Page 40 of Playboy Husband
MAISIE
Iwoke up late, blinking against the pale light spilling in through the curtains when I opened my eyes.
It was Sunday, which meant my alarm hadn’t been set, but that usually didn’t matter.
Brody didn’t care much what day of the week it was.
In fact, he always seemed to wake up earlier on the weekend. Judging by the light, I’d slept in.
It took me a beat to remember falling asleep in Callum’s arms. I flipped over immediately, but he wasn’t there anymore. The sheets were rumpled where he’d slept, a dent remaining in the pillow, and the faint, masculine scent of him clinging to the fabric, but his spot wasn’t even warm anymore.
I almost didn’t recognize the luxury of sleeping in on a Sunday.
I used to love mornings like this, back before life had gotten so busy that I’d forgotten how to breathe.
Ever since we’d moved out to San Francisco, I hadn’t had the chance to sleep late, always on the move with my little bundle of energy.
For a moment, I just lay there, stretching out and enjoying the rare quiet of the morning. Except it wasn’t really quiet. Slightly muffled shouts and bursts of laughter split the air, the sounds high-pitched and happy.
I shoved the blankets off and tugged on a sweater before I padded over to the window. Callum and Brody were out in the backyard, bundled against the cold and playing in the thin layer of snow that had stuck to the ground overnight. Brody’s gloves were white with it.
Callum grinned like a kid himself as they lobbed snowballs at each other. Something tightened in my chest, part happiness, part worry. It was so freaking easy to picture this as permanent, easier yet to want it to be.
I stood by the window for a while, just watching them together and saying a little prayer that somehow everything would work out for us all. After a few minutes, I headed downstairs, but I hadn’t even poured myself a cup of coffee before Callum came in, his cheeks flushed from the cold.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” he teased. Those blue eyes sparkled as he came over and brushed a kiss to my cheek. “My parents want us to come over for lunch today. The whole family’s getting together to celebrate our engagement.”
Panic flared through me. He’d said it so loudly and Brody was right there, just a few feet away. I took a step closer to Callum, not unaware of the way my body tingled at his sudden proximity, but I had bigger fish to fry right then. “I haven’t talked to Brody yet.”
He arched an eyebrow, maddeningly calm, like I had no reason to be spinning out. “Relax, baby. I talked to him, remember? He knows we’re getting married.”
I glanced at Brody, my heart still pounding until I saw my son grinning at me like he’d won some kind of prize. “I still don’t understand why Callum would want to live with a girl.”
Callum smirked at him. “Dude, you live with a girl.”
“Yeah, but she’s my mom. It’s different.”
Callum thought it over for a beat, then shrugged. “Yeah, you’re not actually wrong, but this is a conversation we’ll pick up approximately ten years from now. Give or take. Let’s go get cleaned up, champ. We’re going to have to leave soon.”
Callum leaned down, pressed a quick kiss to my cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world, then straightened up and jerked his head toward the stairs. “I’ll race you. Last one ready to go buys the other an ice cream on our way home after lunch?”
“I don’t have any money.” Brody laughed as Callum spun and ran to the staircase. “Mom’s going to have to buy the ice cream if I lose.”
“Fine, I’ll buy the ice cream either way, but we still need to get ready.
” Callum’s broad shoulders shook with laughter as Brody raced past him.
Then he winked at me over his shoulder. “You have time for coffee. Don’t worry.
I’ll be in the shower if you decide you’d like a different kind of pick-me-up. ”
His implication was clear. Cock instead caffeine. Desire sparked to life in my body, but I shook my head at myself and finally poured that cup of coffee. Boy, this guy really has resuscitated my libido.
As they both disappeared from my view, I leaned against the counter and wrapped my fingers around the hot mug, trying to corral my thoughts and get my body back under control. In that moment, however, as I listened to the sounds coming from upstairs, I realized that we really had become a we.
Callum and I had somehow honestly become a couple. There had been no hesitation in his words, no pause before he’d claimed our time as part of his plans for the day. It felt real. Solid.
