Page 90 of Pink

Huh.

“I saw her once,” Gigi admitted because she had just realized it herself.

“What?”

“The day I was leaving for Paris; you were moving out of your apartment, but when I stopped to say goodbye, you weren’t there. Your place was almost cleared out. Some girl—she came out of the manager’s apartment—asked me what I was doing or something … I can’t remember exactly what she said. She was holding a little girl. Black curly hair. Big blue eyes. I thought it was her kid, but it wasn’t, was it?”

“That was my Arely, yeah. Nessa helped me a lot. Still does.”

My Arely.

It wasn’t lost on her how he spoke about his daughter. Or the way he smiled when he said his child was the love of his life. His adoration shined through so much that she could feel it in her own chest.

“Say something,” Lev said quietly. “Please.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why do you want me to say something at all? Does it matter what I think or—”

“I …” Lev blinked, his arms falling loosely to his sides when he said, “It shouldn’t because we weren’t doing anything serious, but it doesn’t feel that way, does it?”

Exactly.

He said what she was scared to.

“Could I meet her? Arely … would you let me meet her? I mean, I know we’d have to be careful and everything.”

“We were careful last time, too, right?”

“Lev. We don’t even know how they found me.”

“We?”

“Sorry … Kayla, she’s part of my team. My assistant.”

Lev nodded. “Huh.”

“Anyway, she helps with planning things like me getting out for a night. We’ve done it before with no one any wiser. Why would this time be different? I didn’t even bring security.”

She was careful, it went without saying.

He laughed deeply. “Hey, I was kidding. If you want to meet my kid, then, yeah. Of course. We can figure something out. Shit is just really … complicated outside of these four walls, Gigi. And I can’t get into all of that right now.”

“But will you someday?”

Lev glanced upward at the ceiling, almost like he was praying, before his attention came back to her and he shrugged. “Someday. I mean, I came here today, didn’t I? It’s not like I have to be—we don’t owe each other anything. Except I’m trying here because … well, I’m really not sure why.”

She thought she might know.

“Us, maybe.”

“Us? That’s fast, babe.”

“No … what I mean is that it’s a thing. Or it could be. You just said it, Lev. Even if it is in a different way. It still means the same thing.”

Her heart kickstarted at the admission; at the fact she had finally said it out loud. She put it into the universe and made it real.

Lev shifted from foot to foot, staring at her from where he stood way too far away after all of that. In a blink, he changed all of it, striding across the room and making her breaths pick up speed the closer he came. Until one of his hands palmed the side of her throat, and the other pulled her body close to his. One of his arms wrapped her tight. That sinful mouth of his found hers with a slow kiss that set her alight.

Hearts on fire.

But it felt right, too.

So right.