Page 61 of The Last Date

Carter stood up slowly, his eyes darting between the three of us until he stared at Sasha. Stepping toward her, he gave her a gentle hug. “My little girl is getting married. That’s...a lot to process. I love you, honey. Don’t worry, your mom is going to make sure that I’m less of an ass.”

“Good,” I heard her muffled giggle from her father’s chest.

Then he turned to me, shaking my hand firmly. “Welcome to the family, Oakley.” His eyes wouldn’t meet mine as he muttered, “I apologize. The...other business is being taken care of, and will be fixed in the next few hours. You can bill me for any expenses that you may have incurred.”

“Thank you, Sir. I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to keep Sasha safe and happy. And I’m willing to put last night’s little episode behind us, if you are.”

He simply nodded, stepping back to put an arm around his wife. Carter’s gaze couldn’t find a place to land, as he stared around the room.

“We should go and leave them to brunch,” he said quickly to Alison.

She looked disappointed, but he was definitely using a tone that meant something between them. “We’ll have to talk about dates and plans soon,” she said.

“June nineteenth,” Sasha said, making Alison beam all over again.

They left quickly, and as soon as the door clicked behin

d them, I spun Sasha into my arms, grabbing her ass firmly.

She blinked away tears as she looked up at me. “They’re really okay with us getting married. I can’t believe it.”

“Your mom is okay with it. Your dad is severely freaked out,” I chuckled, picking her up. “But he’ll come around. He’s going to see how crazily fabulous we are together.”

“We really are, aren’t we?” she laughed.

“Now,” I said, carrying her to the kitchen. “Let’s see if you made the coffee correctly. Rule number one is that the coffee must be incredible every morning.”

As I set her on her feet, I felt little fingers sweep up the back of my neck. “Are there a lot of rules?” she murmured.

“Let’s see. Proper, serious morning coffee. No climbing onto roofs. Coming home to me every night. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“Oh, good. I can keep track of that,” she smirked.

Sasha pulled my head down to hers almost aggressively. Her hungry mouth pulled me in. As her body pressed against mine, a breathy moan fell from the throat of my beautiful new fiance.

She was truly mine now. I’d won. Succeeded. Achieved the goal. Although I felt that we should celebrate, I was just too focused on the next step.

“Mmm, you’re delicious, baby, but we need to go through coffee and kitchen rules now.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re moving in with me as soon as possible, and you’ll need to know how everything works.”

To my absolute delight, she simply nodded. “Okay.” Then she began looking around the room.

“Are you decorating already, angel?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

EPILOGUE

* Oakley *

*** Seven Years Later ***

“Daddy, you’ve stirred it for hours and hours. It’s all stirred up now.”

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