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I leaned forward, intending to kiss her forehead, but found my mouth pressed against hers.
Bella’s fingers stroked my face as she returned the kiss but then...
“Gabe, I—”
I was afraid of what she might say. I knew what I had done was wrong. I pulled back from her, stumbling away from the bed. “I’m sorry, Bella.”
“Don’t be sorry, Gabe,” she said.
“I’m just afraid this will complicate things for us. I want you to always be involved with the kids, and to always be a part of this family. What if—"
“What if, what?” she asked, sitting up a bit in the bed. “What are you afraid of, Gabe?”
I knew all too well what I was afraid of.
I was afraid of falling in love with her.
“Everyone I love, well, eventually they disappear.”
“Ava hasn’t disappeared,” she said, her voice calm and soothing. “And I am not going anywhere. These babies, they bind us for the rest of our lives. I will be in their lives as long as you’ll let me.”
“Of course I want you in their lives. It’s important they know who gave them birth and I—”
Again, I stopped short of admitting that I was falling for her. Scratch that, I had fallen head over heels for her already. The last few months with her under my roof, spending nearly every day together, showed me that I had been right about her. She was everything I wanted in the mother of my children, but not just genetically, I wanted her as my partner too.
“Gabe, I promise you, I’m not going to disappear.”
“What if one day I do something terrible? What if you decide that you really hate me?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I just want us to always get along, to always be like family, and if we, well, if we get any closer, there’s a risk one of us could get hurt.”
Bella’s face softened, and she smiled at me gently. “Gabe, I think it’s already too late for that.”
I remained frozen in place, allowing her words to sink in.
Could we really do this? Could we be together, raise our kids together, and be a real family?
What about Ava?
My head was spinning with thoughts.
“Give it some time,” she said, yawning again. “We don’t have to decide anything tonight.”
I went back to the bed, helped her get situated again and stared into her beautiful eyes. This time, when I leaned in for a kiss, I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew what I wanted.
But it was a soft, quick brush of my lips against hers, nothing more.
“Sleep well, beautiful.”
I turned the light off and slipped from her room, my heart still racing from the conversation we’d had. I walked down the hall back to the tv room and found that Ava had cleaned up everything, as promised. As I came back out and headed to my room, I ran into Ava coming from the kitchen.
“You really should call Roman,” she said.
“That came out of thin air.”
“He messaged me again, he really misses you,” she said.
