he’s letting on—I know the distance between him and his brother pains him. “He said he’d think about it. Cole is planning to speak with him, and I’m not sure Liam is prepared for that. He’ll be steamrolled.”
Laughing weakly, I turn onto my side and bury my head against his chest. Through all of this, the long nights and my panic and the difficulty with latching, Ethan has been here. Something about the sheer strength of him, his wide smile, his competence, makes for the best anti-stress medication on the globe.
“I’m so very, very happy I did all this with you,” I tell him.
His other arm comes around me, somehow avoiding all the bits of me that hurt. “That’s good,” he says, “because I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else either.”
“I love you,” I tell him. “I’m sorry for being so crazy the last few weeks.”
“That was your right.” He presses soft kisses to my forehead, my cheeks, my closed eyelids, my mouth. “You’d look so good in white.”
I burst into laughter. “Ethan Carter, you never stop trying, do you?”
“I never will. Marry me, Bella.”
I smile against his jaw, burying my face there. “You’re relentless.”
“Don’t you want to?”
It’s the first time he’s asked that particular question, though he’s been mentioning marriage for months. I lean back and meet his gaze with my own, and there’s no fear or concern there. No hint that he’s asking out of a misguided feeling of responsibility.
“I do,” I whisper, running my finger along his cheek. “I really, really do.”
His smile could light up a stadium, but it’s just me here, and I’m hit with the full force of it. My heart leaps into overdrive.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
“I love you too,” I whisper. “But perhaps a small ceremony? Just the five of us, and our parents.”
“The five of us,” Ethan repeats. “I think that might be the best phrase I’ve ever heard.”
“Sounds good, right?”
“Yes,” he says, and then groans. “But it might become the six of us.”
I put my hands flat against his chest. “Hold on there, stud. I’m not ready to be pregnant again.”
“Haven asked me for a dog yesterday.”
“You agreed?”
“She chose a very weak moment. I was sleep-deprived and holding Lucas and there was absolutely nothing I would have said no to. We should be lucky she didn’t ask me for a pony.”
Laughing, I pull him closer. “Some could say the same about your proposal here, choosing a weak moment.”
“They’re not remotely comparable.” He kisses me again, soft and sweet. “You should get some sleep.”
“We both should. The girls won’t be back for hours.”
“Remember when Cole called me a lucky bastard because my perfect woman moved in next door?” Ethan murmurs.
I fight against my impossibly heavy eyelids. “I remember thinking he was wrong, because that was the way it was for me,” I say.
“He was right.” Ethan’s arm tightens around me. “Because you’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted, including the things I’d never thought to ask for. And I’ll never stop loving you for that.”
I swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat. “You’re taking the words right out of my mouth,” I murmur. “Because that’s the way it is for me.”
His lips find mine, and kissing him is home, safe and thrilling at the same time. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” he says, pulling the comforter up and over us. I snuggle closer to him and close my eyes, the feeling of his arms around me all I need. From the foot of the bed, there’s a small cooing sound from our sleeping son.
The one who was as unexpected as he will be loved, born into a home with two clever older sisters and two parents who love each other very much—because I hadn’t lied to the girls when I explained how Ethan and I’d made him. I’d just simplified a tiny bit.
Authors note
Thank you so much for reading!
Ethan and Bella will be back, because the Seattle Billionaires series isn’t over yet… Liam Carter will get his story told in January 2021!
Billion Dollar Catch is book three in the series. Read about Cole and Skye in Billion Dollar Enemy, or about Nick and Blair in Billion Dollar Beast.
ABOUT OLIVIA
Olivia loves billionaire heroes despite never having met one in person. Taking matters into her own hands, she creates them on the page instead. Stern, charming, cold or brooding, so far she's never met a (fictional) billionaire she didn't like.
A voracious reader of romance, Olivia picked up the pen a few years back and what followed was nothing short of a love affair of her own. Now she spends her days giggling at the steamy banter she's writing or swooning at their happily-ever-afters.