“I had it coming,” Santiago said, adjusting his jaw a little ruefully. “Thanks for helping with the rings.”
Letty grinned. “No problem. It was easy. It was either gold bands or the candy ones. Hey, you two lovebirds, there was one part of the wedding the pastor had to cut when we got kicked out.” Letty looked between them. “You may now kiss the bride.”
Santiago looked down at Belle with a gleam in his black eyes. “The perfect end to a perfect day.”
Belle smiled through her tears.
Once, she’d thought that all her chances for love and happiness had passed her by. She’d thought that her choice to take care of her brothers instead of herself, to sacrifice her own dreams for others, meant that she’d ended her own chance for a bright future.
Now she realized that life wasn’t like that.
Every day could be a new start. Every day could be a fresh miracle. And today, the first day of their marriage, the first day of her daughter’s life, she knew it wasn’t the end of anything. As her husband lowered his head to kiss her in a private vow that would last the rest of their lives, she knew it was all just beginning.
* * *
Santiago got married in a quick hospital ceremony just minutes before his baby was born, and his two best friends never let him forget it.
“And you said you’d never get married in some tacky quick wedding,” said Darius Kyrillos, who’d married at City Hall.
“You said you’d never get married at all,” said his friend Kassius Black, who’d wed at an over-the-top grand ceremony in New Orleans.
Santiago grinned. “A man can change his mind, can’t he?”
He was on his third helping of Texas-style barbecue, and the three men were sitting across a huge sofa in a corner of the ballroom of his Upper East Side mansion. Officially, it was a party to celebrate the christening of six-week-old Emma. Unofficially, it was also a wedding reception. The house was crowded, decidedly a family affair filled with friends and relatives, including Belle’s two brothers who’d come up to New York for the event, and neighbors, employees and their families. For dinner, they’d had champagne, beer, barbecue, corn on the cob and homemade ice cream. It was November, the time of Thanksgiving. But Belle had definite ideas about how she wanted this party to be.
“Fun like home,” she’d said with a grin.
So there was a bluegrass band playing, to the mild shock of the foreign dignitaries that had been invited. But they seemed to like it, and even strangers had become friends, with people dancing and kids running around. And did he actually see someone’s golden retriever running madly across the house...?
The only family not in attendance was his father, the Duke of Sangovia, who had recently, and rather shockingly, wed his former daughter-in-law, the famous movie star. Another marriage “partnership.” Santiago shuddered thinking of it. And those were the people he might have spent his life with, like a prison sentence, if Belle hadn’t saved him. If she hadn’t taught him to be brave enough to risk his heart and soul.
If she hadn’t taught him what love actually meant.
Now, as the three husbands sat together, drinking frosty mugs of beer and watching the crowd, Santiago looked down at his daughter, who’d fallen asleep in his arms. After six weeks, he was starting to feel like a pro as a dad.
Kassius and Darius, who’d also brought their wives and children to the party, looked down at the fat baby in Santiago’s arms.
“Babies are adorable,” Kassius said.
“Especially when they’re sleeping,” Darius said.
“That’s what I meant,” he said.
“To sleeping babies—” Santiago raised his beer mug “—and beautiful wives.” They all clinked glasses. Softly, so as not to wake the baby.
Across the crowd, Santiago saw Belle, and as always, he lost his breath.
She was beautiful—the center of this house as she was the center of his world. Her long dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, over her curvaceous body in the soft red dress. As she felt his glance, their eyes locked across the crowd. Electricity raced through his body.
Santiago had spent his whole childhood dreaming of having a place in the world. A home. A family. It had come true, just not in the way he’d expected.
He hadn’t been born into this family. He’d created it. He and Belle together. From the moment they’d fallen into bed and accidentally conceived a child.
Had it been an accid
ent? he suddenly wondered. Or was it possible he’d always known, from the moment he first met Belle, that she would be the one to break the spell?
Because that was what she’d done. It was funny. Belle had once compared him to a knight, saying he’d slain dragons for Nadia like something out of a fairy tale. But he hadn’t. All he’d done was make a lot of money. He’d never risked anything. He’d never saved anyone.