grunts. “As in, Stoneforth Industries?”

“The same.” Aaron regards Dad coolly. “So, you see, I can give your daughter a very good life.”

“A life that I want,” I insist, seeing my shot. I can’t reel at the revelation that Aaron is a billionaire – I’ve got to force the point now. “Not because of his money, Dad. I only just found out about that myself. We connected here. We’ve spent this whole time in each other’s company with no one else around. We fell in love.”

“This isn’t just a momentary whim,” Aaron says. “I want to make a family with Olivia. I want her to bear my children.”

Maybe I already am, I almost add, but maybe Dad doesn’t need to hear the exact details of what we got up to inside the cabin.

I can see his face beginning to soften. The money, the name, the love, the hint of a family; all of it has sunk into his consciousness.

“There’s nothing I can do to stop you, is there?” he says finally, looking at me. And in that moment, I know he will give us his blessing, because all he’s ever wanted is for his daughter to be happy.

“No,” I say, with a grin that turns into a laugh. “No, there isn’t.”

And when we drive away, Aaron at the wheel, I turn and wave at my Dad, blowing him a kiss. Until now, he was the only man that ever loved me.

But now I have something more, and I couldn’t be happier to start my life with the second man to ever say those words.

Epilogue

Aaron

I walk in through the door and drop my briefcase on the side table, happy to be done with another day of work. I don’t call out a hello – just in case the baby is asleep.

I walk quietly through the house until I find them, sitting in the study I redecorated for Olivia’s use. Harry, our son, is burbling quietly to himself in a playpen, looking intently at a plush dinosaur, while his mother works at a table right beside him.

“Hello, darling,” I say, leaning over to plant a kiss on her forehead. She shifts in her seat to draw me in for a hug and a deeper kiss on the lips.

“How’s work going?” I ask, looking at her laptop screen.

“I’m almost done,” she says, turning the screen away from me with a sly look. “You can read it then.”

I growl under my breath, but I give up, turning to pick up Harry and hold him against my chest. He mumbles cheerfully and laughs, opening and closing his tiny fist over and over again.

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