Page 17 of His Perfect Little Heirs

Still, she was my mum. I smile at the memory of her, my hand finding the taut skin over my swelling stomach.

“Sweet girl?”

My smile spreads wider still at his supernatural-like ability to catch my emotions. “If we have a girl,” I say to the garment before turning to face him. “Can we call her Ashlee? After my mother?” His perfectly masculine face softens on me. I amble towards him, saying, “And…” When I reach him, he cups both my cheeks in a way that suggests he wants to cradle every part of me. Hold me. Study me. I crane my neck to hold his attention. “You should name him if he’s a boy.”

He drags his thumb across my lower lip, playing with the soft flesh. “If you give me a girl, we will name her Ashlee, and if you give me a boy, he will be Luca.”

After his father.

I like it. “And if I give you two girls?”

“You won’t.” He watches his finger explore my lip. “Butcher’s very rarely have girls, little deer. Kelly is the first for three generations.”

“You Butcher Boys are powerful swimmers.”

A hint of a smile tugs at his lips. “Indeed.”

CHAPTERSIX

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7thMonth

I’ve known a lot of dirty bastards in my life. I grew up surrounded by them. They didn’t have what I have.

A man has no place until he is living for her. He’s lost, but worse still, he doesn’t know it. He’s aimless. All until his eyes have a focus—her. His actions serve her. His body protects hers. His mind replays her smile.

Cassidy…

My wife.

And the peace she has given me.

Peace and placemats, she calls it.

Beside me, my daughter breathes deeply in her sleep. Her eyes flicker beneath thin skin. When she’s like this, she looks like my wife, and when she opens her grey eyes, mine stare back at me, and I know—I know this little child is mine.

I’ll never forget the first moment I saw her in the flesh. She was already a toddler—I missed her entire life as a baby. She was… I sigh roughly. All thin blonde hair, all hopeful—all her mum—but for those eyes. The same ones that glossed over, gazing up at me like a hero.

A damn hero fresh out of prison…

Then she said, “Daddy.” She knew me.Ofme. I wasn’t a stranger to her. She didn’t blame me for my absence—I deserved all her contempt, but it never came. And I didn’t know a heart could ache without pain until that moment.

I kiss her soft crown.

She settles fast most nights.

I could leave sooner than I do, but I can never bring myself to do it. Not until she is so deep, she won’t feel me leave her… I can’t bear the thought of her watching me leave her— I clear my throat.

With her tucked beside my body, her little head on my bicep, and golden hair in two plaids down her chest, she’s nothing short of everything. Like her mother is. How these two perfect creatures came to be mine, I don’t know. But the part of me that despises everything I am and have done can’t help but fear they’ll be taken away from me.

It scares the shit out of me. Losing either of them, I just wouldn’t—I’d follow them to the gates and wait outside in the cold just to be close.

“Daddy?” she murmurs sleepily, stilling my thoughts before they bury me.

I keep my voice low. “Yeah?”

“Why is the ground hard? When I fall it hurts.”

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