“You don’t have to do this,” Corey says softly.
“No. I really do.”
I push the door open wide to reveal an entryway I remember as if I were only here yesterday.
“Wow. It’s… perfect,” Corey breathes as I step inside.
“Someone comes regularly to keep on top of things.”
“You’ve kept it going all this time?” he asks in disbelief as he follows me down to my favorite room in the house: the kitchen.
He looks around with wide eyes, taking everything in.
“I always planned to come back one day. To make this my home. To allow my kids to grow up with the same incredible memories I have of the place.”
Dragging his eyes away from his surroundings, he turns to me.
“What are you saying, Harlow?” He closes the space between us, his hands resting on my hips as he waits for my answer.
“I’m suggesting that we make this place our home. Our family home.” Taking one of his hands, I slip it around to my belly.
He shakes his head as if he can’t believe it.
“You want us to live together… here?”
“I do. We can’t stay at mine, it comes complete with Bailey,” I laugh. “And your place is nice, but it’s an apartment, and don’t you think our little one deserves this?” I say, gesturing to the floor-to-ceiling windows at the other end of the kitchen that looks out over the land and ocean beyond.
“Do you know that I think?”
I shake my head shyly, not able to get a read on his expression.
“I think you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and I think you’re going to be an amazing mum.”
“Yeah?” I can’t help the wide smile that spreads across my lips at the prospect.
“Yeah. You know what else?”
I shake my head.
“I meant what I said last night. I love you, Harlow. The good, the bad, the ugly… and everything in between.”
A sob erupts at his words, that he’s accepting those parts of me that I struggle to accept myself most days.
“Corey,” I sob. “I love you, too.”
He takes me in his arms and kisses me until we’re both breathless.
“I guess you’d better show me around the rest of our home then.”
“You’re really okay with this?”
“Baby, I’d be okay anywhere. As long as you were there.”
My heart soars at his words, but one look in his eyes and I know he means it.
Some missing part of me fell into place that night he caught me, and I’m not sure it’s a piece I could ever live without again.
Without knowing it, he’s given me the strength to really embrace who I am, who I was. And he’s allowed me to finally get over my fears and, for once, to look to the future and be excited for what’s to come.
Epilogue
Harlow
Three months later…
“Are you nervous?” I ask Corey, whose fingers are incessantly fiddling with the underground ticket in his hands.
“Um…”
“Why? I’ve spoken to your mom countless times on the phone.”
“I know that. I’ve just… I’ve never brought a girl home before.”
Lacing my fingers through his, I rest my head on his shoulder. “You’re cute.”
“I’m anything but cute, Vixen.”
I shrug, my own butterflies fluttering around in my belly. I’d be lying if I said I was calm about this. Corey’s mom is the sweetest, but knowing I’m about to meet her in person does have nerves racing through me. He might have never brought a girl home before, but I’ve never done the whole meet-the-parents thing either, and not just because I don’t have any.
The past three months have been nothing short of amazing. As we both came to terms with the fact that we’d be parents in the not-so-distant future we set to work on getting the house ready for us.
I moved in with Corey, seeing as it was all paid for, while we made plans and set decorators to work on freshening up our new home. I might have wanted our baby to grow up in that house, but I wasn’t overly fond of some of the wallpaper Mom chose all those years ago. Letting go was hard, but I knew it was time to start a new chapter. That house holds so many memories for me; how it’s decorated doesn’t change any of that, and I wanted it to reflect us as a couple, as a new family, not my old one.
We officially moved in two weeks ago. It was a bit of a shock to the system after living in Corey’s small apartment, but we soon found our feet. We’ve turned one of the bedrooms into a den for him to work in when he’s not at the studio; it’s his man cave for when things get too much. He keeps warning me that at some point he’s probably going to freak out, but so far, he’s been nothing short of incredible.
He came with me to my first doctor and midwife appointment, and he held my hand tightly as we went to our first scan and got our first glimpse at our baby. The look of awe in his eyes as he stared at the screen is something I’ll never forget. He never got to do any of this when Carla was pregnant. He might not have said much more about what happened since the night at the hotel, but he’s mentioned his old friend a few times. I see the pain in his features as he does, and I know it’s not because he doesn’t want to tell me about his daughter, more that the pain is still just too raw to find the words. I get it and I’ll give him all the time he needs.
His mother, though… she was less patient, and the second we confessed that we were officially together, she demanded we visit.
To her disappointment, we didn’t jump straight on a plane. We both had busy schedules, plus I was still spending my mornings throwing up, and the idea of doing so on an airplane didn’t really
