Bet On It: An Age Gap Billionaire Office Romance(72)

I smiled because I liked those words. But she'd only mentioned one night. She had said earlier that she had been a coward in not telling me how she was truly feeling.

It was my turn to work up the courage to tell her what I was feeling. "I will see that bet and raise you another."

She tilted her head up to me, her smile so sweet it made my heart pump even harder in my chest.

"You stay in this bed with me tonight, tomorrow night, the night after that, and all the other nights for the rest of our lives." I held my breath as she looked up at me, her eyes wide in shock.

Finally, she said, "I'll take that bet."

Happiness like I'd never felt before filled my chest. I pushed her back, hovering over her, staring into her dark eyes, wanting to make sure I heard her correctly. "You do understand that I'm proposing marriage, right?"

Her hand slid up, threading through my hair. "You’d better be proposing marriage because that's how I took it."

Another wave of happiness ran through me. "Analyn, you have put light back into my life."

I didn't let her say anything as my lips captured hers in a searing kiss filled with love and promise for our happily ever after. We were going to go the distance. We would last until our dying breaths. You could bet on it.





EPILOGUE





Analyn – One Year Later





I made my way to the offices of the Buckaroos minor league hockey team. Or, more likely, I should say I waddled, as I was just entering the fortieth week of my pregnancy.

The last year had been a whirlwind of changes, nearly all of them for the good. Being in Las Vegas, it was very easy to get married quickly. Reed and I didn't want to wait.

At first, Betts was worried about how quickly I jumped into marriage with Reed. After all, I didn't know him very well timewise. But I felt that I knew him soul to soul, and I knew I didn't want to wait a minute longer to discover all the things I would learn about him during our marriage.

Not too long after that, I was pregnant, and while we didn't set out to start our family so soon, we were both over the moon about it. In fact, Reed joked that his happiness had fortified his sperm, which had broken through any birth control effort. I don't know if it was super sperm or some sort of magic, but whatever it was, I couldn't have been happier.

During this year, Reed and Pierce bought a minor-league hockey team, which I thought was crazy considering they both had very demanding jobs. But while Reed still owned his fantasy sports empire, he had promoted Clive and hired new management to run the day-to-day operations, which allowed him all the time he wanted on his passion project.

Reed was no longer my boss, but it wasn't because I continued to work as the social media manager of his company. Now, I worked alongside him as a partner in the day-to-day operations of the hockey team.

It wasn't all totally smooth sailing this last year. Catherine raised a stink and even tried to sue Reed for sexual harassment. But luckily, Reed had a great deal of support around him and the best lawyers money could buy, and Catherine's efforts were squashed before they could get any traction. The last I heard, she'd left town to parts unknown.

During the case against Paradise Limited, I had a few moments of fear that someone might retaliate against us. But Reed made sure we had the finest security around us. And the people at Saint Security were not only very good at providing security, but also at assisting the FBI agents in their case that put most of the people working for Paradise Limited in jail.

I entered the office where Reed and Pierce were talking over something related to the team. When he saw me, Reed smiled, and even after a year of seeing it every day, it made my heart do flip-flops in my chest.

He strode to me, taking me in his arms and kissing me. "How are you feeling today?"

I looked up at him. "Very pregnant." He bent over and kissed my belly. "And how is our boy doing?"

I rubbed a hand over my belly. "I'm pretty sure he's a future hockey player because it feels like he's whacking pucks around inside me."

Both Reed and Pierce laughed. Pierce's phone pinged with a text, and after he looked at it, he said he had to take off. "Fortner and Kaplan are at it again on social media. I swear to God I’m gonna bang those two knuckleheads’ heads together."

"Good luck with that," I called as he exited to deal with the two players on the team who had a social media feud going, apparently over a woman.

Reed took my hand and walked me over to the table where they had been talking. "What do you think of our new billboard design?"

I scanned it and felt it was pretty good. "It’s not bad. But I hope you didn't finalize this. You know better than to finalize a campaign without my input."

He rolled his eyes. "Why do I keep having to remind you that you are on maternity leave? Which reminds me, I have a surprise for you." He walked over to a desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a package. It was wrapped in light blue paper with a big blue bow on it.

I eyed him, wondering what he was doing. I opened the box and pulled out a pale blue onesie with the hockey team's logo on it and a number one on the back.

I laughed and hugged him. "This is lovely. Oh, my God, it's so cute."

He grinned at me. "If you like that, I've got more." He went back to the desk and this time pulled out a slightly larger box. It was white, with a multicolored bow on the top.