His face turned serious as he lifted my chin with his forefinger and brushed his thumb against my bottom lip. “Don’t worry about my father. He’s an asshole, and his opinions are all fucked up because of Jennifer, but he’ll come around once he gets to know you better,” he said, referring to his dad’s gold digging first wife, who had left him high and dry after three years of marriage, taking a large chunk of his considerable net worth along with her.

“Yeah, maybe,” I mumbled reluctantly. Ax nuzzled his nose against the crease forming between my eyes and then kissed me there. “But babe, we’ve been dating for almost two years now, and your father has only spoken maybe twenty words to me. He hates me.”

“My mom loves you,” he said reassuringly, pressing his lips softly to mine. It didn’t go unnoticed that he didn’t deny his father’s feelings about me. “And my brother thinks you’re the shit.”

“You know I adore Violet and Oliver, but how are we going to spend the rest of our lives together if your dad doesn’t like me?”

Axel’s big hands cupped my face as his blue eyes locked onto my green ones. “I like you, Bear, and that’s all that matters. We’re going to be living in Boston for at least the next four years, since you’re going to Harvard Med School. So, we will barely see my family.”

“I guess,” I conceded, though it seemed like avoiding the situation was similar to putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

I toyed with the gorgeous platinum bracelet Axel had bought me, my thumb finding the roughness of the AB + BA that he’d had engraved on it. Axel Broxton and Blaire Atwood. I kinda had a thing for letter patterns and loved that my and Axel’s initials were mirrored. Call me cheesy, but it seemed like destiny to me.

Axel lifted my hand and kissed the soft underside of my wrist. “I’m going to make a name for myself in the NFL, and you’re going to kill it in med school. And we’ll live happily ever after.”

I ran my free hand across Axel’s stubble and up through his dark hair which, combined with his blue eyes, was a potent aphrodisiac. The man always seemed to have stubble, which was uber sexy to me. He could shave and be baby-butt smooth in the morning, and by noon, he had a five o’clock shadow.

Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed the length of my body against his hard, muscled torso and whispered in his ear, “Happily ever after, huh? You must love me or something.”

His grip tightened around me, his lips sucking softly on my earlobe. “A little bit.”

“Just a little bit?” I asked, feigning offense.