Page 88 of Ashes of Us

Danica managed to slow Alex down a little on the marriage thing, but only for a month and a half. She insisted that they needed more discussion around it, but every topic she brought up, he had brushed aside.

"What about a prenup?"

"For what?"

"I don't know, you own two million-dollar-plus condos, have a small fortune in the bank and an extremely lucrative hotel chain?"

"Still don't know why we'd need a prenup."

They had gone in circles with that one for three days, until Alex told her that she was going to be the mother of his children, and if they were to separate, he would ensure his children had the same standard of living with her as they had with him. "But we're not going to divorce anyway."

"What about the hotel and the employees?"

"What about them? I told you I had that handled."

She had to give it to him; he had handled it.

By the end of the week, he produced a report from an independent consultant that documented everything Danica had done in her role as Executive Assistant for both Alexander and Alex.

It concluded that Danica had been handling COO responsibilities behind the scenes for over five years, and it was recommended that she be formally promoted to that role.

He then announced her promotion and that he was also making her co-owner of the hotel chain.

He concluded his announcement by telling everyone that "For the last five years of my father's time as CEO, Danica was running things in the background, acting as an owner in everything but name. Today, I make it official."

The announcement had caught Danica completely off guard.

He hadn't told her that was his plan, and while it could have been hormones, she had broken down into tears in front of everyone.

He later told her that he thought it would be best if everyone saw her raw reaction, so they didn't think she was pushing him to make the changes.

There had only been pushback from two people: Marcy, who burst into Alex's office and demanded to be promoted to his executive assistant or she would quit, to which he had accepted her resignation effective immediately, and his brother, who reached out from his cell in Nevada through his lawyer, demanding to be made a co-owner as well.

Alex had responded by laughing and reminding him that Craig was currently in prison for stealing from him, and suggested a mental evaluation needed to be done, because he was clearly delusional.

Danica had a long conversation with Cecil, explaining that she hadn't meant for it to happen, but it had, and she was thrilled.

However, she understood if he and the rest of his family wanted to cut her off.

He hadn't been happy with how quickly things were happening, but said he understood and revealed that his divorce had been finalized just after Christmas, and he had already proposed to his new girlfriend.

The rest of the Prestons had mixed reactions, but wished her well for the most part, which was much better than she expected.

They had a small, quiet wedding ceremony in one of the hotel's conference rooms with Keiran and his wife, a lovely woman named Delaney, Xavier, Emilia and the three kids, Maverick and Antonia and Indie, Watson and Cinnamon in attendance, followed by dinner in the hotel restaurant while the dogs enjoyed a special meal in Danica's office upstairs.

"Should we tell everyone?" Alex murmured in Danica's ear as the waitress took their dessert orders.

Danica let out a soft chuckle, her hand dropping to the small belly she had gained.

Because there were some concerns about genetic conditions since Danica didn't know much of anything about her biological family, they had an amniocentesis test at fifteen weeks and found out the sex of the baby.

Danica had wanted to keep it a surprise but gave in when Alex put both condos up for sale and bought a farmhouse in Winthrop, wanting a place with a backyard in a quiet neighbourhood and more parking, and asked her what colours they were going with in the nursery.

"Might as well, Emilia is chomping at the bit to start buying things as the baby's godmother and aunt."

Picking up his glass, Alex stood up and cleared his throat.

"Danica and I just want to say thank you to all of you for coming and celebrating with us today.

Your support over the last half a year has been nothing less than astounding as we navigated everything, and we wanted to share that thankfully, the amniocentesis came back negative for potential genetic conditions, and little Alexandra Cassandra West is perfectly healthy and happy and due on August 26th. "

"It's a girl!" Emilia let out a squeal and leaned over to hug Danica.

"It's a girl," Danica confirmed, hugging Emilia back as everyone started congratulating them. "There's a tradition in Alex's family that the firstborn is named Alexander, so we went with Alexandra, but since Alexandra Cassandra is a mouthful, we'll be officially using Lexi."

"Looks like you'll be surrounded by women." Kieran teased Alex as he shook his hand.

Alex smiled and sat back down and put his arm around Danica's shoulder. "Yep, me and all my girls." He kissed her temple. "They're all I need."