UNDYING: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (Midwest Alphas) (Book 3) (36 page)

She whips her head back around. “Did your mother ask you to do this?”

“Yep,” I answer.

Piper sighs and grabs the napkin off her lap. “Let’s get this over with then…” She tosses it to the table and stands up.

I nod. “Okay…”

I follow her out onto the dance floor, doing my best to keep my eyes from glancing at her ass. Her dress is tight, black, and honestly something you’d wear to a funeral rather than a wedding, but that’s Piper Lynch for you.

The old speakers play a quick, fun beat, but she rests her hands on my shoulders and refuses to let the tune move her. I pull her in by the waist and we sway slowly back and forth.

“Don’t step on my toes,” she mutters quietly.

“You know, you could try smiling today,” I tell her. “This is a wedding.”

“It isn’t mine,” she says.

“Obviously.”

She glares up at me for a moment before her little blue eyes pull away. “Don’t tell me you’re actually okay with all of this.”

“Not really,” I say. “But there’s not much I can do about it. Might as well give them what they want.”

“I think they’ve gotten enough of what
they
want.”

“Smile. Camera on your left.”

She flicks her sapphire eyes up at me and bares her teeth for a sweet candid photo. “That’s the only one she’s getting,” she mutters as her lips fall back to their neutral position.

I look into her eyes and pain stares back at me. “No one’s perfect, Pipes,” I say.

“Obviously.”

“Not even you.”

Her lips curl with devious delight. “Oh, but what about the great Kai Casablancas? I
bet
he’s plenty perfect.”

“I’m sure if they could go back and do things differently, they would.”

“I’m curious, Kai,” she says, “if you were them, how would you do things differently?”

I smile, accepting the challenge. “I wouldn’t get married in the first place.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “It’s a waste of time.”

“And here I thought
I
was the pessimist.”

“It’s not pessimism,” I say. “It’s reality. Love doesn’t need a broken system to exist.”

“Love
is
a broken system.” Her eyes fall once again and she stares down at our feet.

“Maybe you’re right,” I offer. “How about you, Piper? How would you have done it differently?”

She hesitates with tight, red lips. “Same as you, I guess.” Her little blues dart about, looking at anything but my eyes. “Are we done here?” she asks.

I drop my hands from her waist. “Yeah.”

Piper lowers her arms and steps off the dance floor.

***

The airport moves with rhythmic life. Passengers arrive and depart, following the same patterns as everyone else around them. Just when I think there can’t possibly be any more of them, a dozen others take their place. I hear their voices buzzing past my ears, refusing to form real words. It’s just noise, fragments of tones that don’t mean a damn thing to me. Shawn’s voice occasionally blends in, along with Mandy’s high-pitched inflection cutting through the fray.

I sit still, staring out at the crowd of strangers, trapped in my own head, trying to make sense of a puzzle that was never meant to be solved.

Piper
fucking
Lynch.

She sits next to me in a silent haze. Sometimes, I think I feel her looking over at me, but when I finally give in and check, she’s staring out at the crowd just like I am. Maybe I just missed her.

Doubt it though.

She told me once that love was a broken system. I never really understood what she meant by that, but I think I do now. Love brings out the complete worst in people. That is a fact. Just look at our parents. Sure, things seemingly worked out in the end, but look how long it took to get there. I don’t believe for a second that happily ever afters exist. Any one of them can break down at any moment and I won’t be the least bit shocked about it.

Loving Piper Lynch has brought out the complete worst in me. I’m a selfish prick. She told me she was pregnant and my ultimate concern was me. I didn’t care about
it
. I didn’t care about
her
. Just
me
. I’m not a very nice guy. I’ve called her things during bouts of anger that I never thought I’d ever say to another person. I’m sure if I asked her, she’d tell me the same thing. Loving me has brought out the very worst in her.

Love shouldn’t be like that.

