The Secret (Winslow Brothers 3)

Ty breaks the kiss on a laugh, and I blink past the remnants of tears in my eyes. The entire Winslow gang is here, celebrating for us.

“It’s about fucking time!” Ty’s brother Jude shouts, and his mother reaches out to smack him across the back of the head.

“Language!” Wendy snaps as Winnie and Wes and Lexi all file in to take seats.

“I just read a Colleen Hoover book where they acknowledge that language is nothing more than a construct placed on us by society, Grandma. Fuck doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just a fucking word,” Lexi advises, rendering Ty’s mom speechless and spreading another smile across both Ty’s face and mine.

“Let’s eat!” Ty’s uncle Brad shouts, pushing past us and settling into a chair at the other end of the table.

By the looks of things, our moment is over and family dinner is in session, but Ty doesn’t put me down. Instead, he kisses me again.

“Paula, pass me the potatoes,” Brad requests in the background, and I pull away from Ty’s mouth on a giggle.

An insult flies in one direction and a laugh in another, the chaos around us making me smile.

When Ty sees mine, his grows even deeper. “You ready for this to be our future?”

I pretend to consider it seriously for five seconds, but I already know my answer. “Only if you promise it’ll last forever.”

Ty shakes his head. “Dinner won’t. But we will.”

“I love you, Ty.”

“Me too, Rach. Me too.” He kisses me again, but then he sets me back on my feet.

I glance around the room at the love all around us. “You think we should, uh, maybe sit down and eat?”

“You’d rather sit down and eat?”

“As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to getting the fuck out of here so I can keep telling you I love you,” he whispers quietly into my ear. “But only, naked and with my cock buried in you.”

I blush. But also, I smile. “That sounds promising.”

“Oh, Rach. This is just the beginning.”

Over five months later…

Saturday, July 20th

Ty

“You ready for lunchtime, Tilly?” I grin down at Matilda, and she purrs her approval. Once I set down a bowl of tuna on the kitchen floor, I rub my fingers through the soft fur at her back. “Here you go.”

She purrs again, rubbing her side against my leg, but only dallies about ten more seconds before getting down to chow-time business.

Miss Matilda used to be the official cat of Little Rose Bakeshop, but about a month ago, after Rachel and I moved in to this Greenwich Village apartment together, my girl missed her feline friend too much to leave her behind.

Though it did take an undercover, secret-agent mission of us sneaking into the bakery after hours when Lydia and Lou weren’t there to successfully get Matilda to our apartment, we eventually managed to move her in.

Rachel’s sister wasn’t that thrilled—pretty pissed, actually—but she got over it when Rachel gifted her with a new “service animal” bakery cat. A boy this time, that Lydia and Lou named Heathcliff.

Personally, I’m a fan of the Wuthering Heights reference, even if that wasn’t the intent.

My phone vibrates from the kitchen counter, and I snag it off the marble surface to find a text from my eldest brother.

Remy: I’m on my way.

Fucking finally. I’m not sure when his plane from LAX landed, but it feels like he should’ve been on his way over an hour ago.

Me: You got the goods?

Remy: No, Ty. I’m just coming over to have afternoon tea.

Smartass.

Me: At least tell me this, you bastard, are said goods being carefully handled and protected during transport?

Remy: Yes.

Me: By yes, do you mean that you are guaranteeing that you are not going to lose, drop, or ruin the very expensive goods on your way here?

Remy: For fuck’s sake, Ty. Relax. I’ll be there soon.

Relax? Pfft. It’s hard for a man to relax when he’s relying on his brother to deliver the most important thing he’s ever purchased.

What am I talking about? Well…the answer to that question would be…an engagement ring.

Rachel’s engagement ring, in fact.

The ring I’ve been searching for ever since she told me she loved me at my sister’s house, in the middle of a Winslow family dinner. A dinner that was planned under the false pretenses of us meeting our mom’s main squeeze, Howard, but I later found out was planned by Remy for Rachel. I didn’t end up meeting Howard—who is actually a pretty nice guy—until a few weeks later when my mom found the courage to drag him into the viper’s den that is her four protective, asshole sons and nosy-as-hell daughter.

But that dinner where Rachel ambushed me in Winnie’s dining room? Well, it changed my life. It sent me from rock-bottom misery to a man on top of the fucking world. A man who can officially say: love isn’t bullshit. It’s everything.