A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family, #1)

by Kath Richards

“I’m not anti-dating, I’m just. . . busy. I was engaged once. Before grad school, an old family friend, and my first boyfriend.” “What happened?” “He wasn’t what I thought. Didn’t like that I wanted to go to grad school and work for my dad. Wanted me barefoot and pregnant. He was intimidated by. . .” She waves her hand in an encompassing gesture in front of her. “He didn’t want me to be in charge.” My mind paints a very clear fantasy, unbidden, in which Vanessa and I live in domestic bliss. I’ve quit my job, just for a few years, just until the youngest is in pre-school, and Vanessa runs the world all day before she comes home to be with me and our two babies. After the children are asleep, after a delicious dinner I made, unless we ordered in, we make love and in fact make another baby, a third, a girl who we name Vanessa Jr. She has my nose. I think there is something wrong with me.

“Ultimately, we’re all family,” Vanessa says. “And family takes care of family.” This is very Fast & Furious of her, but I don’t mention it.

“I love you,” he says, pauses, then rushes on, “I am criminally, fatally in love with you, and you can try to marry someone else, but I’m not going to leave. I like your house too much and I like you too much to ever be away from you.”