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The first person I call after Mandy and Jaxon leave is my publicist.

I head into my office while Victoria heads to her casita to take a shower.

“Why are you calling me so late?” Ellie answers.

“I’m sorry. I got into it with my girl’s ex and might have vandalized a bit of his property and perhaps punched him in the face,” I blurt.

“Oh, Travis,” she scolds. “Is he pressing charges?”

“Yes, but he’s holding off because he’s in her sister’s wedding this weekend.”

“Okay, that’s good,” she says. “That buys us a little time. Are you going to this wedding?”

“Yes. It’s in the Bahamas.”

“Perfect. Convince him not to do it while you’re there,” she suggests.

“I can try, but he’s a pretty big asshole.”

“Coming from the guy who vandalized his property and punched him?” she asks, pointing out the fact that I’m not exactly innocent here.

I sigh. “Point made. I will see what I can do.”

“In the meantime, I’ll spruce up your image with what I have here. Really capitalize on what a good guy you are. Maybe post a pic with your daughter?”

“I don’t want her on my social media.” My tone is firm and direct.

“Noted. I’ll see what I have to work with. Don’t get into more trouble while you’re gone, okay?” It’s a simple request, but not one I’m likely to be able to commit to.

The clock tells me it’s late, but I call my father anyway. He’s not my lawyer, but for some reason I want to hear what he has to say about all of this.

He picks up, and the entire story from the beginning tumbles out of my mouth—from hating Victoria when I first met her to falling in love with her over the last month and every moment in between.

“Can you get him not to press charges?” he asks.

“I doubt it.”

“What does he want? Money?”

I sigh. “He wants the girl back. I hurt his pride, and I don’t think money is going to solve that.”

“Well, son, I’m afraid this won’t look good for you and Harper. I haven’t told you this because I didn’t want to worry you, but Callahan has been nosing around with some lawyer friends I know, and I get the sense he’s looking to make a buck off you.”

“In what way?” I ask.

“He thinks he’s a better fit to raise Harper than you. He has proof that he has a longer history with her than you do, and he’s been looking into filing a petition to terminate your rights. If you get arrested over this bullshit, he’ll have additional fuel for his case,” he says.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “What can I do?”

“Prove you’ve got stability. Prove you’re better for her than anyone else.”

I should be able to prove that—easily—since I am better for her than anyone else. But I shouldn’t have to prove it to some greedy asshole who just wants my money.

Victoria appears at my office doorway, and seeing her sparks an idea.

Prove I’ve got stability?

Victoria is my stability. She’s been a rock for both Harper and me, and a future together is inevitable. I can’t help but wonder whether she’d agree to pushing that future up a little sooner. Like, say…this weekend.

It’s a terrible idea. It’s something I’ve never wanted.

And yet, I find myself contemplating how to say the words…how to ask the question.

“Who were you talking to?” she asks.

“My father.”

She perches on the edge of my brand-new desk, and then she lifts herself so she’s sitting on the other side of it, and she twists to face me. There’s not much on the desk covering the space between us. My laptop is closed and off to the side with my tablet resting on top of it as it charges, and a pad of paper sits on the desk beside it. Otherwise, the desktop is clear.

Her hair is wet, and her face is scrubbed clean. She wears a silky blue pajama set—shorts with a button down shirt—and the way her nipples are making little peaks on the shirt tells me she’s not wearing a bra. My dick immediately stands at attention.

I want her closer.

“You don’t talk much about him,” she muses.

“Not much to say.” I shrug and settle back into my chair, folding my arms behind my head as I relax back. “We’ve never been close, but he’s been putting forth a little more effort since everything happened with Harper.”

“Why’d you call him so late tonight?”

“Come here,” I murmur, and she moves to hop down and walk around, but I stop her. “No. On top of the desk.”

Her brows pinch together. “Like scoot over?”

I shake my head, and my hands move to the armrests of my chair while I continue to lean back. “Crawl on your hands and knees.”

She raises a brow as the command comes out of my mouth, surprising even me in the moment. She turns and folds her knees under her body before leaning down on her palms, and Jesus Christ, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything sexier in my life.

