Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
It wasn’t the fairytale I’d dreamed up. Instead of the white picket fence, it was a metal security gate. Instead of a house in the burbs, it was a mansion under constant surveillance by one of the government alphabet groups. Instead of the ring, I got, well, I got Jasper.
We would probably never get married and some days, it pained my heart, other days, I was determined to love the life I had. To be present in it. To stop wishing for more.
Vanessa accepted Cillian in her arms and snuggled him close with a sweet smile. “He’s got your blue eyes and Jasper’s hair. Watch out for this one.”
“Glad you guys made it back.” She and Emmett had slipped away to the Virgin Islands and eloped while on honeymoon for vacation. “You’ve got a glow that I doubt is from the sun.”
Nessa smiled and shook her head, sniffing his head because my baby boy was the sweetest smelling baby in the hospital. The baby started to cry, and Nessa laughed. “He’s got Virgil’s volume control.”
Everyone laughed, including Jasper, the quietest of all Ashby brothers.
I used to think Cal was the quiet one, but since Sadie was released from the hospital, he was a new man. No longer sullen and angry. He was upbeat, eager to please, and contributing actively to the family businesses. I still couldn’t tell if he and Molly were a thing, but she and I had become good friends with all the time she spent at the Manor.
Jasper scooped Cillian back into his arms and kissed his cheek, melting my heart with that one uncharacteristic move.
He was still a hard man, a ruthless man, he had to be for the life he lived, but there were glimpses of marshmallow that showed me the man he couldn’t show the world. But with our baby boy, he was all gooey inside. “This is for you.”
I took the small box Jasper set on my lap and looked up at him with a question in my eyes.
“What is this?”
I knew what it wasn’t, and I was okay with it.
Really, I was.
“A baby gift, obviously.”
He rolled his eyes and made a little swaying bounce move when Cillian started to fuss.
I slowly opened the box and gasped at seeing the white gold band with three rows of rose diamonds. I smiled up at him.
“This is a little much for Cillian. Maybe in a few years, he’ll like it.”
“I’m asking you, Maureen, to be my wife. I want to marry you with vows and all that good shit. In sickness and in health. In madness and in chaos. I love and in war. All of it. I want to be at your side when it goes down. Successes and failures, it’s you I want to hold in my arms at the start of every day, the end of the night. I love you, Maureen, and I want you to be my wife.”
My heart stuttered to a stop, and I struggled to breathe as his words sank in, every sweet but gruff word of it. He wants to marry me. Oh damn! Jasper wants to marry me. To be my husband. To make it legal.
The words were inelegant and spit out harshly, but they were Jasper’s. They were the most beautiful words I had ever heard, and coming from his lips, the words I longed to hear.
“That’s good to know because I want it with you too, Jasper.”
There was a brief moment of relief, but it quickly passed, replaced with satisfaction because Jasper wanted what he wanted. And right now what he wanted was me. “Damn straight you do.”
I laughed as he slid the ring on my finger and leaned in to kiss me, the scent of a newborn baby between us. “I love you, Jasper.”
“Good, because I love you too.” He stole another kiss while Thomas grabbed Cillian and snuggled him close. We kissed, and though it felt like the world around us had stopped, the background was filled with the sounds of a rowdy, raucous family.
The kiss ended too soon, and Jasper sat beside me on the bed, one arm flung around me as if we’d been together forever as we looked out at the room filled with family.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for giving me a family.”
“Thank you for loving me.”
I cupped his face, and looked deep into his eyes, my heart so full of love I felt like I was having a panic attack. “I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, Jasper. Now that I have you? Just try and stop me from loving you.”
I enjoyed this moment. This flash of happiness that we often took for granted.
Times like this wouldn’t always last, they couldn’t with the way our family did business, but that made it even more important to celebrate these moments. New life brought into the world. Two lives being joined at any age.