The first sign that things were going their way came twelve hours after the legal meeting, when the hotshot lawyer informed them he was no longer representing Naomi in her claim. Twenty-four hours after that, the private investigator hired by Bailey reported that Naomi had been in a crying, screaming fight with her boyfriend at the boyfriend’s apartment.
“The P.I. didn’t catch all of it,” Thea told David over the phone, “but he said it was obvious they were fighting about the baby. She was screaming he’d promised her it’d be easy and that now people would think she was a slut.”
It took another twenty-four hours for Naomi to totally withdraw her claim. Receiving the news soon after the band got into Manhattan, Thea went immediately to David.
“It’s over,” she said, cupping his face in her hands the instant they were behind the closed door of his suite. “Did you call your folks?”
“Yeah.” He wrapped her in his arms. “My mom told me Naomi’s getting married this afternoon. Shotgun wedding. She must’ve told her parents the truth.”
Thea shook her head. “Regardless of everything, a part of me does still feel sorry for her.” Naomi wasn’t much older than her own sisters.
“According to Zeke, the bastard who knocked her up is a piece of shit,” David said. “If I was her father, I’d have said she was better off without him.”
“Yes.” Running her hands over his shoulders, she held his gaze with the wide-open vulnerability of her own. “We’re still standing, still in each other’s arms.”
David’s heart-stealing smile creased his cheeks. “Right where we’re meant to be.”
“Yes.” Tears rolled down her face, a dam bursting without warning.
“Hey.” Scowling, David wiped them off with his thumbs. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand to see you cry. Or tell me who to kill.”
She sniffed. “Thank you for being stubborn, for fighting for me, for being so wonderful, and for putting up with my hang-ups.”
Kissing off her tears this time, he said, “I’m the one who came out on top. I have you.”
Thea had no idea what she was going to do with him; he kept cutting her off at the knees. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life,” she whispered, and it wasn’t scary at all to admit that, not when he’d given her his heart to hold in return for her own. “I am so glad you wrote me that memo.”
A slow, sinful, David smile. “I’m not done yet.”
After the Tour
Reasons Why You Should Marry Me
Introduction: In which I, David Rivera, set out the reasons why you, Thea Arsana, should make an honest man out of me.
First and foremost, I am insanely, deeply, forever in love with you. Since you admit to feeling the same, roadblock number one ceases to exist.
Second, your mother likes me. She kissed me on the cheek this morning and told me to hurry things along, start working on grandbabies for her. Your father, meanwhile, no longer gives me the stinkeye (most of the time). I think he’s resigned to my existence.
You know my parents adore you and both my brothers are in love with you. Your sweet little sisters, meanwhile, seem to find me giggle-worthy, and Molly thinks we’re perfect for one another. Ergo (I looked that up in the dictionary), there are no viable family reasons why we can’t get married.
Third, all our close friends love that we’re together. We don’t want to break their hearts by not going all the way, do we?
Finally, and most importantly, I want you to be mine in every way. I want every single man on the planet to know you belong to me, and every single woman to know I belong to you. Playing with you, arguing with you over silly, everyday things, making love with you, growing grumpy and wrinkly together with you (while continuing to have mind-blowing sex at least three times a day), that’s my idea of heaven.
You’re my girl, Thea. Be my wife?
Sitting by the stream at the bottom of her parents’ garden, Thea finished reading the memo on her phone with a teary smile on her face. Only David could reduce her to a puddle. Unable to wait long enough to write back a memo in reply, she ran up the slope to find him… and there he was, waiting for her under the frangipani tree, that sexy, wonderful, slightly shy smile on his face.
“You forgot the conclusion,” she whispered, the frangipani blooms heavy and fragrant around them.
He slid his hand around to her nape. “That’s for you to write.”
“In conclusion,” she said, her hands splayed on his chest, “I, Thea Alice Arsana, see the value of your arguments.” More, she saw him: loyal and strong and loving and talented and plain wonderful. “You are the most incredible man I’ve ever met, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than marry you. I’ll be proud to call myself your wife, David Rivera.”