But also terrifying in a way only the best things could be. Because what we had was also still so fragile, under constant pressure from a secret I truly didn’t know how to tell.
I sighed and took the coffee upstairs with me, deliberately not focusing on the sound of the water running in my shower. Callum was in there. Naked.
But Brody was in his bedroom getting dressed just down the hall and the Westwoods were expecting us.
Even so, when Callum came out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his hips, the corner tucked in right in the center between those defined fuck-me lines, a soft moan slid out of me before I could swallow it back. My gaze raked across his damp torso.
Callum laughed, but I saw the heat flickering in those blue eyes. “Say the word and I’ll have Sadie or Laney come pick Brody up for lunch. You and I can join them later. Maybe.”
My cheeks flushed. Quickly closing the distance, I pressed myself up on my tiptoes to plant a chaste kiss on his lips. It felt amazing to be able to do that. Less amazing when I backed up again just as fast.
“Maybe next time. Once he knows them better.”
Callum groaned but nodded. “Yeah, okay. I guess I’d better get dressed then, and you definitely need to stop looking at me like that, you little devil.”
I grinned. “I don’t know. I kind of like looking at you like this.”
The next thing I knew, his arm had snaked around my hips and I landed with a soft thud against his chest. He smirked, and his mouth descended to mine for a hard kiss that made my knees weak. But then he let go.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I really wish we had, like, ten minutes.”
“Wow. You really have a lot of faith in your stamina, huh?” I teased him in order to distract myself from the need coursing through me. Laughing, I danced out of his reach when he made to grab me again.
Somehow we made it out of the house. By the time we arrived at his parents’ place, the rest of the family was clearly already there. Right as we walked in, laughter and overlapping conversations echoed from the dining room.
“Finally!” Sadie called, standing up and swiping Brody into a hug first. “You’re late and we’ve all been starving.”
“It’s not my fault,” Callum said, deadpan as he shrugged out of his jacket. “Maisie sleeps like a rock.”
Heat rose from neck. “Excuse you?”
The table exploded with laughter. Harrison clapped him on the shoulder when he stood up to greet us. “Bold move, brother. Real smooth, putting the blame on her before she’s even married you yet.”
Brody grinned as Sadie passed him to Laney. “It’s true, though. Mom sleeps forever.”
“Traitor,” I muttered, but he just laughed, almost immediately launching into the story about how he beat Callum in their snowball fight.
Every adult at the table gave him their full attention, laughing at all the right moments, doting on him like he’d been theirs forever.
Even Harlan, the patriarch I was still much too intimidated by to even speak to directly, leaned forward, joining the banter and teasing his own son for being beaten by a seven-year-old.
After lunch was served, the focus of the ribbing shifted from Callum to Harrison, with Jameson and Callum giving their little brother hell over being next. Sterling was a little more subdued in his teasing, but I caught him glance at Harlan a few times.
Neither he nor CC gave any indication of who was right, the others for thinking Harrison would have to get married soon, or their youngest son, who seemed convinced that the expectation didn’t apply to him.
“Callum’s off the market now,” Jameson said, a wide grin on his face as he glanced at me.
“Poor Maisie has to live with him for the rest of her life. My condolences to you, Maisie, but that leaves you, little brother. Want me to help you navigate the mysteries of convincing some lovely, unsuspecting girl to marry you?”
“Here we go again,” Harrison groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Even if it was going to happen, I wouldn’t need any help. Especially not from you. You married your best friend’s sister. My best friend doesn’t have a sister.”
Sadie leaned her head on Jameson’s shoulder, her eyes sparkling. “I heard you went on a date last week. Best friend’s sister or not, we want to hear about it.”
“That wasn’t a date,” Harrison said, his voice flat. “It was a meeting. Are you guys seriously going to start dissecting every conversation I have with a woman?”
