Leo had a meeting to go to that he couldn’t reschedule, and when I come downstairs, Dane’s suitcase is sitting by the door.
My chest squeezes, and I have to remind myself he’s just going to his home base to settle some things before returning.
I find him at the island, slicing a mango. His hair is damp from a shower, and he’s wearing comfortable jeans and a shirt. I admire his broad shoulders for a moment and then almost giggle at myself.
He’s leaving, and I’m standing here memorizing his shoulders like a lovesick idiot.
“You’re staring,” he says, without looking up.
“You’re worth staring at.” I slide onto the stool across from him and steal a piece of mango. “Is this your version of a goodbye breakfast?”
“It’s breakfast.” He sets a bowl of oatmeal in front of me and adds mango slices. “Eat.”
Even on his way out the door, this man can’t stop feeding me. I pick up the spoon before I do something stupid like cry over oatmeal.
Because here’s the thing. This is a man who told me he loved me on New Year’s Eve. Who filled me with his cum and promised to breed me. He isn’t leaving for good. He’s going back to pack up a life he doesn’t want anymore so he can start a new one with us.
We eat quietly, and when he finishes, he studies me until I look up and blush.
“What?” I ask with my spoon halfway to my mouth.
“I need to tell you something before I go.”
My pulse kicks. “Okay.”
“I told you about Claire.”
“Yeah.” They wanted something they couldn’t give each other.
“I need you to understand something.”
Oooh, okay, this is serious.
He continues. “She wanted kids. A family. The whole picture. And I told her I wasn’t sure I wanted that.”
My breath catches. Um, he’s not about to say the same thing to me, is he? Two nights ago, on the couch, when I said I wanted the possibility of a baby, Dane said yes without hesitation.
“I wasn’t lying to her,” he says quietly. “I didn’t want it. Not with her. Not then. And for a long time after the divorce, I thought that meant I didn’t want it at all.”
His eyes hold mine. “Then you asked me on New Year’s Eve, and the word came out before I could think.” His jaw tightens. “Because I realized it was never about not wanting a family. It was about not wanting one with the wrong person.”
Holy shit.
My eyes are burning.
“You’re the right person, Alice,” he says simply. “I didn’t know I was waiting for you, but I was.”
I’m out of my chair in a flash and pressing my face into his chest. His arms come around me, one hand on the back of my head. His heart hammers beneath my cheek.
“Dane.” My voice is muffled against his shirt. “If you make me cry, I’m never forgiving you.”
“You’re already crying.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs, and it rumbles through his chest and into me. It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard from this man. I clutch the front of his shirt and cry into it and laugh at the same time as he holds me with his chin resting on top of my head.
We stand there in Leo’s kitchen—our kitchen—and I let this sink in.
