Epilogue
Jessa
Six Years Later
"Daddy?" Lola looks up from her homework, her little nose wrinkled. "What's a billionaire?"
"It's someone with more money than they need, bug," Jax murmurs, looking over at her from where he's standing by the stove. He's making us dinner, which makes him infinitely more attractive to me.
What? I'm five months pregnant with our third baby girl. Food is all I think about these days. Luckily for me, my husband is a hell of a cook. Most nights, he makes dinner for us while I help Lola with her homework and Liah scribbles in a coloring book at the kitchen table.
Ruby usually scavenges around the stove, looking for crumbs. I pretend not to see Jax intentionally dropping things for her. Right now, she's content with the giant bone he brought her. It's bigger than her entire body, but she's happily attacking it like a savage.
Dinnertime is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jax is a busy man, running from meeting to meeting to property to property. But when he's in town, he always makes sure he's home for dinner.
His trips out of town have slowed down over the last few years. I think he got tired of being away from us so much. Unless we can travel with him, his trips are always abbreviated. He goes, does what he needs to do, and then flies home. Even if it means he doesn't get home until the middle of the night. He says he can't sleep without me.
I know the feeling. Falling asleep in his arms every night is as blissful to me now as it was six years ago. I love him more now than I did then, which doesn't seem possible to me. But he keeps finding ways to make me fall for him a little more every day.
He spoils me and the girls. We never want for anything. I've told him a million times that he spends too much money on us, but he never listens. He says he can do what he wants. Then he usually makes love to me until I forget what we were even talking about in the first place.
More than that though, he spoils us with love and attention.
When I was pregnant with Lola, he was really anxious about being a dad. He was so afraid he'd mess it up or fail her or me in some way. That ended the day she was born five years ago. Jax fell in love with his baby girl as soon as the nurse placed her in his arms. She barely left them the first few weeks. I had to fight him for my turn…and I was the one breastfeeding! If she made the slightest sound, he was right there to pick her up.
He's wrapped around her little finger and everyone knows it. No one messes with his girls without him throwing a fit. Last year, a little boy cut a piece of Lola's hair in preschool because she wouldn't give him the crayon she was using. I thought Jax was going to lose his mind. He wanted to pull her out of preschool and hire a tutor for her.
Lola did not take the news well. She cried her little eyes out. Jax was beside himself. Eventually, he promised not to pull her out of preschool. The waterworks ended. Peace was restored in the household. It didn't calm him down any at all when it comes to her and Liah.
He's still a crazy pants daddy on top of being a bossy pants man. We love him anyway. He is so damn good to us. It's hard to remember a time when he wasn't mine because it feels like we've had this effortless, fairytale love forever. Things were a little rough in the beginning.
His board was, as expected, suspicious of me. They pushed him to get me to sign a pre-nup. Eventually, he erupted and told the entire board that they could get out if they had a problem with our relationship but that I wouldn't be signing a damn thing. And that, if something ever happened to him, they would be damn lucky to have me in his place. He also reminded them that his father left him in charge because he didn't trust them to have the best interests of the company at heart.
They didn't like hearing that, but it changed the way they treat him. They no longer question every decision he makes. They've begrudgingly accepted that he's the best thing to ever happen to Concord. Some of them are more friendly with him now. The others keep their complaints to themselves.
Daniel does a good job making sure everyone plays nice with Jax. He knows when trouble is brewing long before the first murmurs even start. He and Jax work together to squash problems before they get far. It's worked out well. Jax has a lot of respect for Daniel and vice versa. He's almost family now. The kids call him Uncle Daniel.
Gold diggers still try to flirt with Jax. It makes him angrier than it does me. He's sent more than one woman rushing away in tears over the years, but they still keep trying. It makes him completely crazy. It's honestly a little amusing to me. He only has eyes for me, and I have never once doubted that. My man worships me, and he doesn't care who knows it.
"Daddy?" Lola asks again.
"Yes, bug?" Jax says, making me smile. I swear, our daughter wakes up asking questions in the morning and she falls asleep asking them at night. She is so curious about everything! She's only in kindergarten but she's already doing so well. She's reading and writing. She can do basic math. Her teacher says she's a model student.
She looks just like Jax with his mocha eyes and brown hair. Liah favors me. She's got the palest blonde hair and blue eyes. Her little dimples are all Jax. So is her attitude. She's only two and a half, but she is a bossy little thing! If she doesn't like something, she is quick to let us know. Otherwise, she doesn't talk much. When her world is going according to her plan, she's happy as a clam. But just let something get in her way. She uses that voice then.
Her first word was no. I think it's still her favorite word. Sher certainly says it to me often enough. Not Jax though. She'll do whatever he wants her to do without a single complaint. Most of the time, he gets her dressed in the mornings. Otherwise, I spend an hour chasing her naked little self through the house, trying to get her clothes on her.
"Are you a billionaire?"
"Where'd you hear that?" Jax asks, brows furrowed as he turns to look at her daughter.
"Maximus said that you're a billionaire," Lola says, tilting her head to the side to look at him. "He said that you own eberything."
Jax looks at me, his brows raised.
I shrug. He can explain this one to her. Lola and Liah don't know a lot about money or status or anything like that. They know we live in a big house and that we have fast cars. But they're so little. I don't think they really understand how privileged they are.
We try to teach them not to expect things to be given to them, and make sure they know that other people aren't as fortunate. We don't want them to grow up expecting the world to just hand them things. Jax didn't grow up that way and neither did I. We want our girls to be compassionate, giving, and grateful. It's important to us that they don't live in a bubble, surrounded only by the children of other billionaires. That's why Lola is in public school.
"We do have a lot of money," Jax says carefully. "But that's not what is most important about us, Lola. Family is more important. People are more important."
"I know." She purses her little lips at him. "Is a billion more than a million?"