If I could go back and do it differently, I would. I would have admitted defeat way back when we were eighteen. I wouldn’t have followed her to Europe. I would have just stayed home. None of this would have happened if I had just stayed home.

Right?

Eventually, Piper would have come back home. Maybe not as quickly, but she would have come home at some point. Maybe it would have been years until I saw her again. She’d be older, wiser, and so would I —
theoretically
. How long would it have taken before our tension broke and we tumbled into a bed together? Would I still fall in love with her? Would I still want to lie awake at night and stare at her beautiful face? Would I still quiver at the sound of her voice?

Would she still fall in love with me, too?

Fucking hell. I hope so.

“It’s time to go.”

I look up at Shawn and Mandy. They stand above us with their hands held tightly together. “Right,” I breathe. I stand up and turn to offer Piper a hand, but she’s already on her feet.

“You all right, Piper?” Mandy asks.

Piper sighs. “That’s the last time any of you get to ask me that,” she says.

Mandy chuckles. “That’s a yes.”

“It’s a hell yes.”

It brings a smile to my face, but it fades just as quickly. Her cheeks still sit pink from the fluids the hospital pumped through her system. For anyone else, she really is fine. Almost peachy. But I know better. I watched Piper suffer through years of her father’s influence. He pushed her and pulled her through a life she didn’t want. She never let anyone see her weaknesses and reserved her real emotions for only the most private of moments. She’s wearing that mask again and it absolutely kills me.

She’s wearing it because of me.

We all gather our bags and step towards the gate.

“Wait…” I reach out and wrap my fingers around her wrist. I feel her go tense at my touch, but she stops and turns to look at me while Shawn and Mandy continue forward.

“What is it?” she asks.

“You know what?” I mutter, staring into her perfect blue eyes. “Fuck this.”

She raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”

“Marry me.”

“What?” she repeats, frozen in place.

“Marry me, Piper. Here. Now, in Paris.”

“Are you serious?”

“Completely.”

She shakes her head. “No. That is a horrible idea, Kai.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“
Yes
, it is,” she says. “You don’t want marriage. You’ve said it before—”

I step closer to her. “There are a whole lot of things that I want and don’t want, Piper. That list changes every day, but there’s only one thing that I need and that’s you.”

“You don’t
need
me, Kai,” she says. “I actually think the last thing you need is me pissing you off all the time.”

“You are absolutely wrong about that.” I reach out to cup her cheek with one hand. She closes her eyes, reacting to my touch. “You are the most annoying, frustratingly stubborn, enraging, borderline psychotic
wench
I’ve ever met —” She shakes her head and breathes a laugh. “— but I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I refuse to even try.”

“Kai, our parents are married. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a really long time.”

“That’s not good enough,” I say. “I want all of it — all of you. If this is what I have to do to get it, then I’ll do it.”

“Don’t do this because you think it’s what I want.”

“No, Piper.” I shake my head. “This is what
I
want. Believe me. I’ve never wanted anything this much before.” She stares back at me, still unconvinced. “If you don’t want this, too, then that’s fine. We’ll go home right now. But if you do, then I don’t want us to hesitate anymore. I don’t want to go another day without you being my wife.”

“Oh, jeez…” she chuckles. “The P-word and the W-word, all in one day.”

I pull her closer and wrap my arms around her. The familiar scent of her hair fills my nose and I inhale deep. Her hands rest on my lower back, warm and soft against me. “Pipes, we’re gonna fight,” I whisper to her. “We’re gonna argue. We’re probably going to spend a whole lot of time hating each other, but I love that. I love knowing that I can have the worst day of my life and you’ll still be lying next to me that night, no matter what happens.”

She chuckles and pulls her head back to face me. “Almost sounds too easy.”

“It won’t be.” I rest my forehead against hers. “But it’ll be worth it.”

She sighs and chews on her bottom lip. “This is insane,” she whispers.

I shrug. “It’s not the worst idea we’ve ever had.”

“Pretty damn close,” she smiles.

