Toward the end her voice started to waver, and when he told her to, "Believe it, sweetheart, it's true," her eyes, like her heart, overflowed with joy.

"For pity's sake," she said, with a very unromantic sniff, "I can't seem to stop these tears lately. If I ever do get pregnant, I can't imagine the hormonal water-works."

The hand he lifted to brush away those tears paused. "You're not...?" and when she shook her head, he added an emphatic, "Good."

Emily's heart stalled. He really sounded as if he meant it. "You don't want a baby?"

"What I don't want is you marrying me to have a baby, or because you're having one. I want you to have choices, Em, always, and I realize I've messed up, big-time, in that department."

"You're doing a pretty pa.s.sable job of making up for it," she said, meeting his eyes, smiling through the tears.

"I hope like h.e.l.l you choose to marry me, to be my wife, but it needs to be your choice. Because you love me and want to spend the rest of your life with me. If you want to get married on the top ofMount Tibaroowearing ski suits, then we'll do it. However, wherever. Your choice."

Emily huffed out a breath, speechless, completely blown away. "Would it be all right," she managed, eventually, "if I choose to be let free of this straitjacket? Because I really need to be held right now."

And when he did let her free of the restraining blankets, when his arms were wrapped around her and her head lay cradled against his shoulder, she told him that there was no choice to make. She told him she loved him but hated ski suits and she told him, again, how much she loved him, and then she laughed with pure happiness, laughed even though the tears were spilling from her eyes and he was holding her so tight she would probably be bruised. Then she considered asking him to pinch her, but didn't.

This was no dream. This was real, this man, this love, this future. Real and strong and hers.

Epilogue.

Emily chose a spring wedding in Julia's garden. When Chantal and Julia couldn't agree on bridesmaids' dresses, she calmly and practically ditched the idea of attendants ... except for Joshua, who carried the rings and didn't argue at all. Chantal did get to organize everything from the eighty handwritten invitations to the reception food to the teddy bear wedding favors. She did not choose the music.

Mitch added another arrow to his writer's quiver, penning a personalized service with twin themes: success and choice. As a wedding present, he handed his bride the deed to her grandfather's house. Emily gifted her husband with news of her pregnancy, and whenA Risky Business. .h.i.t number one on three bestseller lists, she organized a surprise celebration complete with one of Julia's special cakes.

After the last guests left, Mitch planned on playing out his raspberries-and-cream fantasy. Instead he rushed his wife to the maternity ward ofClifftonPrivateHospital. Much to Joshua's delight, the baby was a boy.

end.