“You have everything to offer the world,” I growl.
“Go on,” Angela whispers, staring at me with shiny eyes.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I growl.
“To me,” my daughter says. “But I didn’t think it would be to you.”
“She’s an incredible photographer,” I say. “I’ve seen the passion she puts into her work. I’ve seen how much it means to her… to you.”
I turn to Tess with a smirk.
“It feels weird talking about you when you’re sitting right here.”
Her cheeks glow as she gazes up at me, her eyes glistening with feeling. Her oak hair falls messily and alluringly around her shoulders. She bites her lip as I go on.
“You’re beautiful and gorgeous, inside and out. You’re kind. You’re empathetic. You’re forgiving. You’re mine. You’re everything I could dream of in a partner, a life partner because that’s what we are. It’s me and you forever, Snapshot.”
“I want that so bad,” she says, voice cracking.
“Snapshot?” Angela giggles.
Wait, did I hear that right?
She laughed?
And it wasn’t a mocking laugh. It wasn’t a resentful laugh.
It was a laugh I recognize well, joy-filled, the same way she let fly with her happiness when she got the lead role in Anne Frank at the school play.
“It’s her nickname,” I smirk, turning back to my daughter. “Don’t you remember?”
“I haven’t heard it in years.”
I shrug. “I think it still suits her.”
“I love it,” Tess rushes to say, as though she thinks Angela is going to judge the nickname. “I’m even toying with the idea of calling him Frogman, you know, because of the SEAL stuff. I haven’t quite made the leap yet though.”
Angela smiles at us, as though she can’t stop the shape her lips take, as though she can’t deny the starry warmth cascading over this moment.
“You two look like the real deal,” she says. “If I didn’t know you, I would think you two have been together for years. I’d never have guessed it’s only been a few days. How the heck is that possible?”
“Don’t ask me to explain it,” I say warmly, stealing a precious glance at my woman. She smiles radiantly up at me. “It just is, Angela. I’m so, so sorry that we went behind your back. I wanted to tell you right away—”
“But then I left town and you didn’t want to do it over the phone,” she says.
I nod. “Exactly. And the truth is—”
“You were scared I’d go crazy and make you stop.”
I chuckle. “Damn. It’s like you’re reading my mind.”
“I need to say something.” Angela leans forward, staring hard at me. “Dad, you need to listen to this, listen closely.”
She’s never looked more like my daughter. She has a SEAL look of determination in her eyes.
“If you ever hurt Tessa, you’ll lose both of us,” she says passionately. “Tessa is my best friend and she means the world to me. My instincts are telling me that this is the real deal. Looking at the two of you, it’s kind of hard to deny that. But maybe my instincts are wrong.”
I nod solemnly, taking my daughter’s words seriously.
“I swear, Angela,” I tell her. “I’d die – I’d kill – before I risked what Tess and I have.”
“Good.” Angela nods. “Then I think you should reach for the freaking stars with what you have. Even if it’s the biggest shock I’ve had in my entire life – and that includes getting picked up for a TV advertisement – I don’t want to stand in the way of your happiness.”
“Do you mean it, Angie?” Tess cries, rising to her feet and walking over to my daughter, to her best friend.
“Yes,” Angela says, standing.
“It doesn’t change anything between us?”
“Oh, Tess,” she says, tears quivering in her voice. “Nothing could change what we have. Come here.”
They embrace each other tightly, their emotions rising to the surface. I watch them with pure hot joy leaping around my chest, relief like I’ve never felt washing through me.
It’s even more potent than the relief I felt when I was overseas and came out of a nasty gunfight alive, even more, potent than staring death in the face and winning life instead.
And that’s what this is.
I thought the rest of my life would be a kind of slow death, putting my all into my business and being there for Angela… but never living in love, never experiencing what so many people take for granted.
Now I have more than most people could ever dream of.
I have the woman of my dreams and my daughter’s blessing.
I smile. I don’t smirk. I smile like the happiest luckiest bastard alive.
Because that’s what I am.
And I won’t ever forget it.
Chapter Nineteen
Tessa
“Why are you smiling like that?” I ask mom as she flips the pancakes.
She shrugs, causing her billowing kaftan to swirl around her. Morning sunlight shafts into the kitchen, coming to rest on the new hardwood flooring Trent installed a few days ago, working away with his T-shirt soaked with sweat, outlining the muscles that will never stop making me crazy for him.