“Oh dear.” Mum smiled. “Let’s put Jarrod in the playpen in the sitting room.”

“Where’s Will?” Bray asked.

“Upstairs.”

“Down, Granny,” he said.

Mum let him down, and he hurried upstairs as fast as his wee legs could take him.

“Hannah, sweetheart,” Dad said, getting up from his chair to hug and kiss me. “How are you?”

“Good, Dad. Stressed with school. Nothing new.” I smiled.

“Teaching.” He grunted as he took Jarrod into his arms. My dad would know all about the ups and downs of teaching. He taught at university level. “Marco.” He nodded congenially at my husband and then looked around us, frowning. “Where’s Dylan and Sophia?”

“Dylan is upstairs with Will, and Sophia…” I glanced over my shoulder as Ellie walked into the room carrying my daughter in her arms. “Ran straight toward the kitchen.”

Sophia adored her aunt Ellie and apparently had some kind of psychic radar for finding her.

Ellie came over to kiss me on the cheek, and Sophia buried her head against her aunt’s chest, clearly stating, “I am refusing to budge.” My eyes laughed into Ellie’s. “How are you?”

“Good.” She smiled. “We booked our family holiday this morning.”

“Ooh, where are you off to?”

“Disney World,” Adam answered, coming up behind his wife. He looked pained just at the thought of it. “Florida.”

Ellie was grinning from ear to ear. “It’s going to be fantastic.”

“Fantastic,” Adam murmured, making a horrified face behind her back.

Marco coughed, trying to cover a laugh, but he was fooling no one. Ellie shot him a sideways glance. “Is my husband making faces behind my back?”

Marco straightened his face. “Absolutely not.”

“I don’t believe you.” She looked over her shoulder at Adam. “You are going to enjoy the magical kingdom, Adam Sutherland, end of story.”

He stared at her and then turned to us. “The kids will love it – that’s what matters. Even though I think Bray is still too young for it.”

“Then we’ll go again when he’s older.” Ellie shrugged.

Adam paled. “I need a drink.”

“I’ll get you one,” Mum offered. “Alcohol, right?”

“I really love you, Elodie,” he said.

She laughed. “I’ll go get you a lager. Clark?”

“Yes, thanks, sweetheart.”

“I’m just going to the loo,” I said, brushing a hand over Sophia’s hair as I passed her and Ellie.

I’d just finished up in the upstairs toilet and had opened the door to come out when I was blocked by Marco. He gently put a hand to my stomach and pushed me back inside, closing the door behind him and locking us in together.

“What is it?” I stared up at him in surprise.

In answer, he slid his hands across my stomach and down onto my hips, gripping them so he could tug me in to him. My own hands smoothed over his chest as I stared up into his beautiful eyes.

“Baby, what is it?” I repeated, growing more concerned by the anxious look in his eyes.

“You’re not upset?” he said.

“About what?”

“About all the talk about Disney World?”

Realization suddenly hit me. I shook my head emphatically. “No. I’m not.”

Although we both had full-time jobs, as a young couple living in a four-bedroom house in central Edinburgh, it wasn’t financially easy. Of course we’d had a better start than most because my pseudo big brother Braden had gotten together with Ellie and they’d bought me a gorgeous flat in New Town.

I’d sold the flat to put down a hefty deposit on our four-bedroom house, but we still had a sizable mortgage to pay as well as three kids to clothe and feed.

Expensive holidays to Disney World weren’t exactly in the cards for us right now.

“We’ll pick up a bargain and take the kids to Spain or something,” I reminded him. “And even if we can’t do that, we’ll just take them on day trips around the country.”

Marco nodded but still didn’t look entirely convinced. “I don’t want you and the kids to miss out on anything.”

“Miss out on what?” I pressed deeper into him. “A beautiful house, a husband who loves me, a father who adores them. What exactly are we missing out on?”

“You’re sure?” he said, his voice gruff now.

I slid my hands up around his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine. I teased my lips over his, brushing my top lip over his bottom, my bottom over his top.

He groaned, his grip on my hips turning almost bruising, and I felt his immediate reaction to me digging into my stomach.

My skin flushed hot and I kissed him, loving how I could turn him on so easily.

The kiss turned wet, deep, hard, hands sliding and touching and pulling to get closer.

The sound of my mother calling up to the boys that lunch was ready broke through our haze and we reluctantly parted. My breasts heaved in Marco’s hands, and he kneaded them one last time before sliding his hands to a safer position on my waist.

“I guess that means you’re sure.” His voice rumbled with amusement.

I grinned up at him. “Baby, every day with you is a vacation.”

His eyes warmed, filling with tenderness.

“Where are Hannah and Marco?” I heard my mum say loudly.

“Dunno,” Will answered cheerily.

My eyes widened. “I’ll slip out first and let you…” I gestured to his hard-on.

He closed his eyes. “My fault for choosing a hot wife.”

I chuckled and slipped past him as he moved his back from the door. “I’ll tell them you’ll be down in a minute.” I opened the door and looked back at him. “Uncle Gio. Naked.”

Marco cursed and threw a hand cloth at me, and I laughed, fleeing the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind me. “I bet it works!” I yelled through the door, and laughed all the way downstairs.

Upon my arrival into the dining room, Dylan patted the seat next to him. “Hannah.”

As always, my chest burst with feeling as I walked over to join my stepson. Dylan adored his dad, and of course he loved his mum to bits, but I was pleased to have earned his love over the last few years and the coveted position of being the person he most wanted to sit beside at mealtimes. Just as I was about to sit down, Sophia decided she’d missed me in the last ten minutes and refused to sit anywhere but on my lap. It was clear she hadn’t realized that at four years old she was now much bigger than she was at two. But I didn’t mind. Mum had already warned me there would come a time when Sophia wouldn’t want to be seen with me, let alone sit on my lap, so I was determined to soak up her attention as much as possible.

The skin on my neck prickled and I knew my husband had entered the room. I looked over as he walked in with Adam, Adam holding Bray’s hand while Marco carried Jarrod.

Marco took his seat beside me, shooting me a look that promised retribution later for our moment upstairs. Jarrod immediately reached for a lock of Sophia’s hair, and she turned and tickled his neck in response, eliciting a giggle from him.

“Everyone ready to eat?” Mum asked the table, and as I glanced around at my family, I felt strangely emotional. I looked back at Marco, who seemed to sense it and was watching me carefully.

Like he always did. My feelings were a number-one priority to him, and he never let me forget it.

I thought of what he’d asked me upstairs.

“I am so sure,” I whispered, and my husband reached out his free hand to squeeze my knee under the table.

Olivia

It was too quiet. Much, much too quiet in the house.

I was snuggled up on a huge armchair in the snug sitting room (the smaller of our two sitting rooms), where I was reading a book by an author Grace worked with. I got to a steamy part that made me flush and looked over at my gorgeous husband, who was lying on the couch reading a graphic novel (because he’d never stopped being a big kid).

My intention was to jump him when the thought occurred to me that either one of our girls might come running in and interrupt us. That’s when I realized the house was much, much too quiet.