beaten into your perfect image, and now... you have no one.”
Straightening, I looked my Malcolm Byrne in the eyes. “I’m moving out for good, and I’m taking my mother with me.”
“The hell you will!”
“I will,” I said clearly. “Forget marrying a rich wife or waiting until I’m twenty-five. I have seven years of abuse and countless witnesses to prove you’re not fit to be her guardian. You got something to say about it, I’ll hear it all in court.”
I crossed to my nightstand, plucking something out as a stream of filth flew from his mouth.
“—waste is exactly what you are! You should have been on that boat! You and that piece of trash stole the best years of my daughter’s life. She could have been a success. Rose to the top. But you two dragged her down and made her nothing! You are—”
Slamming the door shut, I cut off his tirade. “Have yourself a heart attack, you miserable old man. I have somewhere to be.”
Bounding downstairs, I snatched poor Hendrix’s keys off the hook again and took off in his car. A strange, humming fervor took over me. Lighting my nerve endings with sparks.
I was free. I was fucking free of that man forever, and soon—much sooner than six years—my mother would be too.
I swerved into the hospital parking lot and hopped out, rushing up three floors and down a wing to Belle’s room. She, Carter, and Preston jumped when I burst in.
Carter was sharing her bed, showing her something on his phone, and Preston was sharing her lunch. It was the kind of peaceful, relaxed scene I hoped I’d walk into for the rest of my life.
“Nathan,” Belle said, smiling fit to turn me inside out. “There you are. Get in here. There’s room in this bed for you.”
“That is part two.” I reached into my pocket, pulling out the ring box. Her eyes widened as I knelt beside her bed. “This is part one. Belle, I love you. I love everything about you—and not in the way that everyone says it. I love your style and your threats. I love the way you kick me and drool in your sleep.”
She pinked. “I don’t.”
“You do, and it’s the cutest damn thing ever. Everything you do is magic, Belle Adler. You are my fairy tale, and if I spend the rest of my life drowning in you, it’ll be a life lived better than everyone else on the planet.” I bobbed my head. “Except for these two assholes, if you insist on keeping them around.”
Eyes shining, she laughed breathlessly.
“I love you, Belle. Will you marry me?”
Tears dripping down her cheeks, Belle put out her hand... and bopped me on the forehead. “Get off your knees, dummy. We can’t get engaged.”
I blinked. “Uhh... Okay. That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.”
Belle took my hand, dragging it, and me, to her heart. “Nathan, I love you too. That proposal was perfect, and I want to say yes. Just not today.” She looked at all of us. “We’ve been raised to do this all wrong. To get caught up in the heat and romance of a perfect summer, and then jump in with our eyes closed. But I don’t want to do that with you guys.
“I want college, crappy apartments, and eating cold pizza on the floor. I want the awkward meet-the-parents family dinners, and summers backpacking. I want to fight and make up a million times. And then, I want to marry the shit out of you. Can that be okay?”
“That can be more than okay, Belle.” I kissed her soft and sweet. “I’m all in.”
Preston held her hand. “You know I’m not going anywhere, Cinderella.”
“Agreed,” said Carter. “This is another one of those things I’m going to get stubborn about.”
“I love you,” she said.
“We love you too.”
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Belle
“Carter? Carter, will you call the kids in, please? It’s almost time for lunch.”
My love got up from the kitchen stool, clad in an open shirt and trunks. He was playing defender in their water balloon fight until they tired him out.
He opened the back door and let in a torrent of shouts and screams.
“Austin, Vicky, Princess,” he called. “Time for lunch.”
“Blow it out your shorts, Daddy!”
“Shit,” he cried. Carter slammed the door just as the water balloon burst on the glass. “Little savages,” he muttered. “I blame you.”
I laughed as I tossed the salad. “I believe that one was yours.”
“Austin is mine, but all of them are yours. Who is the common