Page 136 of Abyss

My eyes bounce from him to the ring and back to him. Is this really happening? Am I in dream land somewhere? “Are you being serious right now?”

One side of his mouth rises before he reaches for my hand, setting it over his heart. “As serious as the heart thundering inside my chest.” He regards me tenderly, with love like I’ve never seen, but only seen in him. “Say yes.”

“Yes!” I leap forward, wrapping my arms around him, my eyes filling with unshed tears. “Yes, yes, yes!”

His arms gather me, pulling me to him as our friends and family cheer and whoop. It’s becoming clear they were a part of this entire stunt.

“Hell yeah! The old geezer’s finally getting married!” Deanyells from Garrett’s screen. “Not gonna lie, old man, I almost lost faith there for a minute.”

“You and me both, brother!” Garrett chimes in before he gets an elbow in his side from Bella while Darian and Rani both laugh.

Plucking the ring from its box, Hudson lifts my finger and wiggles it over my knuckle while I stare at it in awe.

Of him. Of us.

“Holy shit, did you saymorechildren, Dad?” Madison beams from her spot. She’s waiting for an opportunity to jump up and wrap us both in a hug. She’s been looking forward to her dad finding love more than anyone else. “I can’t wait to have siblings, but have you run this by Kansas yet? She can barely tolerate me being your daughter.”

It’s been tough for Hudson to not see his precious horse whenever he wants, but he’s got his eyes on a small ranch right outside the city. Knowing him, he’ll be re-homing her and the others here soon enough.

Hudson chuckles. “I’ll be sure to get her approval on the matter.” He turns to me, whispering into my ear, “What do you say, sweetheart? Will you have my babies?”

I face him before pressing my lips to his, keeping my voice soft. “All in due time, Mr. Case, though I know how much you love having a plan. But, yes, I want to have your babies.”

He pulls me to him, meshing our bodies together, ignoring the “reserve that for the bedroom, Hudson,” from Belinda chiding him through Jett’s phone.

Since her return to work, she serves both Hudson and Jett as their executive assistant. The woman deserves a hell of a raise in my opinion, because there are few who can handle the two brothers and their list of demands and not want to murder one of them.

“Due time needs to start now. Let’s tell these jackasses to leave so we can get started right—”

I press my finger to his lips, raising my brow. The man is ravenous, but seriously, we have guests for one more night.

He grumbles something behind my finger before biting the tip teasingly as Madison and Neil both convey similar expressions of horrification with an, “Eew.”

Madison then jumps out of her seat, wrapping her arms around us, before the others come forward to do the same, congratulating us.

I’m just unwrapping from my hug with Rani and Bella when my mom rushes toward us with a bottle of champagne and a smile as wide as the Mississippi stretched across her face. “I thought maybe we could celebrate with some bubbles!”

My smile falters, my eyes widening when I notice the cage from the nose of the bottle removed and my mother’s fingers under the cork, so much like mine were that fateful day when I slugged my now fiancé in the head with a flying cork.

We’re in slow motion, or perhaps we’re racing at the speed of light, when both mine and Hudson’s hand lands on top of the cork, and we both scream at the same time, “No!”

The End

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