“What are your intentions, Gabriel?” she asked quietly.
The sound of his name on her lips could have warmed him for an entire winter. He had missed her voice, missed everything about her.
“Do you plan to be present for Rosie and me? I-I cannot have her suffer another absent father.”
“I plan to be there for every moment, as I once promised you,” he told her. “I will prioritize you in the way you ask for, not in the way I think you need. I will prioritize us, our love, and I will cherish you both every second of every day. I already do. Heavens, what I could not admit was how I started to consider Rosie as my own. Not just your daughter, but my own, too.”
“Say it again,” Sibyl whispered.
“I do not only see her as?—”
“No, the other thing.”
Gabriel froze, realizing what he had said. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“Our love.” He exhaled deeply. “Because that is what it is. At least for me. I love you, Sibyl. I love every part of you. I love you, and I love our daughter.”
Sibyl clapped a hand over her mouth, laughing as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Heavens,ourdaughter.”
She threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his broad frame.
“I can grovel further if you?—”
“I really, really need you to kiss me instead,” she murmured. “Because I love you too, Gabriel, and I want you to promise to truly be there for us, Rosie and I. Wholeheartedly, unconditionally, for the rest of our lives.”
“If you give me the rest of your life, then I will spend every day proving that I will always be there for you.”
Sibyl pulled back a little, smiling at him. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, and if you ever hurt me again… do you recall Alicia’s threat at our wedding?”
Gabriel swallowed hard, recalling the threat to his manhood. He nodded.
“Iwill carry out that threat,” Sibyl finished, giggling as he pulled her down for a kiss.
“Sibyl,” he murmured against her lips. “If I hurt you, I will carry out that threat myself. But nobody shall be losing anything in that regard, for I will never hurt you again.”
Sibyl was already kissing him again before he finished speaking, his words swallowed into her mouth, and he sat down, pulling her into his lap with the movement. A sigh sounded in the hallway, and he pulled back to see a little girl’s face peeking around the door.
“Phoebe!” Sibyl chastised when she realized what had caught his attention.
The little dark-haired girl dashed off, giggling to herself.
“That is Charles’s daughter, Phoebe. Hermia embraced her as her own when they wed.”
The comment was loaded, and Gabriel realized it was now or never to truly show Sibyl how involved he wanted to be.
He pressed his forehead against hers, cradling her face. “Sibyl, can I see my little girl?”
Her eyes welled with more tears as she nodded. She slipped off his lap and took his hand, leading him to Hermia.
“Hermia, please let Gabriel hold Rosie.”
Hermia looked at Gabriel, then at Sibyl, and then her eyes flicked to where Phoebe was standing with her father. She nodded in understanding. She passed Rosie to Gabriel, and his instinct took over; his arms remembered how to hold her despite the time they had spent apart.
Rosie gazed up at him with those beautiful eyes and made a happy, babbling noise. Sibyl stepped closer to him, her arms wrapping around his waist.
And Gabriel…
Gabriel knew he was home.
