The Proposal - Kitty Thomas Page 0,89

Soren.

Once again the song playing is another romantic love song that could easily be a couple's first wedding dance. But it's a more upbeat song everybody knows: 500 Miles. Dayne and I didn't really have a song we thought of as “us”, or a song that played on our first date that would be an appropriate first dance. And he came into this arrangement much later, so I didn't know him as well as Soren and Griffin when everything changed. I haven't had much time to ask why Dayne would commit to this, and to me in this permanent binding way when he dated me for a much shorter time. Why was he so willing to jump in?

And this song tells me so much about the things that lie under the surface with him. Plus it's probably the greatest song to ever come out of Scotland and Dayne's family comes from Scotland—he has a family tartan and a clan and everything—it fits him.

It isn't a slow song, so it doesn't have the opportunity for closeness that the other two dances allowed. But Dayne isn't troubled by this. The next song is a slow dance, and he pulls me closer, unwilling to relinquish me to anyone else.

“I haven't had as much time with you,” he whispers, sending a shiver down my spine and echoing my own thoughts. I've tried to suppress it, but there is something very romantic to me about the speed of his certainty, how he was on board with so little time with me when Soren seemed so resistant and thought I was trying to trap him.

By this point I've stopped caring about what everyone else is doing and who is watching what. We're lost in the middle of a sea of people, surrounded by other couples who are caught up in their own love stories. I relax a moment too soon because Dayne takes the cover of the slow dance to speak low in my ear.

“Griffin and Soren may think they are above me in the pecking order, but just know this, silent background power is still power. It isn't loud like Griffin's, and it isn't outwardly demanding like Soren's, but you should never underestimate me.”

I swallow around the lump forming in my throat as he holds me closer, tighter. I look around again self-conscious, wondering where Soren is, where Griffin is, if anybody is watching Dayne and I on the dance floor right now.

He leans in again, his voice guttural and commanding in my ear. “Tonight I'm going to put twins inside you. I haven't jerked off for a week, and I've abstained from listening in on Soren's nightly calls for that same time to avoid temptation. I am ready for you. I will win this race. Count on it. Mine will be the first born.”

When he pulls back from me his dark gaze is fierce and knowing, filled with supreme confidence. And he's right. I'm at the right place in my cycle that I could get pregnant tonight. Dayne could definitely win this race. I wonder if he's been tracking my cycle just like he quietly watches and tracks everything else, waiting to make his move.

I remember what Soren said at the pre-nup about twins running in Dayne's family, and I shudder. He strokes my back, slowly, gently, as if to comfort me about the impending reality of twins growing inside me. When the song ends, he drifts back into the throng of guests without another word to me and pulls Cheryl into a dance.

Now Soren is back as if he never left my side.

“What's wrong?” he asks when he pulls me in close as another slow song starts.

I shake my head, “Nothing.”

“We're cutting the cake after this song,” he says.

Everyone seems to know the reception schedule but me.

32

Epilogue

Soren: The Wedding Day

Two weeks ago. Just before the wedding.

I'm standing at the front of the church with Griffin and Dayne at my side in front of two hundred and fifty of our closest friends, family members, and business associates. We're about to lie to all of these people. These decent, polite, pretty people think that Livia Fairchild is about to marry her prince. Her fantasy happily-ever-after is about to happen.

The maid of honor keeps looking over at Griffin. I'm not sure if he's noticed her schoolgirl crush or if he's intentionally ignoring it. I glance over to Dayne. He's holding the ring at the moment. I've noticed how he's rubbed his finger over the inside of