Page 117 of It Must Be Fate

“I wondered why you didn’t get me a souvenir.”

“Yum,” Thayer answers with a smile. “But he needs to keep that concept far away from Rhys.”

“Really?” Bellamy asks, glancing at her. “I’d have thought this would be right up your alley.”

“He’s aprofessional athlete, B. Phoenix went five times in seven hours but if Rhys ever gets the greenlight from me on this, he’ll go seven for seven plus an eighth and ninth time for good measure and a tenth just to gloat. For my and my vagina’s sakes, let’s keep him to his normal appetites.”

“What about you, B?” I ask.

“Phoenix can feel free to gossip to Rogue about it whenever he wants,” she answers with a sultry smile.“I’m intrigued.”

Before we can say anything else, a woman in a sober black dress wearing an earpiece comes up to her and whispers something in her ear. Bellamy listens, nodding, then turns back towards us with a smile. “An issue with the canapes, if you can believe it. I need to handle this — I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

“That’s a mic drop exit if I’ve ever seen one,” Thayer laughs.

Bellamy walks off with a wink. She’s barely gone when a phone starts to ring.

Thayer grabs her clutch from where she has it held under her arm and pulls out her phone.

“I should take this, it’s the babysitter,” she explains, turning on her heels and walking off.

“Et il n’en resta plus que deux,” Six says, smiling at me.

I hook my arm in hers. “The OGs.”

Together we move closer to the dancefloor and the countless couples who sway to the soft notes of classical music. We stand off to the side, near one of the pillars.

“Can you believe this is our life?” Six asks. “We met in Hong Kong, we went to school together in Switzerland, and now we live in London. We’re godmothers to each other’s children and our husbands are best friends. Can you believe we got this lucky?”

Truthfully, the answer is no. For so long everything in my life seemed to be going wrong. I had bad luck after bad encounter in a constantly repeating cycle.

That all changed almost overnight.

I often pinch myself to make sure the last eighteen years haven’t been a dream.

I hold my breath before every pinch, scared this is going to be one time the result is different, but I’ve never woken up.

This isactuallymy life and I’m so grateful for it.

“I knew you were going to be by my side for the rest of my life the day I met you, but no, I never imagined that we could have everything else. I would have called myself unbelievably greedy if I’d even tried to ask for all of this.”

She squeezes my hand. “Same.”

I hesitate before I ask my next question, but only for a moment. “We haven’t talked about it in a while, and maybe that’s intentional, but I wanted to see if you had talked aboutadoption again? I know Astra is your entire world—have you guys closed the topic off entirely?”

“We talked about it recently, actually. We’re both on the same page that we don’t necessarily need any other children.” Six gets a thoughtful look in her eye that tells me that even though she’s taken a brief pause, she hasn’t actually finished talking. “For me, the subject of adopting another baby is closed. But, I’ll be honest — the more I work with high-risk families and see these abandoned kids going into the care system, the more it breaks my heart. If we were going to adopt, it would definitely be an older child.”

Six is the definition of a bleeding heart. She’s absolutely brilliant but that’s only part of what makes her a formidable solicitor. She cares about everyone equally, whether friend or stranger, and with a fierce, relentless passion I’ve never seen in anyone else.

Time and time again, I’ve watched her go to war in defense of children and their families and win. She’s truly the most selfless person I’ve ever met.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea and it makes so much sense.”

Her face softens. Relief crosses her features like maybe she thought I’d think otherwise. “Really?”

“Of course. There are so many children in care who need homes.”

“There are!” she exclaims, her passions igniting. “Phoenix actually just surprised me by making a very sizable donation to this charity calledNo Child Left Behind. I’d mentioned it to him in passing and he… well, they called and let me know they’re going to be able to open two new homes and house thirty kids full time until adulthood because of him.”

---