Page 130 of Control's Undoing

Colum nodded.“Aye.Might have helped that I’d woken them up from a sound sleep.They’d been too groggy.Or maybe it’s just because Ju—the Grand Master is pregnant.”

“She is?”Annie asked in surprise.

Colum winced, as if worried he’d revealed something he shouldn’t have, then gave in.“Aye, she is.”

“Are you ever going to tell me who she is?”Annie asked.“After all, I’m not going to be a member of the Trinity Masters anymore, and since Franco is your best friend…” She was only half-teasing her new husband because her nosiness knew no bounds.

Colum shrugged good-naturedly.“I think I’m going tohaveto tell you, since she said she wants us to have a proper fancy wedding with a big cake and she wants to be invited.Besides, Franco is my best friend, and since we’ll be working on the joint archive together, it’s a sure bet we’ll have to travel to Boston from time to time.Especially after the baby is born.Franco…” Colum blushed slightly.“He said I was going to be an uncle.”

Annie’s heart nearly exploded with happiness.Colum, the endearing, lovely man, might be an introvert, but when he cared for someone, they didn’t just become a friend; they became family.

“The big wedding won’t be a problem,” Xavier reassured them.“My mother wants the same.She said if I wasn’t going to work with her as vice admiral, wasn’t going to follow the path she’d been grooming me for my entire life, the least I could do was give her a big wedding to attend and grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren!”Annie repeated, laughing, and strangely not a bit upset about that request.

Xavier nodded.“Oui.She’s been threatening to choose a trinity for me the last few years.Her desire to become a grand mère was slowly outweighing her hope for me to find love.”

Annie had always wanted kids, but that reality had felt so far in the future that she’d never really let herself think beyond the idea of them.Now though…

Now, she could imagine a little boy with Xavier’s dark eyes and mop of thick black hair.Or a little boy with Colum’s green eyes and curly hair.Or perhaps even a girl who looked like Josephine, with her mass of red curls and freckles.Putting faces to those future children had a powerful effect on her, and she could practically feel her ovaries popping out the eggs.

“You want kids, don’t you?”Xavier asked them.

Annie laughed, realizing they’d spent so much time worrying about actually annulling Colum’s marriage and getting permission to wed, they hadn’t had a second to spare talking about what happened after.

“I want them so badly,” Annie admitted, the two of them looking over at Colum, who nodded effusively.

“I never thought I’d be a father,” he confessed, “but now, with the two of you, I can’t imagine anything better.”

“Excellent,” Annie said, mentally composing a checklist of things couples—or throuples, in their case—usually discussed before the wedding.“So we’ll have children.”Then Annie thought of a funny game.“Should we hold up our fingers to show how many kids we want?On three?”

Xavier and Colum laughed, but they both held up their closed hands, ready to play along.

Annie lifted her as well.“One, two, three.”

Annie flashed three fingers, wanting those two boys and that little girl she’d just dreamed of.Her eyes widened when she realized Colum and Xavier had chosen the exact same number.

“Perfect for each other,” Xavier murmured.

“Now,” Annie continued.“The living situation.Obviously, I have to live on this side of the Atlantic, but?—”

“Are you okay with leaving New Jersey?”Xavier asked.

Annie thought about it, then nodded.“I am.I settled there because it was home and familiar, but I’m not afraid of change.Besides, there are auction houses in most big cities.”She glanced at Xavier.“I’ll have to learn French.”

Xavier cupped her cheek.“I will teach you.But you won’t have to learn it for your job.Because I can make France plenty of money as a finance minister while living in Dublin.”

“You’ll both be wanting to stay in Dublin?”The hope in Colum’s eyes made it impossible to say no to that, not that either she or Xavier intended to.

“Of course, that is where your archive is,” Xavier reassured him.“Besides, you’ve promised to let me look at all of Oscar Wilde’s things.”

“You can look at everything,” Colum offered before pausing.“There’s an auction house in Dublin, Annie,” he hastily added.“And we’ll only stay in that little flat of mine until we find our own home.We could remodel the old mews out back, plenty of other houses around Merrion Square have that.It’s big enough for us and our three kids and?—”

“And a cat,” Xavier added playfully.

Annie narrowed her eyes.“I’m a dog person.”

“Fine,” Xavier relented.“A dog and a cat.”

---