Page 146 of Forbidden Hearts
I’m so confused. “What are you freaking out about?”
“You’re hurt!”
I hear Emmeline in the background. “Sorry! You got it from here.”
Phoebe starts to climb the hill, and I walk to meet her, extending my hand. “I’m not hurt,” I tell her with a soft laugh.
“No? Then why the hell did I have to rush out of there?”
I pull her with me until we reach the top so we’re standing under the string lights and in the center of hundreds of battery-operated candles on the ground. Olivia and Sara stand off to the side, and Sara moves in front of Liv so she can translate.
“What? Olivia?” Phoebe asks and then looks around more. “Oh. Oh you’re . . .”
I get down on my knee and take her hand in mine. “When I hired you, my plan was to get rid of you at the soonest available opportunity. You weren’t right for Liv or me. I thought after you lied to me on that first day, I would fire you and that would be that, but I couldn’t. I think, even then, I knew something about you was special. I think I knew the minute I saw you with Olivia that you were going to flip my world upside down. I had no idea that you’d capture my heart and soul. I didn’t know that you’d be my starting point and finish line, the reason I breathe, why the sun rises and falls. You are the rays of sunlight in my ever-cloudy skies, as you said.” Phoebe laughs as tears stream down her face. I release her hand and sign the rest.“You are my sunshine, and I don’t want to spend a single day without it. Marry me?”
She gets down on her knees in front of me, takes my face in her hands, and brings our foreheads together. “Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
epilogue
PHOEBE
~Five Months Later~
“You are stunning,” Asher says, coming up behind me and resting his hand on my now incredibly swollen belly. I’m eight months, and I swear, I made Lucy retest me two months ago because I hadn’t even been showing yet. She kept telling me it would happen, but because I’m small, it wouldn’t be early.
Then, a week later, there was a bulge.
“I’m not sure stunning is the word I’d use, but . . .” I place my hand over his, the emerald cut diamond glimmering in the light. “Do we have to go to this event?”
It’s the annual Christmas dinner and tree lighting ceremony. This year, Asher gets to flip the switch, much to my father’s dismay. Aside from wanting to laugh as I watch my father snub Asher, I really have no desire to go.
“I begged you to run away with me and get married,” he says against my ear.
“For the love of God,” I grumble, letting my head rest on his chest. “We will get married, Ash. Just not now. Olivia has dealt with enough upheaval in her life, and there’s no reason we need to marry before the baby comes. Which will be any damn day now if we go based on my expanding stomach.”
He tried to convince me to elope when we got home from Cloverleigh Farms, but I wasn’t having it. I want a real wedding, not some thrown-together mess because I’m pregnant. I want the white dress, my dad to walk me down the aisle, and food—lots and lots of different kinds of food. That isn’t something I could have if we got married right now because I can barely eat without feeling nauseous.
Somehow, my pregnancy decided to be ass backwards, and I didn’t have all this early on. No, I hit my third trimester and developed the most insane food aversions ever.
“All right, I’ll stop pissing you off.”
“Doubtful, but you could at least stop with the wedding. My father has made it perfectly clear that, if we run away, he’ll shoot you.”
Asher laughs and releases me before walking over to the bed where I laid out his suit. “I’m pretty sure he’s itching for a reason anyway.”
I turn to face him, leaning against the dresser. “Because you talked about moving again?”
He nods and then starts to undress. “He told me we were being selfish to think about taking his grandchild away, even if it was for you to finish school.”
I haven’t told anyone this, but I decided I won’t be attending Vanderbilt or Texas next year. I applied to Penn State and have already pretty much been told that I’ll get in. Bobby, the owner of Talking Hands, knows the dean and explained to him why I deferred and how I was working with him. So, now I’m just waiting for my acceptance letter.
It’s two hours away, and I can take most of the classes online, and for the classes I have to be on campus for, I am sure I’ll be able to find someone to watch the baby.
While it wasn’t my dream school, I’m living my dream life, and that matters more than anything.
“Well, he’ll get over it, no matter what we decide.”
He drops his shirt, and I stand here gawking. Dear Lord, he’s freaking perfect. No matter how many times I’ve seen him naked, he still makes my mouth water. All that yummy muscle under those clothes is just for my eyes, and I like it.
