Highest Bidder (Salacious Players’ Club)

Daisy’s Epilogue

Three years later

Julian smiles shyly as Ronan kneels by his side, handing him the remote for the little toy sailboat that dances across the water of the giant fountain in the middle of the park. I laugh at the sight, and when he looks over at where I’m nursing his baby sister on the bench, I give him an excited expression.

“Good job, buddy!” I say with a smile.

Amelia is snoozing in my arms as I carefully pull her off my breast and lay her against my shoulder to burp her. She’s almost one and still nursing like crazy. By this age, Julian was already on the move, ready to explore everything he could get his hands on with no time for nursing. But my sweet girl likes to take her time. She’s perfectly content cuddling with her mama.

While the baby naps and the boys play, I relax on the bench, jotting down lyrics in the notepad app on my phone. It’s funny to see how differently my songs turn out now, since becoming a mother. The way I see life compared to how I saw it before. Not better or worse—just different.

For one, I understand on an entirely new level why my mother made the decision she did. How choosing me over Ronan was never a sacrifice, but a choice that ended in love either way.

I’ve also learned to embrace the mess like I couldn’t before. I dreamt of a life that looked more like a vision board or a magazine spread instead of reality. There are days when I struggle to find anything poetic—when the kids are screaming or the house is a mess or my music just won’t come. Nights when I feel like the least sexiest person on the planet, sure that my husband will never want to touch me again. Moments when I feel like a failure.

Those moments are perfectly balanced with the ones that feel like a fantasy—when I can watch the man I love cuddling our daughter or laughing with our son. When the lyrics flow or when he pulls me into his arms at night, spoiling me with pleasure and love like it’s the first time.

Without the mess, those beautiful moments would feel flat and meaningless. So I’ve learned to embrace it all.

I hear Julian’s cry across the park and I look up to see him lying flat on the ground, his little glasses slipped off his nose, and his tear-soaked face contorted in pain. He must have tripped on his way over to me, but Ronan is there in a heartbeat, pulling him up to his feet and brushing off his scraped knees.

My heart swells in my chest as I watch him pick up our son, running a soothing hand over his back as he kisses the side of his head. Julian clings to his neck as he cries.

“Is he okay?” I ask when the two of them reach the bench where I’m sitting.

“Yeah. He’s okay,” Ronan replies, but Julian shows no signs of letting go of his daddy.

“We should head back to the house for lunch,” I say as I carefully maneuver Amelia into her stroller. She stays asleep when I lay her down. Standing up, I notice Ronan’s eyes drifting down to my chest.

“You might want to put that away,” he says with a smile, and I glance down to find my breast still hanging out the top of my blouse.

“Oops,” I reply as I tuck it away and fix my shirt. It hardly fazes me anymore. I guess it’s a good thing we’re in Paris, where no one bats an eye at a nursing mother’s breasts.

Yet another reason why I’m glad we moved here.

We decided to make Paris our full-time home before Amelia was born. We loved Briar Point, but it never felt like us. This city is where our relationship was born, where we both feel most at home, and where we want to raise our children.

So we sold the apartment in the Latin Quarter and bought a bigger house on the outskirts of the city. It’s a dream come true.

Ronan stepped back from his role with his company, but I couldn’t get him to fully retire. Instead, he helps Matis with L’Amour, something I can’t really complain about. Three nights a week, we leave the kids with the au pair and go into the club together—sometimes to work and sometimes to play.

He’s really started to expand his horizons, if only to indulge me in the things I enjoy, and when he’s open to it, we invite others to join us.

Just thinking about it has me anxious to take the kids home and get ready for another night out. As we walk across the park, Julian still in Ronan’s arms, I think about how Ronan and I met.

“Why don’t we do an auction at L’Amour?” I ask.

He puts his hand at the small of my back as he considers my question. “I can bring it up to Matis. I’m not sure why I haven’t thought about that.”

“It might be a great draw for membership. Not to mention, they’re very fun.”

He smiles. “And you can meet the love of your life in an auction.”

“I don’t think that’s common,” I reply.

“No, but it happens.”

“What’s an auction?” Julian asks, lifting his head from Ronan’s shoulder.

“Um…” I say, letting my voice trail off.

“It’s where people can buy very valuable things.”

“Like in a shop?” he asks.

“Sort of,” Ronan replies, looking more confused than Julian.

“Does Daddy have lots of money for the shop?”

“Yes, Daddy has money for the shop,” I say, brushing his brown hair away from his eyes.

“Because Daddy is rich?” Julian mumbles, making both of us laugh.

Ronan flips him around and hoists him up until Julian is sitting on his shoulders, keeping a tight hold of one of his legs. “Yes, buddy. Daddy is the richest man in the whole world,” he jokes in a booming voice.

“In the whole world?” Julian asks in amazement.

Then, Ronan brings his free hand around my shoulder, squeezing me tight as we slowly stroll down the pathway of the park. With his lips against my head, he softly replies, “Yes, Daddy is the richest man in the whole world.”

And I know he’s not talking about money.