Page 56 of Ruthless Heart

I pick him up and cuddle him against my silk camisole. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you woke up.” I kiss him and climb back in bed.

Liam’s lying on his side facing us with a heavy-lidded gaze. I kiss Brady again before laying him on his back between us. The baby sniffles and pouts as tears drip down the sides of his face.

“All right,” Liam says soothingly, rubbing the baby’s belly through his pajamas. “Go to sleep now.”

Brady snuffles and then his lids droop and close. Within minutes, he’s sound asleep again.

“Hey,” I whisper, stroking my fingertip over Liam’s temple.

“Yeah?”

“I really like your family.”

“Good, because they’re going to be your family, too.”

“You’re relentless.”

“That I am.” Liam rolls onto his back and closes his eyes. It doesn’t take much longer for Liam’s breathing to become deep and even, too.

Brady kicks a leg onto his dad’s arm, one little foot digging into the crook of Liam’s elbow. Neither of them stirs.

The tension melts out of my body, and I have to admit, if only to myself, that this works for me.

CHAPTER18

OLIVIA

The next few days are happy ones. Aiden starts showing up in the morning and spends most of the day. He’s funny and makes time to sit on the floor to play with Brady, who he addresses as “nephew.” It’s the cutest thing.

I decide not to care how much money is spent on us, which frees me to marvel at the shiny new graphite gray BMW SUV that replaces my car and to help joyfully unbox a mountain of new games, toys, and books for Brady.

When I relent and look at a jewelry site with Liam, it’s less than twenty-four hours before a diamond and peridot engagement ring is hand-delivered to the house. It’s unique and delicate and very beautiful. The pale green stone is my birthstone, but it also feels vaguely Irish, which seems appropriate.

Liam takes my hand. “Olivia, will you marry me?”

In almost no time at all, I can’t imagine our life without him. “Yes.”

His smile is pure sunshine as he slides the ring on my finger. “I’m happy, and I’m going to make sure you are, too.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling back at him. “Please do.”

* * *

A weekafter we’ve moved in, Aiden brings a girl to the house with him. She is so beautiful her features look like an AI created them. Possibly to counteract that dazzling effect, she wears a black bandana over her honey-colored hair, a graphic tee with a jaunty skull smoking a cigarette, and a pleated hunter green skirt that only reaches mid-thigh.

Her name is Ashling, and she gushes over Brady, saying he could practically be her nephew Finn’s twin. Her personality is just as dazzling as her beauty. She’s funny, self-deprecating, and sometimes downright silly. Brady abandons everyone else to play with her, which she says is because she’s a professional baby wrangler and spends a lot of her time surrounded by little kids.

“I have to go back to school, but I’m not in a rush,” she announces, between blowing soap bubbles from a bubble dispenser she digs out of her purse.

Ash drinks two Prickly Pear sodas and a cappuccino and announces that Brady needs swim lessons immediately because Liam has a pool. She’s right, so I enroll him in a “swim lessons for babies” class.

When Brady’s taking his nap, we have time to sit alone and talk.

“Are you dating Aiden?”

She grins. “No. Just friends.”

I don’t know if she’s being coy or sincere, but I don’t push it. We end up watching some horrible housewives television show.

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