Page 120 of The Moments You Were Mine

FIVE YEARS AGO

HER: Will and his bae don’t seem to mesh all that well, do they?

HIM: What the hell is a BAE?

HER: You’re a disgrace to your generation, Parker. What are you, fifty instead of twenty-five? It means lover. Partner. Like, instead of calling someone baby, which we all know can be downright insulting.

HIM: I can promise you that no one has complained when I’ve called them baby.

HER: But then again, you don’t really stick around to find out, do you?

PRESENT DAY

After we’d let our families andfriends talk to us for much too long, I’d ended the virtual meeting with a promise that we’d let them hold a reception for us later in the year. Mom insisted on taking us to dinner with Theo and Maisey at the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant. Customers had to make reservations a minimum of six months in advance, so I knew it was only because of who Fallon was that Mom had been able to swing a table.

I sat next to Fallon in a quiet booth at the back of the fancy restaurant and couldn’t stop myself from touching her. I kept our fingers twined as much as possible, and when that didn’t work, Ihad my thigh pressed into hers or my arm behind her on the back of the booth.

She looked beautiful—such a ridiculously underrated word for the truth of her. It wasn’t just the hair and makeup and dress. It was something inside her that was glowing stronger than it ever had. That light I’d thought had been dimmed when I’d first arrived on the ranch had returned but with a new vehemence. A spectacular force.

She was mine.

She’d always been mine, but I’d let myself deny it for too long.

Stupid, when I’d never considered myself stupid.

After the entrees had been served, eaten, and removed, the chef brought out a fraisier cake that was Fallon’s favorite, along with a wildly expensive bottle of champagne, adding his good wishes to the rest of the staff’s. The strawberry sponge cake layered with pastry cream and topped with marzipan was almost too sweet for me, but watching Fallon lick the fork with her eyes closed became one of my new favorite moments. Before, I would have looked away. I would have forbidden myself from thinking about all the ways I could put that same look on her face with my hands and my mouth. Now, I reveled in it.

After Mom and Maisey gave teary-eyed toasts, and Theo started to fade as the minutes ticked further past his bedtime, we finally left the restaurant. I dropped Fallon’s hand to hug Theo. “I’ll see you tomorrow, bud. Just like we talked about, right?”

For a moment, uncertainty crossed his face.

“Wait, what?” Fallon shot confused looks between us.

Mom reached for Theo. “Maisey, Theo, and I are having a movie day tomorrow, aren’t we? All the best dog movies we can find, but only the ones with happy endings. We’ll eat lots of popcorn and plenty of the sugar cookies we made.”

I cringed, thinking of Theo’s fallout after a junk-food binge, but it was Fallon who objected. “But I don’t have my things, and—”

“I packed them all up while you were with the stylist and sent them along to Parker here at the hotel,” my mother said. She leaned in and kissed Fallon on the cheek. “You deserve a wedding night, Fallon. Both of you.”

Fallon’s cheeks flushed. Maisey hugged her, whispering something that made Fallon blush even more as Mom pulled me into another quick embrace.

We watched as the trio made their way down the carpeted hall toward the front of the hotel, with Theo waving Dog at us in a way that tugged at my heart. It was our first night apart since he’d come to live with me. Would he be okay? Who would he sleep with if he woke in the middle of the night? I’d given Mom the rundown, but I wouldn’t be there…

And that was always a SEAL’s worst nightmare—not being there when your team needed you.

“Parker, this is silly,” Fallon said softly, pulling my hand into hers.

I looked down at her, those amber eyes shimmering with that warm light that had finally returned, and my chest settled. Theo was with my mom, and there was literally no one other than my dad who I’d trust more with him. Theo would be just fine. And Mom was right—Fallon and I deserved a wedding night.

I didn’t toss thedeservedword around very often. It was overused, frequently hiding a sense of entitlement that actually hadn’t been earned. But I wanted tonight to be special for my wife.

My wife.

Those words were so foreign to me and yet so completely right.

“Once we get to the suite, I’ll show you just hownotsilly it is.”

Then, I swept her off her feet and strode toward the elevators.