She inches toward me, and I can see right down her shirt to the valley between her tits. My breath hitches as I watch her, unmoving except for my cock which is somehow getting harder and harder by the second.

She grips the edge of my desk on my side with her fingertips, and she raises a challenging brow at me.

“Marry me,” I blurt. I grip the armrests so tightly my knuckles must be turning white, but I can’t tear my eyes from her.

Maybe it’s the way she’s looking at me like she’s a tigress and she wants to eat me for dinner, but the words fall unexpectedly out of my mouth.

She gasps and sits back on her knees, her jaw falling open. “Wha…what?”

I suck in a breath. “For Harper,” I clarify. “If Owen presses charges and I’m arrested, it’ll look bad. Real bad. My dad just told me an old family friend is planning to file a petition to prove I’m unfit to raise her. He wants my money. I can’t let him take her away from me.” I feel heat pulsing behind my eyes, and my next words come out quietly. “I can’t lose her.”

She’s frozen where she sits back on her knees on top of my desk.

“My dad said I need to prove I have a stable home for Harper. And when I drill down to it, it’s you . You’re our stability.” I leave out the rest of my thought process—that maybe marriage is where this is going anyway when I really believed that was never in the cards for me.

As I’ve learned, life can change pretty damn fast. Maybe the beliefs we’ve held as truths our entire lives can, too.

“Oh my God, Travis,” she murmurs. Her words tell me nothing about what she’s thinking.

“I don’t want to complicate things with us, but—” I begin.

She plows forward. “You don’t want to complicate things with us, but you want me to marry you?”

“Not like a real marriage. Just one to show the stable home life Harper has. Nothing has to change for us,” I say, and I sound like I’m begging because, well, I am.

“Nothing has to change for us?” she repeats, and I’m starting to get the idea of how she feels about this based on her tone. “You just asked me to marry you!”

I wave a hand in the air. “Forget it. I’ll find another way to prove this is a stable home for Harper. Just forget I even asked.”

I’m sure it’ll look great to the judge that I’ll be leaving my daughter with a nanny a few nights for every away game plus camps and practices.

Fuck.

“I can’t just forget you even asked,” she says, the fire in her tone both sexy and a little frightening. “I can’t just drop it. I can’t go to my sister’s wedding with you as my date and pretend like—” She cuts herself off, and her eyes flick to mine.

I let a beat of silence pass between us before I press on. “Pretend like…what?” I sit forward as I await her answer.

She sighs and averts her eyes to the desk. “Like you didn’t just ask me for everything I’ve ever wanted and then minimized it by saying it wouldn’t be real.”

I roll my chair closer to the desk and I reach around her so my hands settle on her ass. I pull her forward a little, and she unfolds her legs from beneath her so they’re hanging off my side of the desk. I’m nestled in between them, and she widens them as I scoot as close as I can to her.

“I’m scared, Victoria,” I say quietly. I’m staring straight ahead at her stomach in front of me as I say the words, and then I force my eyes up to hers. “About a lot of things. About losing Harper. About what this is between us. It’s intense, and you’re making me want things I’ve never wanted. It’s too soon for us to get married for real. I know that. Maybe it’s down the road for us, or maybe not. Regardless, if it’s one way to keep Harper right where she belongs, I couldn’t let the opportunity slip by without asking.”

“I’m scared, too, Travis. I’ve already pushed the future I want for myself further and further away, and I don’t know what we’re doing here…” She clears her throat. “But, I mean, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to show up in the Bahamas with an engagement ring on my finger.”

I lift a shoulder. “Or I could propose while we’re there…in front of your entire family. In front of your disbelieving ex.”

“You did get my ball back. And maybe if he saw that and thinks it’s real, he won’t press charges after all. You know…for me.”

"Do you think he’d do that?”

She shrugs. “Depends how hard you hit him.”

I nearly laugh, but I’m confused as to what she’s agreeing to, exactly. “So…you’d be okay with an engagement?”

“This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever agreed to, but I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Harper.”

That heat presses behind my eyes again.

This woman is incredible. The way she’s sacrificing for my daughter tells me everything I need to know about her as a person…everything I want in a mother for my children. Everything I want in my future.

Everything.