Page 154 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

He shifts back, slightly, and his eyes are almost golden now, bright with luck. With hope. With us.

“Little thing,” he says. “That’s what it means.”

“But I’m not little. I’m six feet and some consider me a Valkyrie, which does not exactly imply sweet and soft and feminine—”

Taio kisses me soundly, then smiles down at me when I sigh.

“First,” he says sternly, “you are littler than me. Second, there is not one square centimeter on your entire, perfect body that is not feminine and alluring, and I know, because I have tasted every bit of you.” He kisses me again, deeper this time. “And third,cosita mia,anyone who has ever told you that Valkyries are not attractive is weak. Foolish. And, frankly, unworthy of such a woman in the first place. Remember that.”

“Bold words for a man who has been icy in the extreme all day every day,” I say, my head tipped back as I look up at him. “Almost as if he’s embarrassed—”

I don’t realize that I’m not joking, that there is some little kernel of shame inside me, until his eyes widen at that.

“Embarrassed?”

And he laughs. For the first time in as long as I’ve known him, Taio de Luz throws back his beautiful head and laughs until he has to wipe at his own eyes.

Then he fixes me with a look that has everything inside me…shimmering.

“My beautiful wife,” he says, laughter threaded into his voice, his smile, his eyes, “I did not wish to scare you off. If it were up to me, we would never get out of bed at all. I could not belessembarrassed by you, for there is not one part of you I do not love. Not one. Not ever.”

And then, as if he wants to prove exactly how tiny I am to him, how feminine, howelectric,he picks me up, carries me to the bed, and kisses me silly.

Until movement in my belly makes us stop.

We look at each other, both of us filled with wonder.

“Is that…?” he asks, hushed.

“I think it must be,” I say, and as I guide his hand to my belly there’s another kick.

And I know.

“Taio,” I whisper his name like a prayer as he bends to kiss the little soul who kicks at him, like the baby already knows its father. “We’re going to be a family.”

“My only love,” he replies, kissing his way up the length of my body so our eyes can shine together, and our smiles can match. “We already are.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Everythingchangeswithlove.

For the better.

This is what I tell myself at the start, and this is how I feel as the years roll by.

Taio and I go back to New York. We sit down with Tess and tell her the truth.

Part of me expects that she will storm out, call me names, and decide she wants nothing more to do with Miravakia Investigations.

What she does instead is laugh.

“I knew it,”she cries. She waves her hand. “Oh, not the Luc Garnier part. That’s very Remington Steele, isn’t it? But I knew the two of you belonged together. It was obvious.”

To my astonishment, that’s the end of the matter. She takes on an even more expanded role, becoming in many ways the new Luc Garnier. She takes charge of the agency and sends out our new pool of investigators to work at her direction.

She loves every minute of it. She tells me so all the time.

As for me, I become a consultant on the really fun cases, the thorniest puzzles.

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