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“Izzy,” she said, spinning around. “You’re supposed to be in your room!”
“I’m helping,” Izzy replied, her jaw jutting forward. “You need to tell him you’re sorry and that you love him.” Her eyes lifted to Michael’s. “Saying ‘sorry’ and ‘I love you’ always makes things better.”
Bex laughed helplessly. “I suppose I taught her that.”
Izzy nodded sagely. “You did.” She came over and took Bex’s hand. “Say it, Mummy.”
Dutifully, Bex smiled at Michael. “I’m sorry.” There, that wasn’t so hard. “I know you meant well, and made an honest mistake. I was upset and I overreacted.”
He stayed quiet, but took two steps closer, narrowing the distance between them. She got the sense he was waiting for her to say her piece before he said his.
She wet her lips. “It’s just that I’m used to being everything for Izzy, and trusting others to be careful with her is difficult.” Her heart hammered in her ears so loudly she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear him if he did speak. “I shouldn’t have assumed the worst.”
“Now say you love him,” Izzy urged.
Bex laughed, her chest tightening with emotion. “I love you.”
Emotion flashed in his eyes, along with a heavy dose of heat. “Do you?”
“Yes.” She took a leap of faith. “I do.”
Michael didn’t knowwhether he’d rather sweep Izzy into his arms and hug the crap out of her, or grab Bex around the waist and kiss the hell out of her.
Shelovedhim.
By some miracle, she truly did. She wasn’t the type to say anything she didn’t mean. But how had he gotten so lucky?
He opened his arms wide and bent so he could embrace both of his girls at once. They came to him, and he breathed in the scent of Izzy’s hair and reveled in having Bex’s lean curves pressed into him once again. He held them for a long moment, only releasing them when Izzy began to squirm.
“You’re not upset about the past?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s the past, and nobody did anything to be upset about. I’d rather focus on the now.”
Relief hit hard.
Izzy poked his leg, and when he glanced down, she looked back at him expectantly. “It’s your turn.”
The air whooshed out of him. No pressure.
“Bex.” He took her hands, and the physical contact was a balm to his soul. “I’m sorry for burying myself in work these last few days. I was scared of losing you, and I pushed you away.”
“You’re forgiven.” She held eye contact, drowning out everything around them.
Everything except the precocious girl who poked him in the leg again and said, “Keep going.”
Little tyke.
What else? “I’m sorry if I overstepped when I took Izzy home, and I’m sorrier than you can possibly know about my parents turning up out of the blue.”
“And?” Izzy prompted.
Bex rolled her eyes, and they shared a conspiratorial smile. God, he hoped this was his life from now on. Laughing with this beautiful woman and her incorrigible daughter.
“And I promise to love you every day.”
“You’d better.”
Those soft words were enough to give him wings. He swore right then and there that he’d never give her cause to doubt him again. Yes, he’d most likely screw up, but he’d never allow her to question his feelings, or whether he had her back. She was everything to him.
