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“Ruby, Ruby, baby…” I murmured in her ear.
I heard the hitch in my own voice.
She sucked in a whistling breath. “You would have come back,” she sobbed. “For him, you would have come back. I wasn’t enough, but he would have been. We could have been a family!” She cried, her soft, curvy, body convulsing with the force of her grief.
Her words broke me.
God help me, what I’d done to her in my weakness.
The sword I’d fallen on a decade before twisted in my chest and I pulled it free.
I wrapped around her tightly, and tucked my chin against her neck, my mouth to her ear. “You were enough, Ruby. You’ve always been enough. It was me who wasn’t enough. But I swear to God, baby, I’m strong enough now to be everything you need. Both of you.”
Her knees buckled, the last of her resistance worn away, and she turned and buried her face in my chest, the sounds of her cries muffled in the folds of my shirt.
I wrapped her up tight.
I didn’t deserve her.
But I’d go balls to the wall until I did.
Ruby
“I’m so sorry, Vander,” I murmured.
“So am I, Ruby-mine.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
I lay curled up on his lap in the corner of his couch, my head nestled under his chin.
I cried, he cried, and we talked everything through.
We’d lost so much time.
Jace lost so much time with his father. Another tear trickled down my face.
“Enough, Ruby. That’s enough, now. We go forward. You’ll talk to Jace tomorrow. We’ll do the DNA test so long as he’s okay with it, but no matter the results, we’re going to be a family.”
“Maybe we should just hold off making any plans until we know for sure.”
“Why?”
“Because if you’re wrong, and he’s not your son, we’re back to where we were.”
“First of all, I’m not wrong. Secondly, I’ve no interest in going back to where we were. Whether Jace is mine or not, and he is, we need to be a family.”
He stroked my back, soothing me with his big hands, then continued. “I’m going to tie you to me so tightly that you’ll be begging for space.”
I huffed out a laugh then pulled out my cell phone to call Yiayia and Amber. I needed to let them know I was okay. I pressed my lips together, unsure about this new definition of ‘okay’.
“Are you checking on Jace?”
“Calling Yiayia first to tell her I’ll be home soon and then I’m going to check on Jace.”
He dragged his hands up and down my back. “You’re not going home. Tell Yiayia you’re staying here.”
“I can’t,” I protested.
“Why not?” He kept up his slow, easy pace, his strokes putting me at ease, making me want to stay.
