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Will’s mouth tipped upwards on one side as he offered me Seb. I took him eagerly, pulling him against my chest and pressing my nose to his hair to breathe in his exquisite scent.
A missing shard of my heart slipped into place.
“Why are you here, Will?”
He dragged a hand through his hair as his eyes darted to something over my head. I knew it was the crew, and whatever he saw there gave him courage.
Will cleared his throat. “I came to apologise.”
Breathe in, I reminded myself.Breathe out.“For what?”
“For pushing you away when I should have pulled you closer. For letting my insecurities get the better of me and for making big decisions in the heat of the moment. Decisions that impacted not just me but you, too.” He gently smoothed Seb’s curls. “And our family.”
Bursts of anticipation fired inside me. “Our family?”
Keep breathing.
“Yeah.” He took a step closer, capturing Seb between us and turning us into a tight little unit. I forgot where we were as Will’s gaze traced my face. “I don’t want to go back to the way things were before Seb came into our lives. I don’t want to live without you. You are our family. This doesn’t work without you.Idon’t work without you.”
I bit my lip and battled the urge to throw myself in his arms and declare everything forgiven. I’d spent so many years denying how much I loved this man because I was certain he’d break my heart. I never believed I was strong enough to overcome the pain of loving and losing him. But I’d learned something this last month, something I couldn’t have known without loving Will and Seb as fiercely as I did.
Love like we had was worth the risk.
“You hurt me, Will,” I said. “You, of all people, know how difficult it was for me to let you in. I love you. You know that. But how can I trust you?”
He blinked, and his throat bobbed with a nervous swallow. “Abbie, please—”
“Speak up!” Burt called out from the side of the room. “We can’t hear you back here.”
“Give them a minute!” Dawn retorted. “We can compare notes later.”
Will’s jaw tensed as he ignored the shouting. “Nobody knows me better than you do, Abs. When everybody saw an immature playboy, you saw my pain—but you also saw my potential. I waited years to tell you I love you, but we both know I always have, which kind of makes the word mean less than I need it to right now. I appreciate you. I respect you. I admire you. I know I screwed up last night—Jesus, do I know I screwed up—but there’s only one thing I regret. And that’s turning away from you when you should have been the first person I ran towards. I know I’m new at this, but that’s no excuse. You wanted to be there for me, and I wouldn’t let you. I was too disappointed in my actions to be completely honest with you.”
I could feel myself melting a little more at every word, but his confession at the end yanked me out of my hazy stupor. I always believed what we had was genuine. Real. Truthful.
“You lied to me?”
“No!” Panic rounded his eyes, and he grabbed at my hand. “I just didn’t tell you the truth that I’m telling you now. I should have said this last night so we could work through the hard shit together. We could have talked all night and woken together this morning and faced whatever comes next as a team. I let you down, and I’m asking you to let me fix it. Please.”
Will hadn’t lied… but a cold realisation sank into my bones. I had. A little white lie that didn’t hurt anyone but made it possible for me to pretend to everyone—Will, my parents, my friends, even myself—that I was living with Will because I had no other choice. I’d become accustomed to deflecting my truth, so I never had to be vulnerable. But I’d never found true happiness that way. It needed to stop. Now.
Every cell of my being begged me to do this privately, but growth came from uncomfortable moments, and I was tired of worrying about what other people thought of me.
“Will, I have something to tell you.” I swallowed and shifted my fingers between his. “When I asked you for a place to stay, I didn’t know how long I was going to be at the loft. But the truth is, my apartment was ready weeks ago, and I lied to you about it. At first, it was because I knew you’d never ask for help with Seb, and you needed it. Pretending that I had nowhere else to go seemed like the easiest way to force you to accept my help.”
I chanced a look up at him. He didn’t look angry—that was good—but his expression was serious.
“You were right. I needed help—more than I should have expected and taken from you, to be honest. If I hadn’t been so stubborn about being a good father on my own, we could have relied more on Mum and Nancy, and you wouldn’t have been under so much pressure. I feel like I took advantage of you, Abs, and I hate myself for that. I’m so sorry I put you in that position.”
Shaking my head through the last part of his speech, I rushed to correct him. This was the important part and the hardest part to say out loud. “I said helping you was only the start of it. Three days in, I could have left, but I didn’t want to. I used the flooding as an excuse to be near you—and Seb.” I absently kissed the baby’s forehead to hide the sting of tears. “Leaving felt wrong and staying felt right.”
“It did feel right.” Will cupped my cheek and softly brushed his thumb across my skin. His blue eyes grew soft even as his dimple popped with a little smile—the smile that was all mine. The one that made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. “I understand why you did what you did. And thank you for being honest with me, but… I already knew about your apartment.”
“You— what? How? That’s not possible. Nobody knew about my apartment.”
Will looked a little sheepish. “It’s not like I knew all along. Mum only told me about it this morning.”
“Yourmothertold you?” I frowned, trying to follow the path backwards from Lori to me, then the only answer clicked into place. “Adam.”
