Page 41 of Room One Hundred and Five

“There you are, little flower.”

Speaking off…

Stefan steps around Adrian and pulls me up from the large chair, placing me over his lap. I lean in and kiss the top of his scar and then the bottom. “Hey right backatcha.”

“Are the words coming, beautiful?” Stefan gestures toward the laptop and the open word document.

I lay my head on his shoulder and let out a heavy sigh, knowing the words are in fact not coming at all. I have three major distractions keeping my hands on anything but them.

“Mm-Hmm,” I smoothly fib.

Emilio’s warm laugh is low and rumbles over my senses. “Liar. After this, we promise to leave you be so you can get back to your fourth love. We’ll just be in to drop strawberries into your mouth and give you kisses of encouragement here and there.”

Bliss. If it ever happened that way. Seven months of living together and none of them have left my side so I don’t hold out a lot of hope. If two go off to handle business, the other stays. After years of being alone, it’s nice to have people who love me.

After they made sure I knew they treasured for me and not my last name, all three men explained why they were desperate to have children. It broke my heart for them and the sister Adrian lost. And speaking of his family, Adrian’s father isn’t happy about them hooking up with someone who can’t give him grandchildren, but his happiness is not on me.

And I’m okay with that.

“Luna just dropped off her notes on my latest project. Did you take care of everything with the paintings?”

“It’s finally done. Astor Enterprises is safe. We managed to pay off my father’s debts today. Anything from here on out is on us. He’s out with no more access to the purse strings.”

Stefan places a kiss on the end of my nose and pulls me deeper into his embrace. “You're safe from people like William. No one with ill intentions will ever get close to you again.”

“We second that.” Emilio points at him and Adrian, before blowing me a kiss.

This man.

I sigh heavenly. My heart melts a little more every day for the man who I am slowly helping ditch a terrible smoking habit. Right now Emilio handles his nerves by toying with his lighter. Ugh. But one bad habit at a time.

“We need to talk.”

Emilio lowers his weight onto the arm of the chair while Adrian comes to kneel in front of us wearing a scowl that has the hair on the back of my neck tingles.

“Oh?” I sit up in Stefan’s lap and brace for terrible news from the dark expressions on their faces. “What’s up?” Old trauma has the knots in my stomach returning.

“Easy, Stella.” Those two simple words from Adrian helps me shake off the knee jerk reaction.

Stefan nails his brother with a scowl. “Damn man,” he huffs gruffly, “Work on your delivery.”

“Sorry, baby. It’s been a long day. I need to work on delivery.”

I don’t know why I keep expecting the other shoe to kick me in the ass. I know neither of them will treat me like William did. I guess it will take a little while to erase all the fear that man left me with.

I look between all of them. “Is everything okay?”

Stefan moves my hair to the side and kisses the soft slope of my shoulder. “Remember how we talked about adopting a few weeks back?”

My heart rate spikes. “Yeah.” I look at Adrian. Then to Emilio. “I do.”

Adrian places papers in my lap but instead of letting me look at them, he takes my hands in his and waits for my gaze to meet his.

“This is for when you are ready. We wanted to make sure we had all the information available so we could make a list of questions we had and maybe start the ball rolling. Again. When you are ready.”

“I’m ready.” Tears fall, but these are made of happiness and so much hope. “Like right now.” I close my laptop and move toAdrian’s lap. His arms automatically come around me and his hands cradle me to him. I rub my nose against his and we stay like that for a second before I hear Emilio let out a little sigh of impatience.

“Where’s my kiss?” Emilio’s warm smile is everything but jealous. He holds his arms open for me when Adrian hands me to him gently, placing a kiss on my lips.

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