I’d give her everything I had. It would never be enough. But I would always keep trying, and I’d be a happier man for it.
“So, that was...unexpected,” I said a few minutes later as we recovered our breaths, standing side by side against the counters.
Nina smiled through a waterfall of hair before she pushed it out of her face. She wore no makeup in the night, her hair tousled still from the late summer humidity, cheeks flushed from the heat and my attentions.
She had never looked more beautiful.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “I just saw you…and I needed you.”
“Been happening a lot lately, hasn’t it?” I asked, picking up her left hand and raising it to my lips. “You haven’t been able to keep your hands off me for the last month, doll.”
Nina smiled shyly. “I suppose I haven’t. Though you haven’t been arguing.”
“And I never will, baby.”
“I was thinking,” she murmured as I continued to pepper her hand with kisses, “that we should elope.”
I lowered her hand. “Come again?”
“I know we talked about a large church wedding next spring, but I…”
She took both my hands, flatted them palms up, and pressed her hands on top of them, as if measuring the area she could cover with her slender fingers. Then she took my hands, rotated them down, and pressed them into her body. Flat over her belly through the sleek silk fabric.
I looked up. “Wait…are you…”
“You can’t be truly that surprised. We have used protection sporadically at best the entire time I’ve known you.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Matthew,” she interrupted. “I’m pregnant. Are you…are you okay with that?”
“Am I okay…” I drifted off, unable to do much more than repeat her words. “Am I okay…” I exhaled, long and low. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m…”
Suddenly, I didn’t want any more distance between us than was strictly necessary. I pulled her tight against me, wrapping one hand around her waist, the other around the nape of her neck, to cradle her close.
“I’m so fucking happy I can hardly breathe,” I whispered as I rocked her gently back and forth. “And I love you so goddamn much.”
Nina sighed with clear relief. “Oh, Matthew. I’m so happy too. You have no idea.”
Then she pressed her hands on my chest so she could lean back and look at me.
“Please,” she said. “I want to start our family whole. We’re going to Tuscany next month anyway so Olivia can meet her sisters. Let’s do it then. Maybe in that little church in Vernazza. We can take your sisters and your grandmother and invite Eric and Jane. A few friends. Simple. Small. What do you think?”
It wasn’t how I originally pictured it. I saw Nina in a big white dress, maybe at Our Redeemer, or if she wanted it, St. Patrick’s in midtown. A damn big affair, a way of announcing to the city that seemed to try to thwart us at every move: this woman is mine.
But would an affair like that really be for us?
Or would it be for everyone else, just like the way we had lived our lives for the past year and a half?
“All right,” I agreed at last. “Let’s do it. Let’s get married next month in Italy.”
Nina smiled, and her face lit up the entire room, brighter than any star in the night sky.
“But you know,” I added. “That means I’m going to want to call you Mrs. Zola, doll.”
“I don’t care what you call me,” Nina said as she touched her nose to mine. “As long as we’re honest about what we are. And as long as I’m finally yours.”
THE END
Want to read about Nina and Matthew’s Italian wedding? Check it out in the extended epilogue here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/RGExtendedEpilogue
To receive a first alert email about Frankie and Xavier’s story, click here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/secretbaby
While you wait, explore some of the other characters of the Rose Gold world.
Read Jane and Eric’s story here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/thehatevow
A fast-paced, enemies-to-lovers, marriage-of-convenience romance!
Start Skylar and Brandon’s story, FREE here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/legallyyours
A billionaire-student romance with a twist!
Also by Nicole French
The Hate Vow
Eric de Vries. Looks like millions. Worth billions. A body like the David with a mind to match.
Unfortunately for this wayward heir, to keep his money, he needs a wife. And of all the women in the world, he chooses me.
Too bad I've hated him for five years, since he took all my tears and tossed me away. The guy slept his way through half of New England and discarded women like hotel toiletries.
Been there. Done that.
Still...what would you do for twenty million dollars? Would you wear the dress? Fake a smile for the man who broke your heart?
Or would you run far, far away?
Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll see you at the church.
Start reading here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/thehatevow
Legally Yours
I had a plan.
Finish law school. Start a job. Stay away from men like Brandon Sterling.
Cocky, overbearing, and richer than the earth, he thinks the world belongs to him, and that includes me.
Yeah, no. Think again.
It doesn’t matter that his blue eyes look straight into my soul, or that his touch melts my icy reserve.
It doesn’t even matter that past all that swagger, there’s a beautiful, damaged man who has so much to offer beyond private planes and jewelry boxes.
But I had a plan: no falling in love.
I just have to convince myself.
Book I is available FREE: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/legallyyours
Bad Idea
Repeat after me: stay away from the hot girl.
The beautiful girl.
The f**king ray of sunshine in the middle of your delivery route.
Layla Barros is everything I never knew I wanted. Everything I’ll never have.
She’s an innocent young student.
I’m a convicted felon.
She’s rich girl from a nice family.
I’ve got nothing but a broken home.
But if I’m an addict, she’s my drug. I can’t stay away, even though I know I’ll ruin her in the end.
She might be the girl of my dreams, but
