Page 36 of My Fair Player

“Jett Acton’s wife is pregnant,” Liam said quietly, his voice nearly swallowed by the silence of the room.

Ashley blinked, her mind slowly shifting gears. “Karen?” she asked, trying to place the name. Jett Acton—now there was a man who lived up to his last name. Loud, unpredictable, always doing something to cause a scene, ‘acting’ up in strange ways.

“Yes.”

“Heaven help her,” Ashley murmured with a quiet laugh, though her gaze drifted upward toward his face, trying to read his mood. “Jett is not exactly a ‘calming’persona. Karen is going to need support as her body goes through a bunch of changes. She can’t ‘raise her husband’and a child at the same time. She might as well have twins—or triplets.”

“He can be… challenging, but I don’t think it’s quite like that,” Liam admitted, and there was something in his voice that made her pause. He wasn’t looking away—he was watching her, intently as if waiting for something.

And then she saw it.

That flicker of something unspoken in his eyes.

And she knew.

“Doyouwant a baby?”

“Someday,” he murmured, the word barely above a breath. It sounded like a confession he hadn’t meant to say out loud, something fragile and precious that had finally found its way to the surface. “Do you?”

“Maybe someday,” Ashley said honestly, her voice softer now, careful. “But I’m gone so much with my job, and we’re just figuring this out between us, you know?”

“I know,” he said, the weight of understanding in his tone. And then, slowly, he shifted. He sat up, pulling away from the warm cocoon of their shared comfort, and Ashley instinctively followed, adjusting the covers and tucking them under her arms as she turned to face him. He leaned back against the headboard, thoughtful, his eyes still on her.

“Yesterday was our ninety days.”

Ashley’s breath caught in her throat like a sudden gust of wind stealing the air from her lungs.Ninety days.That was the original deal, the quiet agreement they had made for their so-called marriage of convenience. Three months of shared space, shared names, shared lives—but not necessarily shared hearts. And now, sitting beside Liam in the soft glow of their bedroom, the weight of those ninety days pressed against her chest like a heartbeat she couldn’t quite catch. It felt both impossibly brief and achingly endless.

Why was he bringing this up now?

Her heart began to pound, an anxious flutter that echoed louder in her ears than the quiet stillness around them. Was he having second thoughts?

“So?”

Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it cracked through the silence like lightning.

“I’m just checking to see how you feel,” he said, eyes searching hers—wide, open, and so heartbreakingly vulnerable. “I meant forever, but you’ve never mentioned how you feel about me – about us.”

She stared at him, blindsided. Did he not know? Had she really kept it so close to the vest that he couldn’t see it in the way she looked at him when he laughed? Or how she reached for him at night when she thought he was asleep?

“Liam,” she breathed, her voice trembling with a cocktail of surprise and emotion. She reached for his hand instinctively, like it was the only anchor in the room, her fingers weaving into his as though that small gesture could say everything her lips hadn’t. “You’ve never mentioned how you felt either.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed with sudden intensity.

“Sheesh, Ashley – I love you,” he blurted, the words rushing out in a storm of passion and frustration. His voice cracked on the confession, his disbelief at her not knowing as raw as the emotion written all over his face. “I’ve told you that and…”

“No, you haven’t,” she said quickly, cutting him off, her voice low but firm. She shook her head, her thumb gently brushing across his knuckles. “It’s almost like we’ve both been hanging onto the words, afraid that the other person was going to break our hearts.”

His hand shifted, gently moving to her face, warm and tender, as he cradled her cheek in his palm. Her eyes fluttered closed under his touch for the briefest moment, then opened again to see the truth etched in his features.

“I’m never going to hurt you – and I love you more than anything,” Liam said, his tone a soft promise that wrapped around her like a blanket. “When I saidforever, I meant it.”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as the walls she had so carefully built around her heart crumbled in the face of his honesty.

“I did, too,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “I love you. I loveus, but it’s so perfect between us that it almost feels fragile. Like I might ‘break’ something with our marriage by doing the wrong thing.”

She wasn’t sure when the fear had crept in, but it had taken root quietly—this whisper in the back of her mind that said if she moved too fast, if she leaned in too hard, the delicate balance between them would shatter like glass.

“Having a child would not be the wrong thing,” he said gently, his eyes never leaving hers, his voice deep and reverent. “It would be a chance to leave a marker of our love for generations to come. A part of you, a part of me, cherished and raised with our thoughts, our beliefs…”

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