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This is a reminder of home, of my family, of what I’ve lost.

But I’m not sad about it this time.

The nostalgia is nice.

“What did you do today?” she asks me, biting into her bread.

“Worked at the casino.” I take another bite.

“What all did you do there?”

This woman loves to ask questions.

Again, it reminds me so much of my family dinners.

My mother would ask my father similar questions, and he’d usually tell her some bullshit story because he’d never break down the gruesome details of how we really spent our time.

“I had a few business meetings,” I state, my voice serious. “We discussed retraining our dealers on spotting card counters.”

I give her a stern look, and she throws her head back, laughing.

“I’m sureno onewould dare have the balls to do that in a Lucky Kings Casino,” she says around giggles.

“No one in their right mind,” I correct, waggling my fork at her. “It seems I’ve found the one who would dare.”

She gasps, feigning offense. “You can’t blame a girl for trying to win some cash.”

“Point made.” I lean back in my chair and take a swig of my wine. “I’d ask what you did today, but it seems I already know. Cooking and spending money.”

She wipes sauce off the side of her lip. “The shelter needed supplies.”

“What if I said I’ll double my monthly donation if you agree to stay home instead of volunteering?”

She violently shakes her head. “The shelter is my place.” She mirrors my posture in her chair, grabbing her glass and taking a sip. “Earlier, you said I’d save the entire planet if I could. I know that’s not possible, but I can andhavehelped change lives at the shelter. It means a lot to me.”

The softness in her tone and face has me giving up my power.

I’ll let her have this—for now.

I point my glass at her. “When you get pregnant, we’re revisiting this conversation.”

“IfI get pregnant,” she corrects, sighing.

I have to stop myself from grinding my teeth, showing her it’d devastate me if it didn’t happen. “You will get pregnant.”

She wrinkles her nose, pressing her lips to the rim of her glass and looking at me over it. “How can you be so certain?”

I set down my glass and shift in my chair to collect her face in my hands. Her lower lip trembles, and she nearly drops her glass as she slides it on the table.

Smoothing my thumb over her warm cheek, I dip my head, our lips only inches apart. “Gen, baby, when a man sees the most beautiful woman on this earth—one who brings him to his knees, even if he fights it—he’ll want to fuck her every second of the day. Add in that woman having the biggest heart he’s ever seen, he’ll do anything to make that woman the mother of his child.”

27

“My mother must’ve really lovedyou,” Julian says. “She was greedy with her cannoli recipe.”

Dinner went better than I’d hoped.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure he’d come home.