Page 80 of Savage Love

Until the contractions started in earnest, and I was absolutely certain that I’d rather go back to the early months of throwing up every morning, rather than do this for hours.

They’d told me I had plenty of time, that I could get an epidural, but our daughter clearly wants to see the world as soon as possible. “As adventurous as her mother,” Levin tried to joke when we first realized it, only to be silenced by a withering glare from me.

I’ll apologize later, but for now, all I can think about is how goddamn much ithurts.

It feels like it goes on forever, even though later they tell me it was a fairly quick birth. I tell myself, and Levin, a thousand times over, that we’re never doing this again.

But when I hold our daughter in my arms, I forget all about that. When Levin leans over me and whispers her name, kissing my forehead, I forget everything except the absolute, glowing joy that I feel.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispers. “Little Mila.” The name we’d chosen, while wallpapering and decorating the nursery, while I’d gotten to live moments that I had once thought I’d only dream about. Levin had thrown himself into preparing for the baby, doing everything he could to make sure I never felt that he was walling himself off from the future that we were planning for our family. There were times when he couldn’t help it—times when I saw the old grief creep in, times when he needed space and patience. But it was easier, knowing that he wanted to try. Knowing that those moments would pass, and he would be back with me, hopeful for what was coming—and no longer fearing shadows that had been dispelled.

She cries, and it feels like my heart cracks open in the best way. Like there’s room for all the love in the world in it and not enough all at the same time. “Let’s make another one,” I croak, looking up at Levin with tears in my eyes, and he laughs, smiling down at me as he rubs a thumb gently over Mila’s head.

“Let’s give it a little while,” he says, chuckling. “But I want more, too. As many children as you want. We’ll fill the house up with them. Build another wing.”

Tears spill over my cheeks, because I remember all too well when I’d wondered if I could give our baby even one sibling. Now he’s promising me anything, just as he always has tried to—but now it’s what we both want. Now it means everything.

“I love you,” Levin whispers as he kisses my forehead again, and then hers, his hand wrapped around mine. “I love you both more than all the world.”

—

It feels like days before I can leave my room. The birth took a toll on my body, and I’m confined to my bed with Mila for almost a week before I’m cleared after a follow-up appointment to move around. Isabella watches her for a little while so I can get some air, and I go out to the back of our house, to the small garden I started to plant. It’s nothing like Isabella’s yet—not nearly as lush or as beautiful, but it’s a start. There are roses climbing up the wall of the house, and I’ve planted seeds for peonies and pansies and violets and other flowers that will bloom in time. I’m so busy taking it in, enjoying the fresh air on my face, that I don’t hear the footsteps behind me until Levin clears his throat.

When I turn around, I stare at him in shock.

He’s on one knee in the grass in front of me, a velvet box in his hand. He holds it out, open, and I see the ring that he proposed to me with that night that we decided that we would get married. It feels like a lifetime ago now, as so many things do, but I still remember it.

“Levin—”

He looks up at me, his face as soft as I’ve ever seen it. “You told me that you couldn’t accept a proposal that I didn’t mean,” he says, his voice full of what sounds like yearning—and hope, too. “I mean it now, Elena. You’ve changed everything for me. I love you more than I will ever have words to say, and you’ve given me a future that I didn’t believe I could ever have. I want forever with you. Tell me that you want that too.”

He slips the ring free of the box, holding it in his fingers. “Say you’d marry me all over again, Elena.”

Tears fill my eyes, hot and bright. I hold out my hand, my finger with only the slim wedding band from the day we said our vows and the tears spill over my cheeks. “Yes,” I whisper, looking down at the man I love beyond all reason—that I have loved, for far longer than I was ever supposed to. “I would marry you all over again, Levin. Today, and tomorrow, and every single day. I love you.”

He slips the ring onto my finger—a perfect fit. Just like we’ve always been.

It just took a little while longer for him to see it.

He stands up, gathering me into his arms. “I will love you forever, Elena. Today, and tomorrow, and every single day. You are everything I never knew I needed.”

They’re the wedding vows I wanted. The wedding vows I’ve been dreaming of, said here in our own little patch of garden, in the backyard of our home. It’s better than any grand ceremony.

And it means everything to me.

“We can have another wedding,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my forehead, my nose, my lips. “We’ll do it all over again.”

“I don’t want another wedding,” I tell him firmly. “I didn’t even really want all the pomp and circumstance of the first one, but Isabella insisted. I would have been happy saying our vows at a courthouse.”

“You deserved much better than that,” he says, and I laugh.

“You and Isabella are more alike than either of you know.” I tilt my chin up, taking in the sight of him. “I would take a honeymoon, though. When Mila is a little older, maybe? Somewhere romantic and secluded, just the two of us. Where we can stay in bed all day and wander around cobblestone streets at night and eat in a little restaurant like that one in Rio–” I trail off, feeling a warm glow just at the idea of it. “I would like that. A trip for the two of us.”

“No wedding, then. And a honeymoon that I am more than happy to take with you. What else?” He presses his lips to mine again. “I’ll give you anything you want,” he vows. “This house. More children. Anything you ask for, Elena, it’s yours. You only have to say the word.”

I lean up, kissing him, and I smile against his lips. “I already have everything I want,” I whisper, and this time, I know it’s the truth.

It’s all I’ve ever needed. All I’ve wanted. And now, with the past firmly behind us and the future wide open, it feels like we can have anything.

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