Cecilia wraps her arms around my neck but can’t pull herself close, with the bump in the way. She looks down in frustration. “I want to hug your daddy,” she says. “Would you please let us?”
Her belly stays firmly in the way. I chuckle, kissing her again. My arms are tight around her shoulders. “He can stay. I’m holding two of my favorite people in the world right now.”
“With the third seconds away from bursting in here demanding that you play with her. Are you sure you have the time?”
“Absolutely, Mrs. St. Clair. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.”
Her smile softens, illuminates the face I love so much. The face I couldn’t live without. The face I’d once looked at every single day for a year and never truly seen.
I don’t miss the man I was back then. Cecilia sometimes talks jokingly about it, about the team we made when she was my assistant, but I can’t look back at it with fondness. All I see is someone who was so blind he couldn’t recognize the miracle in front of him, let alone treat her right.
“I love you, Mr. St. Clair,” she says. “You’re the best husband a woman could ever want.”
I groan against her shoulder and she laughs, knowing how excited I get. Every time.
But the joyous peal of laughter from the kitchen drowns out my body’s needs. “Daddy!” Philippa calls. “I’m coming!”