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I reached out to brush her hair out of her eye, accidentally brushing my fingers against Grant’s. Our eyes met for a second, but I looked away before I could decipher the emotion in his expression.
Cleo’s eyes began to leak. “Brody, where were you? Dad said you’d make me cinnamon chocolate milk when we got home, but you weren’t here.”
Oh, god.My chest felt like it was going to cave in. “I’ll make it right now, love. Stay right here.” I stood up but froze as soon as Grant reached out to grab my wrist.
“Make it small. She needs something in her stomach, but I don’t want her to have too much. She’s going to pass out in a minute when the meds fully kick in.”
I nodded and raced to the kitchen, moving by rote memory through the steps to make her the special drink. When I got back to the living room, Grant had sat her up and propped her against the back of the sofa.
“Here you go. Let me help,” I said, sitting on her other side to make sure the drink didn’t spill. As soon as she’d finished it, her eyes drooped more, and Grant stood with her in his arms to carry her to bed.
“Wait, Dad,” Cleo mumbled as he began to move away. “Brody, will you be here to make more chocolate milk tomorrow morning?”
I pressed a hand to the ache behind my breastbone. I hated that she doubted that for a single second. That I was the one who’d made her doubt it by not being there when she needed me. I’d promised Jacey that I would never walk away from my girls, so it was beyond time for me to put my fears aside.
“Yes, sweetheart. Of course I will.”
“M’kay.” Cleo cuddled deeper into Grant’s chest. “G’night, then. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I said, covering my breaking heart with as much of a smile as I could muster.
Grant pinned me with an intense glare. “Wait for me in my office while I check on the other girls. Do not leave.”
I nodded. I headed across the hall to his office and took a seat on the small sofa where I’d sat when Grant interviewed me four years ago… the same spot where he’d asked me to be his husband just a few weeks back. So much had changed since then, but the most essential ones had not. I wanted this house to be my home. I wanted the Brightons to be my family.
I wanted to belong here.
When Grant returned to the living room, he closed the door behind him and assessed me for a long moment, his jaw tight.
I gripped my fingers in my lap so tightly they turned white, and my mind blanked. Should I apologize first, or beg for another chance, or—
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Grant barked.
I jumped in my seat. “I… I’m so sorry, Gr—Dr. Brighton. I screwed up. I should have… I should have—”
Before I could get another word out of my mouth, Grant pulled me up from my seat and crushed his mouth to mine. The move shocked the breath out of me, and all I could do was clutch at his shirt while his arms wrapped tightly around me.
“NotDr. Brighton,” he said roughly against my lips. “Not to you. Not anymore.” He touched his forehead to mine. “Tell me you want this, Brody. Tell me you wantme.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, gasping for breath at the same time I was straining on my tiptoes, trying to push myself closer, wanting as much contact with him as I could get. “Of course I do.”
“Then why did you leave us? Why did you go back to Fen’s when we needed you, whenIneeded you?”
He kissed me again, even harder than before, but didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, words started pouring out of him between rough, possessive kisses, blanketing my senses. “Fuck. I had a whole speech prepared. I had flash cards. I wanted to tell you that you’re not obligated to stay married to me anymore if you don’t want to, now that Liza’s back to help out with Mountbatten, and then I planned to list all the practical reasons why I hoped you’d choose tostay with me anyway, like being there for the girls and keeping your health insurance. But fuck practicality. Fuck obligation. You can be with the girls as much as you want, forever, no matter what you choose,” he promised.
He pulled back just far enough to cradle my jaw in both of his hands. “This conversation is aboutus. And what it comes down to, Brody, is that Ineedyou. I fucking need you. I need your sunshine and your passion, your understanding and your patience, your calmness when chaos strikes. I want you with me every day, as my husband, making pancakes and eating all the leftover pizza when I buy too much. Telling me ridiculous stories about Fen and your professors. Making my life better in a thousand tiny ways. Letting me take care of you, even when you don’t need it. I need you to tell me, right now, whatyouwant.”
Once again, he didn’t give me a chance to tell him much of anything. His arms went back around me, and his mouth trailed hot kisses over my jaw and neck.
“Oh god,” I breathed, so stunned andwantingthat no other words would emerge. The things he was saying, the things he wasdoing… “I didn’t expect this. N-not any of it,” I stammered.
Because maybe Fen was right. In my head, in my heart, I’d accepted the idea that loving people meant losing them. And while that hadn’t stopped me from falling for Grant or his daughters, it had stopped me from trusting that it could ever end happily.
Christ, I’d been an idiot.
Grant pushed me away and held me at arm’s length. His stare was intense enough to light an inferno in my lower belly. “Talk to me. Spell it out for me. No more halfways. No more misunderstandings.”
My legs felt like jelly. Without him holding on to me, I fell back down on the sofa like a rag doll. “I’m so sorry—” I began again.
