“Does your offer still stand?”
“Always,” he replies.
The thought of seeing Africa through Fallon’s eyes excites me. “Then let’s do it. Charlotte and Christopher have a week off school in March for spring break, and Knox and Tate can handle the garage. Marcus needs a break. He works too much.”
“I’ll make the arrangements,” he says, brushing a thumb over the yellow diamond of my engagement ring.
He hasn’t said anything about them, and I’m unsure of what I would say if he did. I can’t bear to take them off. Some men would be insecure about that because moving on implies leaving your past behind you. But Fallon isn’t like most men. He gets me in a way no one else ever could and never forces me to be anything but who I am.
“Thank you for coming tonight. It meant a lot to Christopher, even if he doesn’t say it.”
Ryder’s death affected the kids in different ways. Charlotte was a daddy’s girl. I think she cried nonstop for a year. It was gut-wrenching to watch and not be able to ease her pain because I was too lost in my own. Her saving grace was Grant. He made her smile again.
Marcus was older, so it hit him differently than it did Christopher. Marcus lost not only his dad but his best friend. He hunkered down in schoolwork until graduation, then buried himself in work at the garage, keeping busy so he wouldn’t have to deal with his grief.
Christopher had just turned thirteen, the age where you transition from childhood into adolescence. It’s the age where you test boundaries, and the rampaging teenage hormones don’t help matters. Christopher needed his father’s steady hand to help guide him through those awkward, challenging years. Instead, he was left to take care of a mother who was falling apart. It’s a shame I will forever carry.
“He doesn’t have to,” Fallon replies.
“You still can’t give him that car.” Fallon’s chest vibrates with his chuckle, and I poke him. “I’m being serious. It’s too much. You don’t have to buy my kids’ affections.”
His chin dips with his frown when he glances down at me. “You think that’s what I’m doing?”
Insert foot into big, fat mouth. “No, of course not. That came out wrong. I just don’t want you to think…I’m not going to be able to explain it right.”
“Try,” he says, a slight edge to his tone.
Shifting on my side, I press a kiss to his chest. “Ryder and I made a good living, and I have more than enough money sitting in my bank account to last ten lifetimes. We chose to live a simple life and instill those values in our children. I love you for the man you are, not for how much money you have. The same goes for the kids. They don’t need all the bells and whistles. They just need you.”
His expression changes, becoming somewhat evocative. “I have more money than I know what to do with, so please let me do something good with it.”
When will he ever absolve himself for things that were never his fault? The stigma of his last name. The stuff his family did. His dad, his mom, his brother. His guilt over what happened to me and Hailey and my parents. He traveled the world for twenty years trying to find redemption. I want him to forgive himself. I want to love him like he deserves to be loved, so that he can finally see what I’ve always seen. Fallon is a good man with a heart as big as the ever-expanding universe.
“Fallon?”
“Yeah?” he gently answers, stroking my hair.
“Thank you for loving me,” I tell him, repeating what he said to me.
He cradles my cheek and angles my face toward him, his pale-blue eyes now a deep sapphire under the cloak of darkness.
“There has never been a day that I haven’t.”
I lift up and join my lips with his. Each time I kiss him is like being shocked with electricity. Raw and powerful. It’s an addictive sensation. He pulls me closer, and our kiss becomes an embrace of two souls coming together.
“I want you to stay. Not just for the night.”
Laughter is the last thing I expected to hear, but laugh he does. The sound is sweeter than anything I have ever heard.
“Are you asking me to move in? Because if you haven’t noticed, I kind of already have.”
He has stayed with me almost every night since we returned from Italy. But that’s not what I’m talking about.
As clearly as I can, I look right into his eyes and speak my truth. “From now on, Fallon—you, me, and the kids. A family. It’s okay if you don’t want that, but I hope you do. Because I want that more than anything. But if you don’t, it won’t change?—”
“Shut up, Elizabeth.”
I snap my mouth closed. Something possessive and hungry comes over his face as he stares at me. The look he’s giving me has my body vibrating like a plucked string.
