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“Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have male company.”
“Right.”
She held her stance. “The only guy in my life is Joss and he’s three years old and asleep in his bed. There’s not been anyone else, not since you.”
His gaze narrowed. “Since four years ago?”
“If you mean, have I gone on dates, then yes, Trace, I have gone on a few. If you mean, have I had sex with anyone besides you in the past four years, then the answer is no, I haven’t.”
He found that difficult to believe. She was a sensual woman, so responsive and passionate. But he didn’t want to think about that, or whether or not she’d been with anyone other than him. At the moment, his priorities lay elsewhere.
“Your sleeping habits over the past four years really aren’t my business.” Yet the thought that she’d not been with anyone since him did please him, as craz
y as that was. Then again, at the moment, everything, every thought, felt crazy. “Where is his room?”
Chrissie’s lower lip disappeared between her teeth at his question. She stepped aside, allowing him to enter the house.
“I’ll show you.”
Taking note of the photos on the walls of a healthy, blond-haired little boy who had no issues smiling for a camera, Trace followed Chrissie to the short hallway and into a room lit only by a superhero nightlight.
A curled-up little body lay in a plastic car bed with a mattress in the center. The bed sat low to the floor and Trace knelt beside it, focusing through the low light on the tow-headed child.
The sleeping boy faced where Trace knelt and he could make out his features. Trace sensed Chrissie beside him, could sense her nervousness, but didn’t look her way. What did she think he was going to do? Grab the kid and run?
Long lashes fanned across the boy’s cheeks and he had a full lower lip that made him think of Chrissie’s pouty mouth.
Was the boy his?
Trace’s blood felt like acid as it moved through him. Shouldn’t he know? Shouldn’t he be able to immediately tell?
He reached out to touch him and Chrissie moved to stop him. He cut his gaze toward her and his look must have said everything, because she backed away without a word.
Trace touched Joss.
His son?
Hadn’t he known when he’d seen the eyes staring back at him from the photos on Chrissie’s walls?
Hard emotions slammed into him.
He was touching his son.
Joss was his.
He gently cupped the boy’s head in his palm in a caress and trembled at the enormity of the moment.
This was his son. He was touching a living, breathing human child he’d helped make.
Next to him, Chrissie made a noise and he realized she was crying. Louder than she should be if they were not to wake the boy. He gave her a look that said to stop, but that only made things worse as she broke into a full-out sob.
The little boy shifted in his sleep, moving against Trace’s hand.
With one last stroke of his fingertips across the soft blond hair, Trace stood, grabbed Chrissie’s wrist, and pulled her from the room.
“Were you trying to wake him?” he accused when they got back to the living room.
She shook her head.
