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"It probably looks ugly at first."

I smile.

"Promising."

"It looks like fewer meetings. Less pretending every problem in the company can only be solved by me. More delegation. More being here." His hand slides to my waist. "More sleep. Definitely more sex. And more time in Cannes, watching you paint."

I laugh softly.

"I'd pay to see that."

"You're already getting it for free."

I settle back against him. His hand settles low on my stomach, warm and steady.

"Hi," he says softly, to the baby.

If I'm being honest, this serious, controlled man talking to a belly that isn't even showing yet might be the most disarming thing he's ever done. And he's done a lot.

"Too soon?"

"No," I whisper. "It's perfect."

He kisses my forehead and I finally let all of the pressure from the last month go. My husband beside me. Our child between us. I'm right where I want to be.

I close my eyes.

And for the first time, I don't have to convince myself it's real.

It just is.

Epilogue

EVERETT

She has refused the chair four times.

I know this because I've been counting, and because the chair cost eleven hundred dollars and was specifically selected by Everly for lumbar support and I carried it in from the car myself, which is not something I typically do at art galleries but is apparently something I do now for my nine-and-a-half-months-pregnant wife who will not sit down.

"I'm fine," Aria says without looking at me, adjusting a frame that does not need adjusting.

"You've been on your feet for three hours."

"I'm aware of what my feet are doing."

"Your ankles aren't. They’re swelling to almost double the size."

She turns. Gives me a look that says, in no uncertain terms, that what I just blurted out could very well end in her stabbing me in the neck with a paint brush.

"Everett. If you mention my ankles one more time, I will hang you next to the watercolors."

Zayne, walks up next to me with a glass of wine, "I bet she couldn't even pay someone to take you away. Not even worth her time."

"Helpful," I tell him.

"I thought so."

The gallery is full tonight with people who came because they wanted to see Aria's work and not because a Kauffman was attached to the invitation.