Page 122 of Broken

THREE YEARS LATER

Wondering what I did to deserve an offspring louder than his mother, I pick up the screaming child, who’s only screaming because I’m not about to let him use my collection of Andrea Jura books as building blocks.

When the other two start wailing, I plead, “Mon Dieu, what will it take to stop you from yelling?”

A snicker sounds from the other side of the room, and I twist around to find my wife staring at me, leaning against the doorjamb and somehow managing to look sexier than she should when she’s dressed for business and not to impress.

Wearing a smart pantsuit, not her usual attire of shorts and a cami that always shows just enough to keep me hard if I eye her up, and with her hair twisted into a bun, she reminds me of a secretary. A naughty one.

I want that rope of hair in my hand as I pull her head back and?—

Damn, I need to not have an erection right now.

Her smug smile has me narrowing my eyes at her as Roman manages to swipe jam over my cheek—my desire for cleanlinessfaded after the third time Roman peed on me when I changed his diaper. The first time, I almost had a heart attack. By the third, I didn’t even yell for help, just finished changing him, put him in his cot, and then showered.

“You said five hours,” I grumble.

She grins unapologetically. “The meeting went over.”

“You signed?”

Earlier, she was unsure if the production company who wanted to option one of her titles would have the same creative vision she did. From her smug smile, I get the feeling things went well.

In four years of being together, she’s only managed to write one book.Vows We Break,featuring a lot less sex, a lot more torture, and a priest who killed himself rather than let thecarabinieribring him in for murdering a child predator in his flock, has been on the bestseller lists for years.

Production companies have been after her about the movie rights. With the director she approves of at the helm, this is the only company she’s deigned to have a meeting with.

“I signed.” She winks at me. “Twenty million coming our way.”

My lips twitch at her smug glee. “You’re too rich already.”

“Weare. How many orphanages can we build with that in Oran, hmm? Plus, it’s for them, isn’t it?”

The three children who are more like hellspawn than angels for my comfort.

My nose wrinkles. “Why did we have three children so close together again?”

“Because my body is overactive and you have super sperm?” she teases, strolling in with more of that loose-limbed gait that has my dick hardening.

Again.

At forty-four, I should be too old for these instant erections that remind me of when I was a teenager, but I figure I have a lot to make up for.

When she snags one of the snuffling toddlers who stopped wailing when their mama made an appearance, I haul the others into my arms.

There’s Roman, Thiya, and Arabella, but Roman, despite being the eldest, is the biggest baby of them all.

When his mama isn’t around, he sulks like crazy.

Huffing now that he’s in Andrea’s arms, as if he’s pissed because he was always supposed to be there, the girls and I just roll our eyes at him, but at least they stopped their sobbing too.

I hate hearing them cry, hate it for so many reasons, but though it can make me murderous, how can I slay a table corner they bumped into? How can I slaughter a bottle of ketchup for being empty?

Children wail at the most random stuff, and I have to be honest, it both amuses me and drives me nuts. I think, to a certain extent, it’s also tempered me.

I never expected to have kids, so having three is a gift. But a boy first and two girls ten months later? My punishment.

My mouth curves at the thought, and I press my lips to both golden crowns that bob before me—one comes perilously close to slamming into my nose until I duck out of the way in the nick of time.

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