Baby Steps (Yeah, Baby Book 2)(23)

The morning after... he’d been working on this since before my ultimatum. I didn’t realize how important it was to me until this very moment.

“I’m not your wife yet.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flawless diamond ring. “In my heart you are, Jade. I haven’t been able to forget about you since the moment we met. If I hadn’t allowed past experiences to cloud my better judgment, I never would have let you go and you’d already have my ring on your finger. I love you,” he paused to look down at the ring, moving it to the tip of my finger. “And I want the world to know you’re mine. Will you marry me?”

The studio, gorgeous diamond ring, and proposal, it was more than I’d ever dreamt about how this conversation would go. It looked like Lucas had used every minute I’d given him to set out to prove how he felt about me. There was only one possible answer I could give. “Yes.”





Epilogue


Lucas


“Well, Mr. and Mrs. St. James, it looks like a girl this time,” the doctor informed us with a smile before wiping Jade’s stomach and lowering the hem of her maternity top. “Do you have a name picked out?”

“Ruby!”

Shit. My hand wasn’t fast enough to cover the mouth of my three-year-old son before he shouted the name. He twisted in my arms and beamed at me before his face fell and his own two chubby, little hands slapped over his mouth.

“I forgot, Daddy,” he muffled through his fingers.

I winked at him and kissed the tip of his nose, “It’s okay buddy. You did great.” It was my own fault for trusting a toddler with a secret.

“Her name is what?” Jade asked, raising a quizzical brow in my direction. Her tone clearly indicated she wasn’t happy.

I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably, weighing my options on how to handle this situation. I wasn’t budging on my baby girl’s name, so I decided to go with standing firm.

“You picked out Jonathan’s name and we agreed I’d get to pick our next baby’s name. I choose Ruby.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed as she glared at me, but any response was cut off by the doctor.

“What a lovely name.”

I grinned triumphantly at Jade, who rolled her eyes.

“Everything looks great,” the doctor continued, “so I’ll see you back here for your next appointment on schedule.”

She stood, shook our hands, and waved at Jonathan before leaving the room.

He returned the gesture enthusiastically. “Thanks for the Ruby!” he called after her, making me chuckle. Then he turned to me and took my breath away with one of his giant, baby boy smiles. “I’m hungry. So Ruby must be hungry. Let’s feed Ruby!”

Apparently, now that the cat was out of the bag, my son was unintentionally determined to get me in trouble by calling the baby Ruby as many times as possible.

Jade patted her rounded belly and then his little one. “Yep, both my little babies want some dinner.” Then she grabbed my ass and whispered to me, “We’ll discuss this after peanut is in bed.”

Bed. Perfect idea. I smiled my most charming, panty-melting grin, and agreed. The heat in her eyes shifted a little from anger to lust and I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for the plan I’d suddenly concocted.



I brushed a kiss across the soft skin of Jonathan’s forehead and pulled his giraffe covered blanket up to his chin. Padding out into the hall, I shut the door silently, before making my way to our bedroom.

I’d received a work call during dinner and had to excuse myself. Our company had taken a pretty direct hit when the picture of us had been splashed across the papers. Then, someone inside my organization leaked my plans for the restructure to the board and they went apeshit. Most of them had walked, taking all of our bigger clients with them.

My first instinct had been to scramble and save the crumbling empire, but during a conversation with Jade, she asked me what it was my father and I loved about the company. Mulling over my answer, I realized it was because he and I had built and developed the product together.

My father had left all of the patents to me in his will. So, I dissolved the company and started a research facility instead. I returned to where I belonged, in the lab, improving the technology instead of peddling it. After two years, we had a break through and we were approached with a government contract. I hired a CEO, to run the business side of things, and continued to keep being “the mad scientist,” as Jade liked to call me. I liked to think my dad would be happy with where my career had taken me, and even more so with the state of my personal life.

When I finished my call, Jade had already put our son to bed and I knew she’d planned to take a bath. Our room was still and empty when I entered it, but there was light coming from under the bathroom door. Assuming she was still soaking in the tub, I hurried to set everything as I wanted it in order to seduce my wife into agreeing to whatever I wanted. I had a decent track record of making her scream yes when something was important to me.