Page 29 of Sweet Temptation (Love & Legacy #1)
LEXIE
All you need is love.
And a cupcake.
And maybe a tiara.
—Lexie’s Secret Thoughts
Lexie
Okay, ladies. Lucky’s birthday is in a week, and I want to throw him a party at West End. But I haven’t done anything yet. Help!
Saylor
Okay. We need a spreadsheet.
Aurora
You need a life if spreadsheet was the first place your mind went.
Saylor
I like to be organized. Get fucked.
Aurora
I’d like to, but the men in this town are incredibly boring and all related.
Dillan
There’s a few good ones left. What do you need help with, Lex?
Lexie
Everything.
Elodie
What night?
Lexie
October 22nd.
Elodie
Hold please.
Okay. I’ve got the music covered.
Brea
Love this idea. I’m adding Caitlin to this text, so she can help too.
*Caitlin Beneventi Sinclair has been added to this text*
Caitlin
Okay, someone catch me up.
Brea
Okay, check out the screenshot I just sent.
Caitlin
Gotcha. Okay, I like this plan, Lex. I’ll talk to Maddox and get him to close the bar for the night.
Elodie
Who’s Maddox?
Caitlin
Who are you?
Elodie
Umm.
Lexie
Maddox is Cait and Lucky’s oldest brother. He owns West End. Elodie is one of my best friends.
Elodie
I’m also the one getting Six Day War to play at your boy toy’s birthday bash.
Saylor
Seriously?
Caitlin
Boy toy?
Elodie
Ehh . . . it sounded good in the moment.
Caitlin
Okay, we’re going to work on that. How did you get Six Day War to play at the party?
Lexie
Long story.
Elodie
He’s my uncle.
Aurora
Guess it wasn’t that long.
Dillan
Do we need a caterer or are we just telling Maddox he’s giving us his kitchen and staff for the night?
Caitlin
Telling Maddox. He won’t mind.
Lexie
I’ll make the cake.
Saylor
Are you going to pop out of it in lingerie?
Brea
He’d rather she was in his jersey.
Lexie
Have I mentioned you have a big mouth?
Brea
Yup.
Lexie
Okay. Just checking.
Caitlin
Focus, ladies. I have a toddler who’s going to wake up any minute. What else do you need, Lexie?
Lexie
Besides sanity?
Dillan
Decorations?
Aurora
I can do that.
Dillan
I’ll help.
Brea
I’ll call Maddox and work out a menu.
Lexie
You guys are amazing. I owe you one.
Caitlin
That reminds me – Lucky owes me too, and I’m cashing in this Friday night.
I want to go out to dinner and get a hotel room with my husband, and he owes me a night of babysitting.
I’m going to need you to help him, so when I come home, both kids are still alive, no hair has been cut with plastic scissors, and the dog hasn’t been dyed pink.
Elodie
That was very specific.
Caitlin
You haven’t met my kids.
Looks like I have plans Friday night.
“ U ncle Lucky, I want a bubble bath,” Anastasia giggles as Lucky throws her high into the air. Her jet-black curls fly around her cherubic little face like a shiny black halo. “With pink bubbles and the flashing lights and the duckies that swim.”
“Rubber duckies?” he asks as he catches her and tosses her again. Pretty sure Lucky’s arms should be exhausted by now, he’s thrown her so many times tonight, but she’s loving it, so he’s not stopping.
“If she pukes, you’re cleaning it up,” I warn him as I hand Joe another dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget and cringe. Forget pastries. I could make a killing off little kid food that actually tastes good.
“No. Not the rubber duckies. Yuck. They’re yellow.
” She wrinkles her nose like the color has personally offended her.
“These ones swim by themselves, and they’re purple.
” The beautiful little girl squeals and tilts off balance as he sets her on her feet before her uncle’s big, strong, sexy hands steady her. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Lucky looks at me with fear in his eyes. “Uh, how about Lexie gives you a bubble bath. I never had one before, but I bet you she has. And I’ll bet she knows so much more than I do about duckies and bubbles and crazy, flashing, disco tub lights.”
I hand Lucky the last nugget and stand to swap places with him, just as Joe slams his hand down into the puddle of ketchup, spraying it all over Lucky’s shirt.
“Have fun with that, handsome. Us girls are going to go set up a bubble bath.”
“ I t’s official. I don’t have the energy for kids.
” I drop down on Callen and Caitlin’s couch two hours later, the floor completely covered in toys and absolutely no energy left to clean any of them up.
Well, I find enough energy to look at my hot-as-hell boyfriend with a sleeping two-year-old on his bare chest and reconsider my statement.
Maybe a really good nanny would help.