My steady hands hold her in place. “And…” I pause to feel the weight of the words before saying them out loud. “I want to meet this baby, Piper.”

She looks up at me with tears teasing her eyes. “Kai…”

“I didn’t realize it until I felt what it was like to almost lose it — to lose the both of you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more scared in my life.”

She lets a short smile touch her lips. “I think I know what you mean…” she says. “When I woke up in that hospital… my first thought was about it, or her or him —
whatever it is.
”

“Marry me, Piper Lynch. I won’t let you wake up alone ever again.”

A tear finally tumbles down her cheek. I wipe it away and she slowly nods. “Okay,” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

She nods faster. “Yes.”

I bend down and raise her up. She laughs, clinging to my body as I kiss her hard on the lips. “Thank you,” I say to her. “Thank you, thank you—”

“Thank
you
,” she says.

I kiss her again and she holds me tighter.

“See, Mandy? I told you.”

We look away from each other, realizing that we’re not actually alone in the crowded airport lobby. Mandy and Shawn stare back at us with smiling faces.

“I’m not sure why I ever doubted you, Shawn,” Mandy says. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she grips his hand in her own.

I lower Piper to the floor and use my jacket as a shield to block their view as I kiss her again. “I love you, Piper Lynch,” I tell her.

“I love you, Kai Casablancas.”

I take her hand. “Come on…”

We turn around and walk towards the airport entrance.

“Hey, guys!” Shawn shouts after us. “Where you going? Our flight is that way.”

I twist around. “We’re getting married,” I shout back.

“Like…
now
?” he asks.

“Yes. Now.”

Mandy’s mouth drops. “Are you serious?” Shawn throws his duffel bag over his shoulder and starts to follow us. “What are you doing?” she asks him.

“Oh, I’m not missing this,” he says. “Come on.” He grabs her hand and pulls her along with him.

“O… kay,” she stutters out.

I look at Piper.

Piper
fucking
Lynch. The ice princess of Belle Academy. The very bane of my existence. The worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole damn life.

And then, she smiles.

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Piper

“Are you ready?”

I hear Kai’s voice, but nothing in the world can tear me away from her face. It’s so small and delicate. White, like a porcelain doll, but so full of life. Even now, while she’s sleeping, it moves.

“Piper?”

I don’t look away. “Hmm?” I push my fingertips through the small tuft of jet black hair on her head.

Kai leans over the thick hospital mattress. I feel his fingers beneath my chin. “Piper…” he says my name again and pulls my face up, forcing me to look at him.

“What?” I ask.

He laughs. “They’re waiting.”

“Oh…” I look down again. “They can wait a little longer, can’t they?”

He winces. “I’m pretty sure I saw the grandmothers setting up a battering ram in the hallway, so
no
.”

I smile once more at her face. “Okay…” I sigh. “But not for very long.”

“I’ll tell them you’re tired.”

“Thank you. You won’t be lying…” I chuckle. He kisses my forehead and pauses to slide this thumbs across her head before standing up. “Wait—” I say. “Do I look okay?”

“You look great,” he says without hesitation.

“Liar.”

He smiles and walks to the door. I listen as he pulls it open and pokes his head out into the hall. “They’re ready for you,” he says. He can barely step out of the way before the door bursts open and our family charges inside.

My mother and Ava split off and claim their places on each side of the bed next to us, their eyes locked on the baby’s face.

“Oh, my god!” Ava gasps. She covers her mouth. “She’s perfect…”

“You looked exactly like this…” my mother whispers.

“Yeah?” I ask. She nods. I look up to see Kai on the receiving end of multiple handshakes from our fathers, each one welcoming him into fatherhood. He glances at me and I laugh at him. Just behind them, Mandy and Shawn linger in the doorway.

“Okay, move over, everyone,” Mandy announces as she charges in. “Let me see her—” She stops at the foot of the bed and her jaw drops. “Awww!” She spins around and pulls Shawn down for a kiss. “I want one.”