Page 150 of Fall of a Kingdom

“I’m not lying,” he insisted. “I do want a boy, but it’s not indicative of my happiness.”

I sighed, leaning my head against his chest. We were silent for a while as we watched the rain fall, fat drops hitting the glass window.

“I don’t want to hold my breath,” I said finally. “I’m not sure I trust the good fortune currently smiling down on us.”

“Dimitri is handling everything on the coast. I’m here with you and Helena. Our family is safe. Barrett is healing quickly. Why am I—the Russian—trying to placate your worries? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Probably,” I agreed.

I traced the wedding ring on his hand, loving the symbol of our bond against his skin.

“How does it feel to have a new last name?” he asked.

“I was yours long before our last names ever became the same,” I reminded him.

His hand slipped into my robe and cupped my breast. “I want to take my wife to bed,” he whispered, his voice raspy with want.

I undid the sash of my robe and let it fall open. “This bay window bench is as good as any bed.”

“Who says marriage takes all the fun out of a relationship?” Sasha asked.

I lifted myself up and turned to face him. My hands went to his fly, and I slowly unclasped the button. “Marriage to me is a lot of fun.”

I lowered the zipper of his pants and then reached into his boxers to extract him. “Should I prove it to you?”

Epilogue #3

RAMSEY

I swirledthe glass of whiskey and then brought it to my nose. I inhaled deeply, held it in my lungs for a moment, and then released my breath.

The gas fireplace in the living room of the Idaho mountain lodge cast a bright, welcoming warmth. The high ceilings made me feel free, and one entire wall was made almost entirely of glass, showing off the Rocky Mountains and the snow-dusted pine trees.

I took another sip of whiskey and began to scroll through the documents on my tablet that Genevieve had sent me on Ainsley Rivers.

My phone rested on the couch next to me and began to ring. I picked it up immediately.

“Burn my house down yet?” Elijah Padgett asked, his Irish accent thick and garbled.

“It’s still standing,” I commented. “How is it you have a place like this that you never use?”

“I use it,” he protested. “Just not often.”

“Well, thanks for offering it up as a safe house.”

“Seems the least I could do if I want to get in bed with your family.”

“We can do business together, but stay in your own fucking bed,” I quipped.

“You still need your hot little nurse to help you piss?”

“Fuck off. I’m sitting on your fifteen-thousand-dollar couch, drinking your five-hundred-dollar bottle of Irish whiskey, and enjoying the fruits ofyourlabor.”

“It’s a twenty-thousand-dollar couch,” Padgett snapped. “Try not to bleed all over it.”

He hung up on me.

I grinned and tossed my phone aside.