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“I assume I was captured not long after that.” His grip softened on my arms. “I would’ve called. I would’ve haunted you until you agreed to see me again.”
I smiled, some of the hurt I’d felt back then softening, smoothing out the old scar on my soul.
“I can’t believe we didn’t exchange names,” I said, my face heating. Talk about being spontaneous.
“I suspect we were too into each other.”
“We were.” I tilted my head, looking up at him. “This doesn’t have to change things.”
“How can it not?”
“I mean, you can still stay here with me until your brother comes back. After that, we’ll talk. But when I offered you help, I meant it. I’m not pissed about what happened in our past. Well, I was back then, but I haven’t been for a long time. To think I fumed about how you’d bailed on me like so many guys do with women, but instead . . .” My voice choked off. “I hate thinking about what they did to you, what you went through. It’s so wrong.”
“I’m going to put it behind me,” he said. “I not only want to, but I also need to. I’ll get counseling, I’m sure I need that. But I’ll learn how to deal with it as long as . . .”
“What?”
“As long as you don’t push me away.”
“I won’t do that. In some ways, I feel as if we paused everything when you walked out. We’re picking it back up again this moment.”
He gave me a long, heady kiss that made me want to drag him to my bedroom and have my way with him while he did the same.
But I couldn’t.
I backed away, rounding the island to put distance between us. Otherwise, how could I tell him something this vital when all I wanted to do was to touch him?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t make assumptions about us now.”
“It’s not that at all. I want to kiss you, touch you, but I can’t.” Not yet.
“What’s holding you back?”
“One more secret.”
He braced his palms on the island as if he needed the stability to keep himself grounded. His face tightened, and I hated those men for twisting him, hurting him, making him feel he had no control over anything that happened to him.
Well, I was about to destabilize him again. Was this the wrong time to tell him?
No, holding it back would be the worst thing I could do.
So spit it out.
“Asher’s your son.”
His jaw dropped, and his gaze shot to the fridge holding some of the pictures of our son I’d collected through the years. He walked to them and stared, first at a six-month-old Asher trying squash for the first time, the orange smeared across his face.
He had his dad’s dark hair and blue-gray eyes, and I was sure Gravor saw that.
Next was Asher taking his first steps, and the happiness on his little face made my heart ache as much as it had when he lifted his arms, squealed, and stumbled across this very kitchen.
Gravor sighed and traced his fingertip down Asher’s face in a picture, the one when he was three and playing soccer for the first time. He and his friends had spent more time racing around the field without the ball than with it. The cool air and excitement had flushed his cheeks, and the wind had ruffled his dark hair. He’d outgrown that uniform much too fast.
“It’s not possible, yet it is,” he said softly. “He’s four?”
“Yes.” I told Gravor our son’s birthdate.
“And you had him alone. Without me there to be with you.”
