Page 61 of After-Hours Heir

“I don’t think it was.”

“You don’t know that.”

She looked around, her expression tacitly unconcerned. As if she didn’t believe at all he was on the verge of death. “I hope you have a place for me to sleep here.”

He frowned. “Are you staying?”

“Well, I’m certainly not flying back to New York tonight.”

She stared up at him, and she had that look on her face. She was being particularly stubborn. He found himself wanting to lean toward her. He found himself wanting to get closer.

And so he took a step away.

“It’s okay. I’ll manage to find a room myself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. But he didn’t move.

So she leaned in. She closed the distance between them. And she kissed him on the mouth.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SYLVIEWASDROWNINGin him.

Maybe she shouldn’t kiss him. Maybe she should punish him for the way that he had treated her for the last two months. He had abandoned her. Perhaps she should be angry. Perhaps she should hold it against him. Perhaps she should be spiteful and vindictive and make him miserable for the way he had treated her.

But the way that he had looked when they had found out they were having a son…

It made her want to cry.

He was terrified. And she kept reminding herself that he was the man she had been texting all those months.

He was.

Christos was hurting. He was broken.

He had revealed a little bit more to himself before she had decided to come. Before she had decided that she had to be the one to come for him, and today, even without him giving details about his life, she had learned more about him by watching his response to finding out he was having a boy.

He didn’t think he was a good man.

He wasn’t arrogant, not really. He didn’t like himself.

I like you.

She poured that truth into the kiss. It was a sweeter kiss than any they had shared before.

It didn’t have the same desperation.

And yet it was still intense.

Maybe even more so for it.

She angled her head, deepening the connection.

She bracketed his face with her hands, pulled him down to her as she parted her lips for him. As she encouraged him to take it deep. To slide his tongue against hers. She had missed him. She had missed him so much.

I love you.

She liked him. She loved him.