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There is no weapon sharp enough to keep us apart, little bird. No world cruel enough to deny our destinies.

'Perhaps I need more lessons,' said Rose, coyly. 'And anyway, it's my rose garden. I'm as safe as can be out here.'

'Well, you are now.' Shen stuck his hands in his pockets, where Rose assumed he had stashed at least three daggers, and flashed a grin that made her knees weak. It was hard to forget they had shared their first kiss in this very place.

Strong hands caught her waist. 'Careful, Majesty.'

For a blissful moment, Rose allowed herself to lean into Shen Lo, resting her head on the hard planes of his chest, breathing him in as she had her roses. Then she came to her senses and stepped away from him.

"My dear Emily. I've never seen you look so dejected." He was regarding me with affection-and something else, but it was gone before I could name it.

"Trying to keep all my promises."

All I could do was nod. The baby kicked between us, and I felt so much happiness my heart threatened to burst. When I pulled away, he kissed me, his eyes a little misty.

"Come on, we have a plane waiting. It's time to go home."

I turned around, confused. Kristen was beaming at me. I looked over her shoulder at Jason and Josh, watching me from the curb. They stood next to each other and grinned like conspirators.

"What's going on?" I asked, looking back and forth between them.

Kristen looked giddy. "You moved."

"What?"

She smiled. "So did we."

We'd gotten married at the Glensheen mansion in Duluth, on the shore of Lake Superior—home of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Tucker had worn a tuxedo Kristen had made for him, and he sat at our feet as wed said our vows. Oliver had been our ring bearer. Ernie, David, Zane, and Josh had stood next to Jason, and Kristen had stood next to me—the way it was always going to be.

I jerked my head back. "And did you love all the barfing?"

"Well, no. But look how sexy you are right now..." He put his face into my neck and trailed his mouth across my skin.

"There is nothing sexy about this, Jason. I'm swollen and starving. I have to pee constantly."

He laughed into my neck. "I think I can convince you."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What surprise? I didn't like the last one."

He chuckled. "What? When I told you I want to get pregnant again right away?" He crossed over to sit next to me and leaned in to kiss me, putting a hand on my belly. "I just love you like this," he breathed against my lips.

"Are you comfortable, sweetheart?"

"Yeeeess." I smiled against his lips.

He put a hand to my belly and I moved it to the left, where the baby was kicking, and his eyes gleamed.

"She likes the music," I said.

He held his hand to my wiggling stomach and grinned. "Are you hungry?"

"Always."

He sang a few verses to test his equipment and he tipped his head toward me, his lips to the mic, and winked. I blew him a kiss and his grin got so big could hear it in his voice.

"He got lemon drops, right?" I asked. I was addicted to Nadia Cakes, and my pregnancy cravings were serious.

"Placed the order myself. Couldn't let Ernie fuck that up. I didn't want you pissed at me."

"Like either of us could ever get pissed at you." I smiled.

"How did you see me?" I whispered.

He came up to look at me. He had tears in his beautiful, blue eyes. "I told you, Sloan. I'd notice you in a crowd of a million."

And then, in front of fifteen thousand cheering Jaxon Waters fans, Jason kissed me.

He buried his face in my neck and I could feel the racking of his gasps as he held me to his chest. Hands touched us, people swayed against our bodies with the surge of the crowd and it didn't even matter because we were alone. It was just us.

Nothing was left but us.

We both paused for a breathless second before we dove for each other. I jumped, wrapping my legs around his waist, and he caught me.

The crowd began to make a path to let him through and gentle hands guided me down to the floor and toward him. It felt like the ebb of the ocean. A riptide sucking me out to sea. They parted for me and then folded in after me, pushing me forward. And then suddenly the only person in front of me was him.

It was poetry about a woman who was every season. She was the muffled moment when snow started to fall. A soft, beguiling spring fog over a glass lake. The full moon, white and unmarred in an inky-black summer sky. An autumn so vibrant you can die feeling peace because your eyes have seen it.

It was the most beautiful thing hed ever written. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.

And it was mine.

Jason wiped at his eyes with his thumb and picked up his guitar. "I'll never get her back. It's too late for that. But this song is for Sloan anyway. It's called 'Proof.'"

My fragile heart shattered. I completely lost it. I leaned forward, hands over my mouth, and sobbed.

He sang.

"You think you know what love looks like. You think the fairy tales and the romantic movies prepare you. And then you finally, really truly find it and you realize you never knew a thing about it until her." He shook his head. "She was every love song I've never been good enough to write." His voice cracked on the last word.

Everyone was screaming around me, pulsing with the music. His voice boomed through my whole body until I was saturated. He came in through my eyes, my ears, the vibration in the floor. I could taste the memory of his sweat on my tongue, smell the warm masculine scent of him after a show when he'd peel off his shirt and slide over me, his heart still racing from the adrenaline of the crowd.

Nobody but Jason would recognize her, but that didn't stop her from going all out. She was wearing a mullet and some fake braces she'd bought. It was so funny couldn't stop laugh-sobbing the entire way to the Forum.

I ended up wearing the hideous glasses and a beanie since we couldnt get all my hair to stay under a wig not to mention the wig made me look like a lunatic.

Kristen, on the other hand, did look like a lunatic.

But it didn't change the fact that I wanted to see him.

I was almost angrier with myself about this than I was at him for breaking me in half. But I did. I wanted to see him.

"Guys like Josh and Jason don't do shit like this. It's not how they were raised. It's not in their DNA. They mate for lite. They fall in love and they worship the ground that woman walks on. They don't cheat and they don't fucking leave. If Jason left, he had a reason."

And instead of being where he was, I was on a date with someone amazing who couldn't even hold my attention because I was too damaged and in love with somebody else to even entertain it.

"Someone smart once told me you can start over again. Start now."

She'd painted this from memory. It was like seeing the moment through her eyes. This was how she had seen me that day, smiling and happy.

I'd been happy because she was there.

And I'd never be that happy again.

When she peeled off the brown paper to look, she gasped. "Wow. That's a really cool photo of you."

I looked up and had to clutch a hand over the punch to my heart.

It was me.

Sloan had painted me.

I stood in the lake, in my waders. It was that day in Ely when I'd been putting in the dock. It was the moment right before I'd kissed her.

It would be my penance for the rest of my life for not being able to do it in person.

Nobody would ever love her like I would. She would never find the same devotion, even if she looked for a lifetime. I knew that with every cell of my being. She'd never know about it, but I would always be there. When she married someone else, had children, when she grew old, I would still be out there in the world, cherishing her in secret. If she ever needed anything, I'd make sure she had it.