The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 1

--- Bonus Chapters ---

(Main story complete. These are extra scenes!)

Mia's POV

There are things they don't tell you about honeymoons.

They don't tell you that "romantic getaway" and "bringing three children under six" are mutually exclusive concepts. They don't tell you that the phrase "family honeymoon" is an oxymoron on par with "jumbo shrimp" or "deafening silence."

And they definitely don't tell you that a private jet—a Gulfstream G650, to be precise—does absolutely nothing to muffle the sound of three overexcited children discovering that airplane bathrooms are, in Alexander's words, "BASICALLY MAGIC PORTALS."

"IT FLUSHES WITH A BUTTON!" Alexander's voice carries from the bathroom at the back of the plane. "A BUTTON, ETHAN! YOU PUSH IT AND EVERYTHING JUST—WHOOOOSH—DISAPPEARS!"

"I'm aware of how toilets work," Ethan calls back. But there's something in his voice. Something I haven't heard in a while.

Excitement.

I crack open one eye.

Kyle is beside me, stretched out in the cream leather seat. His eyes are closed, his face relaxed in a way that suggests he's either asleep or doing an excellent impression of someone who is.

I know he's faking.

"They're fine," he murmurs without opening his eyes. "Let them explore."

"Alexander just said 'magic portal.'"

"Still fine."

"He's going to flush something he shouldn't."

"Probably."

"Kyle—"

"Mia." His hand finds mine, fingers interlacing. "We're on our honeymoon. Technically. Sort of. In the loosest possible definition of the term. Can we pretend, for at least the first hour, that we're two adults on a romantic vacation and not two exhausted parents managing a mobile circus?"

I laugh despite myself. "We lasted twelve minutes."

"Twelve minutes is respectable."

"We haven't even reached cruising altitude."

"Details."

The bathroom door opens with a pressurized hiss that sounds like the plane is sighing in relief.

Alexander emerges, his face flushed with discovery, his hair sticking up in seventeen different directions even though we left the house forty-five minutes ago.

"Mama! Mama, did you KNOW—the toilet in here is DIFFERENT than normal toilets? It doesn't use water! It uses SUCTION! Like a VACUUM! Ethan says it's because water would freeze at high altitudes but I think it's because planes are basically SPACESHIPS and—"

"Alexander." Kyle's voice is calm. Patient. The voice of a man who has already accepted his fate. "Inside voice."

"This IS my inside voice."

"Your inside voice is causing the pilot to consider an emergency landing."

"Really?" Alexander's eyes go wide. "Can we DO an emergency landing? I want to see how—"

"No," Kyle and I say in unison.

Madison appears at my elbow. Silent as always. She's been quiet since we boarded—not withdrawn, just observing, taking everything in with those dark, careful eyes.

"Mama?" Her voice is soft. "How long until we're there?"

I check my watch. "About eleven hours."

Her eyes go wider. "Eleven HOURS? In the sky?"

"Welcome to international travel, sweetheart."

"That's..." She processes this. "That's a lot of sky."

"The cabin is pressurized to simulate an altitude of approximately six thousand feet," Ethan announces, appearing from wherever he's been hiding. "Which means we're technically only experiencing the atmospheric pressure equivalent of a medium-sized mountain, not actual cruising altitude of forty-one thousand feet."

"Thank you, Ethan," I say. "That's very reassuring."

"You're welcome." He pushes his glasses up. "Also, I calculated our fuel consumption rate based on the distance to the Maldives and the G650's typical burn rate, and we should have approximately a twenty-three percent fuel reserve upon landing, which exceeds FAA requirements by—"

"ETHAN." Alexander has returned from his latest expedition. "Nobody CARES about fuel reserves! We're going to a BEACH! With SAND! And WATER! And probably COCONUTS!"

"Coconuts are actually drupes, not nuts," Ethan says automatically.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY ARE, I CARE ABOUT DRINKING OUT OF THEM!"

"The liquid inside a coconut is technically coconut water, which is the endosperm—"

"ETHAN, I SWEAR TO GOD—"

"Boys." I hold up one hand. "Inside voices. Both of you. Or I'm calling the flight attendant and asking her to activate the child ejector seats."

"There are no ejector seats on this aircraft," Ethan says. "The structural modifications required would compromise the—"

"Ethan."

"Right. Inside voice. Understood."

Kyle's shoulder is shaking. I realize he's laughing. Silently, helplessly, his face still carefully neutral.

"This was your idea," I mutter.

"Best idea I ever had."

"We could have gone to the Bahamas. Two hour flight."

"But you wanted the Maldives."

"I wanted the Maldives when I thought we'd be ALONE."

"We're never alone anymore. That's parenthood." He opens one eye. That gray eye that still makes my heart do something stupid. "Might as well embrace it."

"I'M HUNGRY!" Alexander announces. "When's lunch? Is there lunch? There's GOT to be lunch on a plane this fancy! Ethan, do you think they have a MENU? Like a restaurant? Can we ORDER anything we want?"

"The galley storage capacity of a G650 is finite," Ethan begins, "so while there's likely a selection of prepared meals—"

"I want a CHEESEBURGER! And FRIES! And—and—ICE CREAM! Do they have ice cream on planes?"

"Alexander, you had breakfast an hour ago," I say.

"That was LAND breakfast. This is SKY breakfast. Different meal schedule."

"That's not how—"

"It's DIFFERENT, Mama! Everything's different in the sky! The RULES are different!"

Kyle sits up. Finally abandoning the pretense of sleep. "Alexander. Come here."

Alexander bounces over. Literally bounces. I don't know how he generates that much kinetic energy from a standing position.

"Yes, Daddy?"

"Do you know what a honeymoon is?"

"It's when people get married and then they go somewhere nice and they—" He pauses. Thinks. "—I don't actually know what they do there. Ethan said something about 'celebrating the marital union' but that sounds boring."

"It's supposed to be quiet," Kyle says. "Relaxing. A time for the two people who just got married to be together. Alone."

"Oh." Alexander's face falls. "Are we... are we ruining it?"

The question is so genuine, so worried, that something in my chest cracks open.

"No, baby." I reach for him, pull him into my lap even though he's getting too big for this, even though his elbows are all angles and his knees are bony. "You're not ruining anything. We WANTED you here. All of you. This is a FAMILY honeymoon."

"Is that a real thing?"

"It is now."

"But Daddy said—"

"Daddy was explaining what NORMAL honeymoons are like," Kyle says. "This isn't a normal honeymoon. Because we're not a normal family. We're better."

Alexander considers this. His face goes through several expressions—doubt, hope, calculation—before settling on cautious acceptance.

"So I can keep asking questions?"

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