“Grant, where’s your mom?” Maya said, giving him a friendly peck on the cheek.
“Her plane just landed. Chris is going to pick her up at the airport for me.”
Chris nodded at Maya, his face taking on an ironic look. “Hello, Maya. Pleasure to see you again.”
She grinned at Chris. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
He pulled an imaginary zipper across his lips. Chris looked a lot different in a T-shirt and jeans. He could have been any guy on the street instead of a celebrity show host. He looked a lot like the college friend Grant knew and trusted.
“Tell me what?” Grant said.
Maya sighed heavily. “I’ve decided to accept Luring Love’s invitation to be on the show again.”
“Why?” Maya had done well on the show—mainly because she wasn’t a raving lunatic—but Grant considered her too good to be chasing after some man who probably didn’t appreciate everything he had in her. Sure, the show had patched up his own love life, but he firmly believed he and Rochelle were the exception.
“Because this time, it’s the bachelorette edition.”
Grant felt his eyebrows raise. “That’ll be…interesting.”
Maya giggled. “That’s what I’m hoping for. You only live once!”
Chris pretended to pout. “I tried to tell her she should just date me and forget the show. I even told her I’d relocate to… Where are we again?”
She poked him in the side. “Richie would never let you live so far from the set.”
“Actually, I quit the show,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“What? When?” Grant asked.
“About ten minutes ago,” Chris said. “When Richie said he was sending a camera crew to the airport to film your mother coming through the gate. Sorry, man. He tracked us down somehow. Guy’s crazy.”
Grant cursed under his breath. He took out his phone to call in a warning to his mom, but the doctor opened the door beside him. “We’re ready for you, Mr. Drake,” she said. “Momma bear is a little grouchy.”
Grant flashed a grin at Maya and Chris. “Here we go.” He accepted the hospital gown and paper cap the nurse handed him. He looked ridiculous and felt amazing.
Chris eyed him thoughtfully. “What’s the first thing you’re going to teach your daughter? How to deliver an uppercut? How to palm thrust an unsuspecting attacker?”
Grant smiled at him through his too-tight surgical mask, snapping on the latex gloves. “I can teach her everything I know. But there’s one thing Chelle will have to show her.”
“What’s that?” Maya asked.
“How to lose a bachelor.”
He closed the door behind him, leaving his friends to ponder over that. Rochelle sat along the edge of the bed, panting and sweaty in her hospital nightgown. The nurse behind her looked at the monitor by the wall. All things electronic seemed to beep up at him.
“You’re going into another contraction, Mrs. Drake,” the nurse said. “You’ll want to get back on the bed and begin your breathing. The doctor will be here any second.”
“You,” Rochelle said, giving Grant a scowl. She did as she was told, though, moving her legs to lie back on the bed. She even accepted his hand when he offered it to her, squeezing it hard. “After this is over, I’m going to harvest your testicles, pickle them, and keep them in a jar on my desk. Thump them every now and again for good measure.”
He swallowed, not because of her threat, but because of the pain she must be in to make such a threat. In general, she usually adored his testicles. “Are the pain meds not working?”
The nurse shook her head. “She opted for no pain meds. Said she didn’t want to dull the experience.”
Dull the experience. It was one of life’s most painful, and the thought of Chelle going through it without anything to buffer it made him want to vomit. Stubborn woman. He’d have to deal with this delicately.
“Chelle,” Grant said, choked up. He could deal with a lot of things. But knowing the woman he loved was in pain wasn’t one of them. “You should take some—”
“Says the man who won’t take Tylenol after getting twenty-seven stitches on our honeymoon!”
“Twenty-nine,” he chided gently. “And it looked worse than it felt.” They’d gotten rambunctious in their lovemaking on the private balcony of their beach cottage, and he’d ended up going overboard. He fell thirteen feet, and he’d ripped open his arm on the railing, but fortunately landed in the white beach sand. It had been the biggest inconvenience of his life. Rochelle insisted on being “careful” with him the rest of the honeymoon. She’d been furious with him for not taking the pain meds he’d been prescribed. Now he knew why.
Just then, Rochelle clenched her teeth. “I have to push! Where is the doctor?”
The nurse hurried to her side, lifting up the small blanket covering the lower half of Chelle’s body bent at the knees. “She’s crowning,” she said, pulling on gloves. “I’m afraid the doctor won’t make it in time.”
Grant felt blood pool in his feet. This was happening. Rochelle was going to have this baby without pain meds or a doctor. Oh God.
Chelle screeched then, bearing down, and within seconds the nurse held his daughter, bloodied and bruised and beautiful, in her hands. It took Grant all of a breath of a moment to react. In one swift motion, he cut the cord, reveling in the fact that the baby was now out of his wife’s belly and into their lives. Tears welled in his eyes as the nurse handed their infant girl to Rochelle, who was still shaking from the final push. “Grant,” she rasped. “We did it.”
He melted beside them both, planting a forceful kiss on Chelle’s forehead and a gentle one on their baby’s. Pride swelled inside him. His daughter had a head full of dark hair just like her mother and screaming lungs to match. He would recognize the Drake nose from anywhere, though, even if it was just a bit smushed from her journey. His mother would be elated.
Even though they were still at odds over baby names. His mother wanted to call her Elle, but Rochelle insisted that they would not have rhyming names and proposed Jocelyn. He personally didn’t care what they named this tiny miracle now, as long as she was his.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Chelle asked, after their daughter had finally settled in for some quiet snuggling.
Grant shook his head. “Nothing more beautiful exists.”
Chelle leaned her head against his and sighed. “Eleven years in the making.”
He chuckled. “Totally worth it.”
She smiled up at him, radiant, but tired. “Totally. Maybe I didn’t win that stupid dating show,” she said, “but I ended up with my dream life. That has to count for something.”
“It counts for everything. That dating show was no contest for us.”
“And nothing ever will be.”
But Chelle was already nodding off to sleep, with their daughter in her arms.
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Acknowledgments
Acknowledgements are always the hardest part of the book to write because there are so many people to include and remember, but to be honest, with each new publication, there is always an easy one I can knock out right away: my agent. I can’t ever thank my agent Lucy Carson enough for what she does for me on a daily basis. I have a serious agent-crush on her, guys. Seriously. For reals. No, really.
I want to thank Liz Pelletier for being a rockstar editor with this, for all her brilliant insights and for trusting me enough not to waste her time with this crazy book. Thanks to the Entangled marketing and publicity staff, especially Debbie Suzuki, for being so darn creative
and wholly on board with my outlandish ideas at times.
Thanks to my critique partners Heather and Kaylyn, and to my authorly partner in crime, fellow Entangled author Ayesha Patel.
Thanks so much to my sisters Lisa and Teri who helped me through some very difficult times that happened during the making of this book, and thanks to my family as a whole for always being supportive of my writing career.
And last but not least, thanks to my readers. Whether you’re new to me, or you’ve followed me over from the Syrena Legacy series, THANK YOU! :)
About the Author
Anna is the New York Times bestselling author of the Syrena Legacy trilogy. She lives in Florida with her husband and daughter. She enjoys pranking random people, coughing loudly at inappropriate times, and drinking sweet tea. Especially the sweet tea part. She loves connecting on Twitter, but beware of her excessive use of sarcasm. Her favorite color is rainbow, and her writer’s cat is a wiener dog named Puckledoo.
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