When Max returns the mic to the DJ, he catches me staring and grins. My heart does a painful little flip-flop as he comes over to me.

“Dance with me?”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and he leads me to the dance floor.

Leaning my head against his shoulder, I let the heat of his body seep into mine. His breath dances in my hair as we move.

He holds me close as we dance, his mouth against my ear, his fingers grazing down my spine. “You look beautiful tonight.”

I smile into his neck and sigh. Despite everything else, it was a good day. William looked like the happiest man in the world as Cally came down the stairs. Seeing them exchange vows after all they’ve been through… Heck, I even think Drew had tears in her eyes. And if I just hold on to that feeling, I can almost believe that everything’s going to be fine. That everything’s going to work out.

“So do you.” I tuck my hand inside his jacket to feel the hard heat of him. I want to curl up in Max tonight. I want to forget the rest of the world and the rest of the heartbreak and grief and breathe him in until nothing else exists.

“I’ve missed this,” he says. “I’ve missed feeling you in my arms. The way you smell. The way my whole world feels like it’s righted itself when you’re near me. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. Tired.” His question reminds me of my mother, whom I’ve skillfully avoided since her unfortunately timed appearance before the ceremony. “Cally’s pregnant,” I say, pulling back to look at him.

His grin is slow and wide as he lifts his head to find the couple in question on the other side of the dance floor. “Will must be over the moon.”

“She is too,” I say. “But when we found out, Mom heard Cally say something to me and now Mom knows I’m pregnant.”

He frowns. “She’s okay, though, right?”

I shrug. “I’ve pretty much been avoiding her, but I can’t put it off much longer. I’m going to invite her to the bakery tomorrow before church. I need to tell her the truth. I need to tell her there isn’t going to be a wedding.”

“I’ll be next to you when you tell her.”

“Really?” I ask.

“I should have never let her rush this. It was too soon after the accident, too soon after…everything.” He studies me for a long time, and when he speaks, his voice cracks a little, like maybe he’s nervous. “What if the truth was that you and I aren’t ready to get married just yet, but we’re still planning on making a family together…in our own time. On our own schedule.”

My stomach clenches and my heart does a few more acrobatic moves.

“I didn’t ask you to marry me on a whim. Forever doesn’t have a deadline.” Slowly, he lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my engagement ring. “You and me, Hanna? We’re right together.”

I shake my head. “You don’t have to do this. No one would blame you if you walked away. Not even me.”

He gives me a sad smile. “You hear what song is playing, don’t you?”

I wasn’t paying attention, but I listen and realize we’re dancing to Alicia Keys and Adam Levine’s cover of “Wild Horses.” The lyrics tug at my heart.

“Just think about it, Max.” I stop dancing, but he holds on to me. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life regretting your decision to marry me.”

He kisses my neck then whispers in my ear, “The only decision I would regret is letting you go. I’m not swimming in money, but I can give you a good life. If you want more babies, I’ll give them to you. If you want a career, I’ll support you. I’ll eat peanut butter sandwiches every night for a year if it means you can afford to do something you love. I would do anything to see you happy, but I’d sure as hell like to be the one who wakes up to your smiles.” When I don’t speak, he pulls back to show me an awkward grin. “Think about it. You don’t have to decide tonight. If we do this, it’s on our timeline. No one else’s.”

“Max, I chose you.”

“I don’t begrudge you your grief, Hanna. He’s part of your past. I—”

“No, I want you to understand. I chose you. Before the accident.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I nod. “Five days before, Nate decided that he wanted more from me. He told me I needed to choose. To make a decision. I might not remember the days after, but I chose you. I put on your ring.”

He toys with my ring and kisses the top of my head. We hold each other tight as we dance.

52. Max

NEXT TO me in bed, she moans softly in her sleep, her dark hair fanned out around her head. I want to touch her—trace her soft lips, the line of her jaw, the roundness of her breasts, all the way down her soft thighs to the arch of her foot. I want to taste her again, to wake her with the soft flick of my tongue against her pussy.

I barely slept last night. I kept waking up and staring at her, pulling her tight against my chest to make sure she was still there. Still real.

I start at her breasts. The sweep of my tongue across her already-taut nipple as I cup her between her legs.

Then I move lower, positioning myself at the end of the bed and parting her thighs before lowering my face to taste her.

“Well, good morning to you too,” she whispers, drawing up on her elbows.

I lift my eyes to meet hers, and lick her clit. “Relax,” I murmur against her. “I have some things I need to do.”

I test her wet core with my fingertip and my c**k throbs. She’s already so turned on, and if I wanted to take her, she’d be ready for me. I squeeze my eyes shut against the image of Hanna underneath me as I enter her, and instead, I slide two fingers inside her.

She gasps at the sudden intrusion, and her muscles grip my fingers so tightly my c**k aches. When I lower my head and wrap my lips around her clit, she grabs a fistful of my hair. I know it’s reflex—a base instinct demanding more from me—but I f**king love that I can do that to her. I suck on her cl*tgently as I pump my fingers in and out of her in a rhythm so much like f**king that my own damn h*ps are rocking against the end of the bed.

Her grip on my hair tightens and her h*ps rock until she’s f**king my fingers and my face in the sexiest way possible.

I drew her a bath last night and climbed in behind her. I washed her and explored her then used the showerhead to rinse her off before sliding it between her legs. She was shocked at first, the sensation of the pulsing water too much against her sensitive flesh, but I held her still, sucked at the tender skin at the side of her neck until she relaxed into the pleasure, until she was rocking her h*ps for more. Her moans grew louder and her ass rubbed against me, harder and more frantic as her orgasm built. I rolled her ni**les in my fingers and whispered dirty words in her ear, and when she came—violently, beautifully—I imagined her pu**y squeezing my cock. It was so f**king good—touching her, feeling her—I could have come too, right there in the water like some teenage virgin, from nothing but the sound of her moans and the pressure of her ass rubbing against me. I was rewarded for my self-control when she turned in the water, wrapped her arms and legs around me, and guided me into her.

