“Yes.” Confident, bold, powerful, with no hesitation. My heart flipped, my stomach twisting into nervous knots.
“So, you’ll be my daddy?”
Oh God, this was moving too fast, and I should have known because that was how Reid moved. His thoughts came out with the same unwavering confidence as his father. Gabe peered back at me, his brows knitted. I hadn’t prepared myself for this conversation, thinking we’d have it after Gabe and I had gotten through more dates. As if we could go back to the beginning. We couldn’t, just like he’d said. I knew his touch, craved it, had imagined it for years, and he knew every detail of my body and how to break it. I had insisted we go slow, and I didn’t know if it was for my protection or Reid’s.
“Maybe. Let’s get a snack and look around more.” Gabe’s answer was an easy one with redirection that had Reid talking about the chocolate chip cookies my mother insisted on having fresh for guests.
Gabe took my hand while Reid held his other and led me away, but my mind was still on the conversation, still fighting internally through what to do. Was I being fair to Reid by nottelling him the truth? Or was I protecting him because the fear was still there? And maybe that was it. As much as I had confessed my love, asked to move faster, wanted Gabe back, I was still scared. Because this was how we’d been before my world came crumbling down around me. Happy and in love. My hands shook, and I tucked them into the pockets of my coat.
Reid and Gabe were chatting to Kate, our front desk clerk, and Gabe glanced at me, reading me too easily.
“Kate, would it be okay for Reid to hang out with you for a few minutes?” he asked.
Kate, who was like the mother hen of the resort, beamed. “I’d love that. Wanna help me get another batch of cookies, Reid?”
Reid was pulling her back to the kitchen within seconds.
“We’ve got him,” John, the other front desk clerk, said, shooing us off.
Gabe took my hand and led me out of the resort. There were several hiking paths that led from the main entrance, and he followed one, keeping my hand tight in his until we were far enough for privacy. Halting his steps, he turned to me, pushing my hair back and tucking it behind my ear.
“What’s wrong? Was it my answer to Reid? I went too fast, didn’t I?”
“Stop,” I told him. “You did nothing wrong.”
His eyes creased, the hazel a rich mossy color. “Then what is it?”
I sat against the rock that jutted into the path. “It’s..” My sight drifted ahead of us, watching a bird flutter in a tree. “He needs to know the truth. To know you’re his father.”
“But?”
Eyes flitting back to his, I saw the anguish reflected in them. I wanted to leave the pain and the past behind us, but saying it was so much easier than doing it. “I’m scared, Gabe.”
His expression dropped, his shoulders with it.
“Everything was so perfect, just like it seems now and then everything fell apart, and I know I can’t handle that again, but Reid…I never want him to experience that pain. He’s already so attached to you, and I fear him getting hurt.”
He lowered to his knee and took my hands in his. My chest hammered at the move and the emotion in his eyes. “All I can do is promise you I will never hurt him, and I won’t ever hurt you again. I will give everything up to keep that promise. I can’t take away your fear, and I know that promise is the one I made you the day I asked you to marry me, but I mean it, Tori. I would die before I hurt you again, and if I had any doubt in my ability to keep that promise, I would have turned my back on you that day in the hotel and never let you into my life for fear of hurting you again.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
“Please don’t cry, luna mia. I don’t want to be the cause of your tears anymore. If this is too hard, if your fear is too great for Reid, I’ll walk away.”
My inhale was like a knife slicing my throat. “Could you?”
“No, but for you…for him, I would.”
My belief in him was pure, not desperate or blind, but complete and unreserved. It drowned the fear, sending it far from my consciousness to an abyss where my pain and hurt were finding space.
I wiped my tears and stood. “Stay here,” I told him when he rose.
“Tori?”
“Just stay here, please, Gabe. I trust you. Trust me and let me do this.”
Determination guided my steps. Years of excuses, of avoiding the questions, of crying after every lie had built to this moment. My life had been a series of safe moves since Gabe had left me, when before it had been adventurous and thrilling. Running inrainstorms, making love in the kitchen, sneaking kisses at the zoo. Moments I’d taken with abandon and not rationalized. And I wanted that back. I wanted to be free and alive again. Needed the veil of our past to lift and let me live.
Reid had chocolate smeared on his fingers and his mouth when I found him.
