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“I need you to.” The honesty punched his gut, hard. Her hands flexed between his shoulder blades, and she pulled back to meet his gaze, her eyes serious.

“So let’s go to dinner, and you can help me figure out how to get my act together.” He ran a fingertip along the thin gold chain to the circle just above her heart. “Talk about what we’re going to do with three kids.”

“And your dog.” She rested her nose against his collar, and he smiled into her hair when she sniffed him.

“My dog is the least of our worries.” He kissed the top of her head and set her back from him, winding an arm about her waist and picking up his keys. “We’re making Eva a middle child.”

She gave a mock shudder. “It’s not like we chose to.”

“She’ll be fine.” Even headstrong as she was, Eva listened to him when she wouldn’t anyone else, and he just needed the right way to sell this to her.

His younger daughter, intense and decisive and almost unswayable, was a CEO in the making for sure.

Despite a last minute reservation, he’d snagged their regular table at Cafe Nicole, although he hadn’t managed to make custom flowers happen. Getting seated and ordering, chatting with the familiar server, consumed several minutes, but once Luca had walked away, Tick reached for her hand.

“So the last few weeks.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, watching the play of fine bones beneath smooth skin before lifting his gaze to hers. “I haven’t been the best husband.”

Her gaze softening, she curled her fingers about his. “Your personal best, no.”

So damn honest. With a rough laugh, he glanced away.

“You’ve had a lot in your life.” She tightened her hold on him. “I understand that.”

He swung a frown in her direction. “Nothing should supersede you. I know that. I don’t want to make the same mistakes he did, Cait.”

Hitting his thirties, having Caitlin and the girls fill up his life in a way he’d only imagined when he’d thought about being a husband and father . . . those had given him a perspective into his father’s life he hadn’t had as a younger man. Daddy had been a good man, a good father. Tick could see how he’d loved them, loved Mama, but he could also see how he’d given work too much power, used it as a refuge when his and Mama’s relationship had weakened even before Will’s death.

Tick wanted to be more than good, had to do better, because the woman sitting across from him, the one who cherished him and their children, the one carrying his child again, deserved his best.

He cleared his throat, fiddling with her engagement ring, turning it side to side. “I’m going to ask Beech to take on the bulk of the field travel.”

Approval glinted in her green eyes. “He’ll be good at that.”

“Means more time in the office for me, but more consistent time at home, too.” He traced a prong with his thumbnail. “Want him to take Ransome with her some, as well.”

Amusement flared in her gaze, and he swallowed a groan. “You mean take him out from under your feet.”

“That is not what I mean. He’s got potential, and Beech can help develop that.” He shook his head. “Aviles is trying to ruin him.”

“Ransome is too smart to fall for his tactics.” Distaste tightened her mouth. “Aviles attempts to ruin everything he touches.”

With a small grunt of assent, Tick lifted his water goblet with his free hand. No need here to mention Aviles’s resentment at having Tick in a supervisory role over him or the ways he tried to undercut him. She witnessed it, and she had his back.

She always had his six, and he’d let her down.

“Besides . . .” With a grin, he tilted his glass at her. “If the kid is with Beech, he won’t be under your feet all the time.”

One corner of her lips lifted. Every time Tick turned around, the young agent was in her office, grilling her about her process, bringing her something he’d read or was working on. Smart and ballsy, the kid had admirable drive, but some days Tick wondered how she accomplished anything with him around.

“He’s the human version of Zebco.” She smiled over a sip of water. “It’s very telling that he cuts a wide berth around Aviles unless he has to work with him. Merchant will miss him if he’s out with Beech. She says he’s the prettiest man she’s ever seen.”

“Don’t start.” He knew where this particular line of teasing was headed, and he meant to head it off. She was as bad about messing with him about the kid as she was about Zafir, the pretty boy actor she’d followed for years.

Her smile widened, a flash of even white teeth. “He is ridiculously good looking.”

The kid dressed well, hair and clothes bordering on too perfect, and had the kind of looks that caused people to doubletake when he walked by. Tick rotated his hand, catching her wrist so he could stroke her pulse point. “You need to remember where your bread is buttered, little girl.”

Her husky laugh shivered over him. “I’m pregnant by you for the third time. I think the bread-buttering has been well-established.”