Lucky doesn’t move a muscle. He stays frozen in place for fear the slightest movement will wake the sleeping, teething terrorist and the entire street will hear Joe’s screams. Anastasia looks just like Caitlin, but Joe is all Callen, just with darker hair.
He might just be the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, and him lying on Lucky’s chest makes my ovaries wish it was easier to conceive.
“You look good with a baby on your chest, thirty-three.” I scoot closer to them and tug my knees up under myself so I’m sitting a little higher and can comfortably gawk at all the hotness before me.
And there’s a whole lot of hotness.
“I always look good, dolcezza .” Both dimples pop impossibly deep in his cheeks, and yup, there go the ovaries again. Lucky might not know it, but he’s getting the mother of all blowjobs tonight just for fun. “Have you ever thought about kids, Lex?”
“I have.” I gently run the tips of my fingers up and down Joe’s pale blue pajama-covered back.
“But, no shock, having kids will be complicated for me. I probably can’t have them myself.
And if someone was crazy enough to want kids with me, knowing that they’d eventually be a single parent, they’d have to get tested before we could even try, to see if they were a carrier of the CF gene. ”
Hello, baggage dump.
Here I am, waiting to drop it all in your lap at once.
“There’s always adoption and surrogacy. I mean, they both turned out pretty damn well for your parents.” He tilts his handsome face to smile at me, and my heart speeds up in my chest, knowing what I’m about to say next will crush him, but having to say it anyway.
“And what about when I die, Lucky?”
“Lex—” He manages so much with those three letters.
I love you.
Don’t leave me.
I want a life with you.
But right now, none of them matter. Not if he wants to talk about a future. Sugarcoating any of this isn’t fair. Not to him or to me or to the hypothetical kids he wants to consider. It’s one of the few things I picked up from one of the therapists I saw as a kid.
“Nope. If you want to talk about this , you have to think about that .” I ignore the heartache and devastation that’s staring back at me and keep it clinical, because that’s the only way I know how to have conversations like this. “I will eventually leave my kids and their father.”
“But you could be eighty when that happens, Lexie.”
I softly take his face in my hands, careful not to touch Joe. “Or I could be thirty, Lucky.”
“I refuse to accept that. We haven’t been given this chance for it to end that soon. This isn’t any different from accepting that there’s a way for us to be happy, Lex. Every day. Every single day. We make them all count. One play at a time. One inch at a time. One game at a time.”
“Is that from a movie?” I ask and press a quick kiss to his lips.
“Worse. Your uncle. It’s one of Declan’s favorite things to say in his pregame speeches. But it doesn’t make it any less true. One day at a time, Lex. That’s all any of us can do. That’s all any of us are promised. And even one day with you is better than a lifetime without you.”
This man... He’ll never know all the ways he’s healed my soul.
Lucky
“ Y ou couldn’t have gotten anyone else to go with you?”
“Shut the fuck up and come inside. Dad’s guy is waiting for me,” I groan as Rome and I walk into the jeweler Dad has used for years for all of Mom’s jewelry. “I needed someone who would be honest, and Maddox is still out of the damn country.”
“Then you better be happy Rome called me. I don’t know what in the world you were thinking, asking him to help you pick out an engagement ring,” Caitlin chastises me as I stare at Rome.
“What the fuck, asshole? I asked you to come because you can keep a fucking secret.” I’m ready to kill my brother.
“Guess again, little brother,” Caitlin laughs. “I’m the one who can keep a secret, and I have better taste.”
“ Your husband is her father’s brother. And her father hates me,” I growl at Cait.
“What in the murder-board-loving world—” Rome laughs. “Damn, when you put it that way, we really do sound like a bunch of backwoods, inbred assholes, don’t we?”
“Yes,” Cait and I both answer at the same time as the owner walks into the front of the shop.
“Mr. Beneventi. So good to see you. Both of you. And Ms. Beneventi?—”
“Sinclair,” Cait corrects him. “Nice to see you, Charles. We’d like to see your engagement rings, please. Nothing smaller than three carats. The diamond needs to be a D, VS1. I want it colorless and flawless. She deserves perfect.”
“Caitlin scares me,” Rome murmurs. “Hope you have a black Amex.”
“I can hear you, and we were all born with a black Amex.”
Charles looks between my sister and me and clears his throat. “Does the lady have a shape preference?”
I should probably know this, but I don’t.
Guess I should be glad Rome called Cait.
Cait smiles, and in this moment, she might scare me a little too.
“Round brilliant on a plain platinum band, Charles,” she tells him and without so much as second-guessing her, he disappears into the back of the store. “Your girl deserves the world, little brother.”
Yeah, she fucking does.
Now if she’d just let me give it to her.