“Meetings don’t usually end with lipstick on your collar,” Sterling chimed in. Then he glanced at Laney and winked. “At least, they don’t usually end that way.”
Laney blushed beet red but focused on Harrison. “You are so busted. We both saw you at the office after that meeting. There totally was lipstick on your collar.”
“It was ketchup,” he protested, though the tips of his ears turned pink.
I didn’t feel like it was my place to point it out. These people were starting to feel more and more like family, but I wasn’t quite at the point where I felt comfortable teasing Harrison about his father’s potential plans right in front of said father.
“Who thinks it was ketchup? Who’s going to take lipstick?” Callum joked. “We’re starting a betting pool, but either way, you’re definitely getting married before the end of the year.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Harrison clapped back, widening his eyes at his brother. “Last I heard, you two haven’t exchanged your I-do’s yet. Even if I was next, which I’m absolutely not, you’ve still got to seal the deal first.”
“On that note.” Sterling stood up, clearing his throat and raising his glass like he was about to make a royal decree.
He turned those piercing blue eyes on Callum and me, and my heart rate suddenly skyrocketed, my palms going clammy.
“As an engagement gift, I’m flying the entire family, and that includes your family, Maisie, to my estate in Scotland. ”
I blinked, the movement far too slow and hard to be natural. Laney glanced up at him, her jaw slack and her eyebrows high. “You have an estate in Scotland?”
“Nope,” he said, winking at her. “We have an estate in Scotland.”
She slammed back against her chair, clearly as surprised and swept away as I was, but he wasn’t done yet. He inclined his chin toward CC. “What’s more is that our darling mother, who had nothing to do with this at all, is already planning a cozy, intimate wedding for you there.”
I nearly dropped my fork, my ears suddenly ringing and my heart going crazy in my chest. Cheers and whoops rang out around the table, with Sadie immediately turning to Brody to tell him all about Scotland and how much he was going to love it there.
Meanwhile, I turned to face Callum. “Did you know about this?”
“Nope.” He glanced at his mother, who was grinning like the cat who had gotten all the cream, and then he chuckled before bringing that gaze back to mine.
It was so soft and loving that I almost forgot about the bombshell his brother had just dropped.
Almost, but not quite. “I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I’m not really.
Mom seriously wasn’t happy when I told her what we were planning. ”
I blinked again. “Are you serious? We’re actually going to be getting married in Scotland? Soon?”
“I guess so.” His hand slid onto my thigh under the table, the laughter fading from his eyes as they held mine. “You can absolutely tell him to go fuck himself if you don’t want to do this. King Sterling’s castle is beautiful. You’d love it there, but this is your day, Mais. Our day.”
“King Sterling’s Castle?” I repeated, completely dazed. “Your brother owns a castle?”
Callum shrugged. “Technically, it’s not classified as a castle, but you’ll see. Besides, it’s not such a big deal over there. Castles are a dime a dozen.”
All I could do was laugh, dizzy from the sheer insanity of it all. I’d become caught up in a current I couldn’t fight, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“Welcome to the family,” Sadie said, pumping her eyebrows at me, then exchanging a wicked grin with Laney, who still seemed almost as dazed as I was.
Sadie had grown up more like the Westwoods than Laney or me, though.
Her parents were filthy rich themselves, and while she was painfully generous, to the point where she’d almost been disinherited because of it, her brother-in-law owning a castle in Scotland just wouldn’t seem as bizarre to her, I supposed.
To me, however, it was unbelievable. Brody was raving about getting to go on an airplane and almost fell out of his chair when Harlan told him it was a private jet. I groaned, covering my face with my hands as the table burst into laughter again.
Yet, underneath all the excitement, the disbelief, and even the joy I was surprised to feel, the truth sat like a hot coal between my ribs. I had to tell Callum and I knew it, but these people owned castles and private planes.
Legal fees wouldn’t even be a drop in the ocean to them and they’d already welcomed Brody into the fold as if he was one of their own. What would they do if they found out that he was, and would they still want to fly me away to Scotland?