After, she lowered her head to my chest and I watched her hair fan out in the water behind her, measured her breaths until she feel asleep.

She’s not sleeping now. Her hand is in my hair, her soft little cries echoing in the silence of the bedroom.

53. Hanna

“CAN I get you a latte?” I ask Mom. She met me at the bakery like I asked her to, though she looks like she’d rather be anywhere else and she hasn’t made eye contact with me once since she arrived. “Or I could get you a muffin, maybe?”

“You know I don’t eat sugar,” she snips.

I take a breath. Yeah. I do know that. If I thought news of giving her grandbabies was going to change that, I guess I don’t know her very well.

“It’s true? You’re pregnant?” she asks. She’s still not looking at me. She’s staring out the window like she’s waiting for someone to pull up and rescue her from this conversation.

I lower myself into a chair at the little table where I imagined we’d hash out the challenges ahead of us. Clearly I’ve been delusional if I thought my mom would see my canceled wedding as a “challenge” we could problem solve together.

“I’m pregnant,” I confirm.

Max stands behind me and squeezes my shoulders, and I’m so grateful for him being here right now. Part of me thought I should do it alone—it’s not like they’re his babies—but it’s a relief to have him close.

Mom spins on us suddenly. “Well, no one else needs to know. Your wedding is in two weeks. Everyone will think you got pregnant on the honeymoon.”

Right, about that…

“We’re canceling the wedding,” Max says, sparing me from finding the words. “It’s too soon and too fast, and Hanna needs to focus on the pregnancy right now.”

Mom’s jaw drops. It’s such a dramatic expression that I almost want to laugh, but I’ve probably pissed her off enough for one day. “This is a mistake.”

“No, it’s not,” Max says. “The mistake would be rushing into this like we have been. I want to spend the rest of my life with Hanna, but she’s been through a lot in the last month and we both have some things to figure out before we say our vows.”

She worries her lip between her teeth. “Okay. We could push it back a month, maybe use my heart attack as an excuse. Then we’ll just pretend the baby came early.”

I shake my head. “No, Mom. I’m not getting married until after the babies are born, and that would be the soonest.”

“Babies?”

“Twins,” I whisper.

I didn’t think it was possible, but her face goes even harder. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. You have no idea how hard it is to have a baby, let alone two at a time.” She turns her scowl on Max. “How are you going to let her have your babies without being married?”

“They aren’t his,” I blurt before Max can respond. “I slept with someone else and got pregnant. This isn’t Max’s fault.”

She presses her hand to her chest and sinks into the chair across from me, and I think, I am going to kill my mother. This might really kill her. So much for finding an easy way to break my news.

“Could I speak with my daughter alone, please?” She’s looking out the window again. Apparently, she can’t tolerate the sight of me.

Max squeezes my shoulders, and there’s so much in that tiny gesture. He’s saying that he’ll be here if I need him, that he loves me, that he’s proud of me. Then he presses a kiss to the top of my head and goes to the kitchen to give us some privacy.

“What will people think?” Mom says as soon as we’re alone.

I shrug. “I spent my whole life worrying what people would think. You taught me that. Since I was ten years old, I wondered if I was too fat for people to like me, believed I had to make up for it by being kind, by pretending I didn’t have any feelings of my own. I can’t tell you the number of decisions I made just to please you. I am so over what ‘people’ think, because ‘people’ really means you, and you should love me unconditionally. Screw-ups and all.”

“I do.” Her eyes well with tears, but she pushes out of her seat and turns her back to me. “I just want to protect you from bad decisions.”

I’m not surprised when she leaves, but just because you expect something doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Max must have heard the bell over the door because he’s beside me, pulling me against his chest and stroking my hair before I even realize I’m crying.

By the time Liz comes in the back door, I’ve settled down but I’m sitting in Max’s lap, snuggled against his chest.

“Go,” she says, pointing to the ceiling. “Go back upstairs and get to sleep or screw like rabbits or whatever you have to do, because it’s way too early for people to have to look at that.”

I grin. “You look like you just rolled out of some guy’s bed.” And she does. In jeans and a man’s white button-up shirt, she looks, in fact, like she crawled out of bed and scrambled for something to wear. I arch a brow. “How’d it go last night?”

She crosses her arms. “You can’t prove anything.”

Max and I laugh, but then I sober when I tell Liz, “We’re calling off the wedding. We told Mom this morning.”

She flinches. “But you guys look so happy.”

“We don’t have to get married to stay happy,” Max says.

“Take off your dress,” Max whispers behind me.

A thrill rushes through me at the command. It’s been a week since Cally’s wedding, and every night, Max has come to my apartment when he gets off work. Some nights he has Claire and we hold her and feed her and generally spoil her rotten. And some nights it’s just him and he takes off my clothes and does these amazing things to my body.

I obey. I pull the black sundress off over my head and let the fabric spill to the floor.

He takes me by the shoulders, and I feel his eyes on every inch of me as he slowly turns me to face him.

He tilts my chin up with his fingertips and lowers his mouth to mine. Our kiss isn’t easy or sweet. It’s not the coaxing kiss of seduction or the lazy kiss of long-time lovers. No, this kiss is a cocktail of need and regret and desperation. It’s the hard kiss of two people grasping on to something they thought they’d lost. It’s the demanding kiss of lonely hearts offered a second chance. It’s lips and tongues and teeth, and before it’s over, my arms are wrapped around his neck, my legs wrapped around his waist, while he hoists me up and carries me to the bed.