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She snorted. “Not really.”
“Well, I’ll try to be,” he admitted sheepishly. “Now. Where was I?”
“You said you’d have never opened the door that day,” she supplied.
“That’s not what I was saying.”
The mother stood up, trying to get a better angle. She was probably on Facebook Live or something, showing the world what Wyatt Hamilton was up to at the OB/GYN.
She tried to ignore the audience, since he seemed to be doing so, but having people record their conversation was weird. “Then, what would you change?”
“On that first night, I would tell you that you intrigued me, and I’d tell you that for the first time in my life I was thinking about something more than myself and my career.”
She swallowed. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He took two more steps toward her. “That second time, I’d tell you that I came back because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and that I thought this thing I was feeling for you might be called infatuation.” Another step. “By the third time, I would have admitted something I never thought I’d admit my whole life. I’d tell you I was falling for you, and that I was terrified of it all, but that I wasn’t going to leave. That I couldn’t leave.”
Tears burned her eyes, and she sucked in a ragged breath, shaking her head. These were just words. Pretty words, but still. He didn’t want this. “Don’t say things you’ll regret.”
“I won’t regret this. I regret a lot of things I said the other day, but not this. Not you.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Never you.”
She didn’t say anything.
Truth was she wasn’t sure what to say.
“You don’t believe me, and that’s because I fu—messed up,” he said, glancing at the cameras again. “Those things you talked about wanting? I want them, too.”
She didn’t move.
Didn’t dare to breathe.
If this was a dream…she never wanted to wake up.
“Last time we were in public together, I denied that you were my girl. I told everyone you were a friend.” He addressed their little crowd. “She’s not a friend. She’s more. She’s the mother of my child, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her if she’ll let me.”
She gasped, covering her mouth, and dropped the clipboard to the floor.
“She doesn’t believe I want this. She thinks I want to walk away from her and our unborn child, so…” He turned back to Kassidy, giving her his full attention again. “So, I’m going to do the most embarrassing thing I can think of to show you I’m not kidding around. That I want to be with you, and I’m in this for the long haul. Not for the maybes. Not for the casual. I want it all…with you. A relationship. Trust. Love. Marriage. I’m all in, babe. I never thought I’d say this to a woman, or that I’d feel this way about anything besides football and my family, but…I…I love you. I love you, Kass, and I don’t want to lose you ever again.”
She held her breath, tears rolling down her cheeks at those beautiful words coming out of his mouth, and shook her head because she knew what he was about to do, and it was going to be on camera. “You don’t have to do this. I—”
“Yes, I do. We started out this way, and now we’re going to take our fresh start, our new beginning, the same way. It’s got to come full circle.” His lips quirked into a half smile. “With a song.”
Without breaking eye contact, he opened his mouth, and started singing “She’s Having My Baby.” He was right. He was awful. He couldn’t hold a single note properly.
Still.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.
Chapter Twenty-One
The more he sang, the more he realized he should never, ever do so again, but he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop until Kassidy realized he was the man she deserved. Until she knew, without a doubt, that he meant every word he said about wanting to be with her. Never again would she doubt his love for her, or the how happy she made him. Never again would he leave her.
She had to know that.
There was no hesitation left inside of him.
He’d had her. He’d lost her. He knew which side of the field had the better vantage point. If he had to choose between a life with her or without her, he’d choose with her every damn time.
