Ember in the Heart: A Novella Read online

  Oh wow. Just hearing him say it again…

  “You can’t be serious about this?” Edward sighed heavily, his gaze cutting to me. “Look, I’m sure you’re perfectly lovely. But tying my son down to you is incredibly selfish—”

  “Dad—”

  “No. She will hear this. You’re what? In your mid-thirties?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  He huffed. “Eleven years older than my son. How will that look when you’re fifty and he’s still not even forty yet.”

  “I don’t care. I love her.”

  “I’m talking to Ember.” And he was. Prodding my insecurities. My own concerns. “You’re not from the same community as Foster. You’ll be pulling him and Georgie away from the life they’re used to.”

  “Bullshit, Dad.”

  “Foster,” Madeline admonished.

  “No, I won’t stand here and listen to you disparage the woman I love.”

  “And what about children?” Edward scoffed, ignoring his son. “Don’t you want more children? A woman of thirty-six is past her prime.”

  That was it.

  That was when I saw red.

  “Past my prime?” I stepped away from Foster, bristling with rage. “I hate to shock you out of the nineteenth century, Mr. Darwin, but women are having babies in their thirties with a lot more ease than they were a hundred years ago. Children aren’t out of the question. What is out of the question is your participation in our relationship. Your son is man. A father. It’s time you saw that.”

  Foster tugged me back into his side. “Ember’s right. This is our decision. And I have no reservations about it. I love her. Georgie loves her. There is nothing you can say to change it.”

  “I’ll cut you off.”

  The words sliced through the air, cold and harsh.

  “Do it,” Foster answered without hesitation. “I’m a successful man in my own right. I don’t need your money. I don’t need your blessing. It would be nice but it’s not a requirement.” His gaze moved to his mother. “I would think as my parents you’d just be happy that I’m happy.”

  Madeline’s expression softened but Edward barked out a hard scoff.

  “We’re not sticking around to listen to this ridiculous sentimental nonsense. When you come to your senses, you’ll know where to find us.” He turned and marched out of the room.

  Foster’s mom wavered, tears filling her eyes.

  “Mom?”

  She grimaced and then hurried to follow her husband.

  Silence fell between us. I squeezed his hand, hating the forlorn look on his face. However, as soon as he turned to me, the melancholy melted away. “You okay?”

  “Are we together?”

  I nodded, torn between joy and concern.

  Foster grinned. “Then I’m more than okay.”

  I hugged him, loving the feel of his strong arms so tight around me. “I think your mom will come around.”

  “Yeah maybe.” He turned, his lips brushing my ear. “I know I don’t deserve it yet … but I can’t wait for the day you tell me you love me back.”

  My pulse pounded in my ears as I eased away from him.

  The smart, sensible part of me knew I should hold back.

  But I’d never been the kind of woman who lied to herself or others. “I love you,” I assured him. “I love you so much.”

  His answer was to kiss me with a fierce wildness that had me trembling from top to toe. “We need to find a bed. Now, he growled, guiding me toward the exit.

  “Amen to that,” I agreed and then we were running and laughing like two teenagers out of the building toward his car in the parking lot, desperate to finally really be together.

  Epilogue

  FOSTER

  Fourteen months later

  Because she was already a swimmer, the doc said it was okay for Ember to keep swimming during her pregnancy. Still, Foster sat on a lounger right next to the pool as G and Ember swam.

  “They’re fine,” his mom reassured him from the lounger next to his. “She’s fine.”

  “I know.” He nodded, not taking his eyes off them.

  His mom laughed under her breath.

  So he was being overprotective. He knew that. Wasn’t going to stop him.

  Foster’s daughter and wife, and the little boy growing in her belly, were his entire world.

  “I think I’ll join them.” Foster rose to stand.

  “Nah, I’m going in.” Edward lowered his glass of iced tea and stood in his swim shorts and T-shirt. “Need a reprieve from this heat.”

  Relaxing as his father climbed down the ladder into their pool, Foster watched as G stopped swimming to play with her grandfather. Ember slowed down, grinning as her stepdaughter started playfully splashing her grandpa.

  “Cannonball, cannonball!” G demanded.

  “Well, I’m going to get out of the way for that.” Ember laughed, swimming toward the ladder.

  “No, no,” Edward called to her before he turned to G, “I can’t throw you around the pool when your mom is pregnant. Not safe for the baby.”

  “Okay.” G pouted but let it go.

  “No, really, I’m thirsty anyway,” Ember said and climbed out.

  Foster’s eyes zeroed in on her belly. She’d taken to wearing tankinis during her pregnancy, not because of the bump, but because she thought her breasts were obscene.

  He wasn’t complaining.

  About anything.

  Two months after they’d started dating again, he proposed, she said yes, and then a few weeks later she moved into the house with him and G. Her sisters put their family house up for sale and a new family moved in. The Bonets seemed surprisingly at peace with it.

  As for him and Ember, they married in winter, a small ceremony, just family and a few friends and, much to his relief, his parents attended.

  For five months after the rehearsal dinner, they didn’t speak. He missed his parents but not enough to give up Ember. Thankfully, his mom convinced his father to stop being a stubborn ass. Edward missed his son and his granddaughter. And once he gave Ember a chance, Foster knew Edward came to respect and care for her too. So much so, he’d stopped making excuses for Carolyn. Carolyn: who no longer called to speak with Georgie. She’d halted her calls around three months after she left for Paris. The next thing Foster knew he heard from her lawyers. She granted him sole custody.

  She wasn’t cut out to be a mom, she said.

  G asked for her less and less every day until one day she called Ember ‘mom’.

  Ten minutes later he’d found Ember crying in their bedroom. Part joy, part rage at Carolyn.

  When Edward heard G call Ember mom for the first time, he’d gone cold and quiet. Foster had worried he’d make an issue out of it.

  However, on his next visit he started referring to Ember as G’s mom too, proving that people can change for the better no matter what age they are.

  “Let me get you water,” his mom said to Ember, standing up from her lounger.

  “I can get it.”

  “No, you sit here under this umbrella. You shouldn’t catch too much sun.”

  Realizing she was right, Ember agreed, and took his mom’s place under the shaded lounger. Unable to resist, Foster got up and nudged her over so he could lie beside her on it. Then he rested his hand on her stomach.

  “How’s our little guy?”

  “Kicking while I was swimming.” She grinned. “I think he likes it.”

  Foster kissed her nose. Feeling how warm she was, he frowned. “I think you should stay out of the sun for the rest of the day.

  Instead of stubbornly arguing with him like she usually did, Ember snuggled into his chest. “Okay. This is nice, anyhow.”

  He nodded, holding her close, hand on her belly, watching G squeal with delight as his father threw her into the air, the water splashing up over the sides as she dropped back into the pool. He knew his dad would tire quickly from it but push through as long as Georgie wanted him to. />
  “I’m so happy,” Ember whispered against his throat.

  An ache flared across his chest. He held her tighter. “That’s all I ever want to hear.”

  A minute later, his mom returned outside with a tray of drinks, calling to her husband to watch his back.

  It was a fairly unextraordinary domestic scene.

  Yet to Foster, it was a beautiful goddamn miracle.

  All because of two angels that came into his life only five years apart.

  About the Author

  Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Scotland. She’s been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestseller On Dublin Street. On Dublin Street was Samantha’s first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in thirty-one countries.

  Visit Samantha Young online at

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