the right time yet. We do have a silver lab named Huck.
It’s a large, boisterous group tonight, and we have a great time eating and drinking and laughing and telling stories. As the dinner winds down and people start to give toasts, I get a little emotional.
Until my mother married Pop, I never knew what it was like to be part of a large family group. To have more than one person who you completely trusted—who I could take care of and know they’d take care of me. But that’s what this is. I’m a part of it now.
Despite the ways I’ve grown and changed, I’m still not an openly emotional person, so I don’t indulge the swell of feeling. Damian sees it anyway. He always does.
He leans down and murmurs into my ear, “You okay, baby?”
I nod and give him a wobbly smile. “Of course.”
“You gonna cry?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
His body shakes with quiet amusement as he wraps an arm around me. “You happy?”
I turn my head to give him a kiss. “Very.”
“Hey,” Chelsea calls from across the table. Her pregnant belly is quite large, but she still manages to look perfectly dressed and graceful. She wags a teasing finger at me and Damian. “No canoodling over there. People are trying to give toasts.”
“I know,” I say. “There’s no canoodling happening here.”
“Speak for yourself.” Damian gives me a little nip on the side of my neck that makes me jerk and everyone else laugh.
“Who else has a toast?” Pop demands rather gruffly from the head of the table. He might have softened over the years, but he’s still a rather bossy man.
“I’ve got one,” I say, standing up and raising my half-filled glass of champagne.
Everyone turns their eyes to me, and for a moment I feel a flash of nerves. Why the hell did I just say I’d give a toast? I’m far more comfortable not being the center of attention.
I have something to say, however, so I summon the courage to say it. “I was lonely a long time. I didn’t realize it, but I was. My mother was the only family I had. But now I have all of you. And it doesn’t seem to matter that we’re not connected by blood and genes. It’s a real family. And maybe I occasionally still feel lonely. I think everyone does, even if they’re surrounded by other people. It’s a universal condition. But there’s also an answer for it. And one of those answers is the people you make your family. Thank you all so much for being mine.”
My mom wipes away tears, and Chelsea sniffs as everyone drinks to the toast. The others are mostly smiling, except Damian, whose eyes are deep and tender. He takes my hand as I sit down.
I feel a little shaky but glad I said something. Glad I took the risk.
Damian squeezes my hand and then brings the palm to his mouth so he can kiss it.
“Was that okay?” I ask him in a whisper.
“That was better than okay. And it’s true of me too. I have so much more than I ever dreamed I could.” He’s speaking low and husky, too soft for anyone else to hear. “I have you and so much more.”
I do cry a little. Just a few tears. But Damian is the only one who sees.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: If you haven’t yet read them, the first three books in this series are Part-Time Husband (about Melissa and Trevor), Practice Husband (about Sam and Hunter), and Packaged Husband (about Chelsea and Owen). My next release will be The Remake, which comes out in February. You can read an excerpt from it on the following pages.
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Excerpt from The Remake
BELINDA THOUGHT THEY probably had a number of things in common, and she was as good a catch as anyone else in Azalea. But she’d been sitting here the whole time as Kyle had come in, sat down at the counter, and eaten his breakfast. And he hadn’t glanced over at her once.
It wasn’t surprising. This kind of thing happened to Belinda all the time. Less now than it used