Giving me an exasperated shake of her head, Nisha steps into the hall. She scoops up her cat, murmuring something to him in a soft but admonishing tone, before turning to Micah. “I am so sorry about that, Micah. I don’t know what’s gotten into the cats. They don’t usually act like this.”
“Don’t usually act like this?!” Micah struggles to his feet, combing his hand through his hair. “I should hope not! Your cats were circling me like bloody vultures! And that one”—he points to Beaver, still in Nisha’s hands—“has the eyes of a serial killer.”
Nisha opens her mouth, likely to apologize again, when Micah lifts a hand, cutting her off.
“It’s fine. But between your ex-husband or current boyfriend, or whatever the hell he is, nearly taking off my head, getting mauled by your bald four-legged mafia, and finding out you'repregnant, it’s about as much as I can take. I’m going to leave before someone actually kills me.”
He straightens his collar, shooting me a glare.
I throw him a salute. “Thanks for the housecall,Michael, but as you can see, Beaver and I have my wife handled.”
Micah’s jaw ticks, and my ex-wife shoots me a glare that makes my dick stir, but I give them both my most charming smile.
“You’re a caveman, you know that?”
My arm wraps around her stomach, my palm splaying over the place our baby is growing. I lean in to brush a kiss on the curve of her neck. “I do, and I won’t apologize for it . . . not when it comes to you.”
We’re sitting in a leather recliner in her suite. Nisha’s on my lap with her back against my chest. The scent of her pomegranate shampoo mingles with something uniquely her, drawing my nose into her hair. Fuck, she always smells so good, like home and desire.
Like heaven in my arms.
My lips brush the shell of her ear, lined with the tiny diamond stars she’s worn ever since I gave her that nickname in high school. “You’ve always been the most beautiful woman I’ve seen, Neesh. But pregnant with my baby?” I press a kiss to the sensitive spot below her ear, feeling her shiver against me. “You’re stunning.”
Nisha shifts in my arms, turning to cradle my face. “I need to go to the doctor first and confirm everything, Patton.” Her eyes bounce between mine in a plea, her fear barely contained behindher dark irises. “Don’t get too excited. You know what happened last?—”
I press a finger to her lips. It won’t be like last time; I refuse to believe it’ll be anything like last time. “This time will be different.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Aside from the fact that this”—I lay my palm on her belly, holding the two most precious things in my arms—“happened naturally, we’re different.”
Our eyes hold, and I know she’s remembering all those grueling months when her body was a battlefield of hormones and hope. When making love became a clinical necessity rather than an act of passion and desire.
“Are we?” Her voice is small and uncertain. “Different, I mean. Because while I know I’ve changed, I don’t really know how much you have.” Her fingers drop to my chest, her eyes following as they trace patterns on my shirt. “From what I can tell, you’re still just as busy.”
“How so?”
“Aren’t you?” Her eyes flick back up to meet mine. “You’re filming the movie here, but you toldVanity Fairlast year that you had no reason to slow down. From what I read, you’ve committed to several movies over the next couple of years. And that’s okay,” she adds quickly, her hand pressing firmly against my chest as if underscoring her words. “I know how much you love your job, and I’m not asking you to justify anything.”
“Don’t believe everything you read, baby.” I capture her hand, bringing it up to kiss the inside of her wrist, where she’s still wearing our friendship bracelet. “Aside from the handful of overnight trips I’ve made for press tours and the one day I flew out for that foster charity event, have you seen me go anywhere?”
She hesitates, her brows furrowing. “Well, no. But I thought that’s just because filming the movie here is taking up your time. You said you’d leave as soon as you were done.”
“I said that when I didn’t know if things would ever change between us. I was hellbent on trying to knock down the walls you’d built over the years, but I didn’t know if I’dactuallybe able to.”
“And now?”
I grasp her face in my hands, my thumbs tracing the tops of her cheeks. “Don’t you fucking get it, Little Borealis? I’m hereforyou,becauseof you. Nothing in this goddamn world is as important to me as you. I’m not fucking going anywhere.”
“But—”
“And, no, it didn’t take me seven years to figure that out, sweetheart. I knew it the moment I came back home and saw you’d left.”
“Patton, I’m . . .” Her glistening eyes meet mine. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “No, baby.I’msorry.I’m so fucking sorry you had to go through that”—my voice cracks, the words shredding my insides—“all on your own. You shouldn’t have had to, not once and definitely not twice. I should have been there.”
A sob bubbles out of her as her body collapses against mine. Our arms fold around each other as our hearts mourn every loss we’ve ever suffered—our children, our marriage, our friendship. My chest burns as her tears soak my shirt.
