Page 30 of Tempted By the Handsome Doctor

I turn in his arms to face him, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw with my fingertips.

"It was perfect," I assure him. "Absolutely perfect."

"Yeah?" Relief and love mingle in his expression.

"Yeah." I glance around the room—at Emma playing happily, at the walls Daniel painted, at the crib he assembled while I was seven months pregnant and too big to help. At the life we've built together from the most unexpected beginning. "Though I have one question."

"Anything," he says immediately.

"How many rose petals am I going to be finding around this house for the next month?"

Daniel laughs, the sound I never tire of hearing. "Approximately three thousand," he admits. "Lou and I might have gone a little overboard at the flower shop."

"Lou knew about this?"

"Who do you think help me set it all up?" Daniel grins. "He's been badgering me to 'make an honest woman of you' for at least a year."

I shake my head, laughing through the tears that still threaten. "That sounds about right."

Daniel's expression grows serious again, his hands warm on my waist. "Are you happy, Maya? Truly?"

I look up at this man who came into my life in the most unexpected way, who has become not just Emma's father but my partner, my best friend, my home. Who moved into my small cottage without complaint, who painted walls and fixed the roof and built bookshelves that stretch to the ceiling. Who reads to Emma every night in funny voices that make her shriek withlaughter. Who still looks at me across a crowded room like I'm the only person in it.

"Happier than I ever thought possible," I tell him honestly.

He kisses me then, soft and sure and full of promise. Emma, not to be left out, wraps her arms around our legs, rose petals clutched in her small fists.

And as we stand there, the three of us in a tangle of limbs and laughter and love, I think of how sometimes the best stories come from the most unexpected beginnings. How a night that should have been forgettable became the first page of the most important chapter of my life.

How sometimes, when you least expect it, you find exactly what you never knew you were looking for.