His arms lifted around me in a tender, cautious hug, and that was all I needed in this moment to keep taking the risk on him. On us.
“Can you take another chance to believe me? To believe in how much I care?” he whispered.
The warmth of his breath on my temple teased me. All this body heat wafting from him soothed me. But it was the strength in his arms locked around me that gave me that soulful sense of security I’d been missing.
“I want to.”
He nodded and sighed against me.
“But I want to do this right. I don’t know how to do any of this. How to even begin to care for this baby and do it right.” I glanced up at him, furrowing my brow. “I just know that I need to figure it out. It needs to be how I want to manage it. How I want to learn it all.”
He was already a parent and wouldn’t be as naïve. But with my past, I had to have control.
“Let me help you.”
I winced. “I don’t want to be told?—”
“No. I won’t. Please, Kalina. Give me one example of when I’d forced expectations on you. When I haven’t given you full authority over what you prefer. No training. No obligations. This baby”—he lowered his hand to rest it on my flat stomach—“isn’t the result of my breeding you. It’s the result of our daring to find love. To make love.”
I sniffled, so overcome with all these right words he gave me.
But still, I feared if that was all they were. Words. False vows. Illusions.
Yet, as I thought back, I knew I’d be a liar to accuse him of controlling me even once.
“I can help you provide for this baby, Kalina. Not dominate how it will go. Whatever you want, we will make it happen.”
I huffed a weak laugh. “I don’t even have anything to provide. I have no home?—”
“What if you make a home here? With us? With Misha? With me.”
I sighed.
“I have no money?—”
“Would it be so wrong if I gave you all of mine?”
Oh, my God.
I clung to the fear. “I don’t have a job. I don’t even have an education.”
“We can find answers to all of it. I’ve heard Gabriella and Raisa talking about having you work with them on their women’s foundation.”
I nodded, excited at how they’d mentioned the charity that would mean a lot to me.
“And Sadie has already offered to help you start going back to school to earn a diploma or degree.” He smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I will do all I can to makeallyour dreams come true. You can start looking for a doctor. Or choose where to deliver. All the nursery things. You can have it all, Kalina. Whatever choice you want to be in charge of, I welcome you to it. I won’t decide your life for you or that of our baby’s.”
I stared up at his handsome face, feeling the rightness of believing him. He wasn’t trying to manipulate me. He was only speaking the truth.
“I want you to have it all, Kalina. Anything you want. Everything you wish for.”
He leaned down, hugging me closer as he kissed my brow gently. Closing my eyes at the touch of his lips on me, I sighed and relished the magic of forgiveness.
“Because you are whatIwant. You represent everything I’ve been too scared to wish for.”
“Alexsei…” I rested my hand on his face, feeling the familiar friction of the slight stubble of his beard he never wanted to finish growing.
“Love. I’ve been convinced I couldn’t ever deserve love like this again. But I’ve found it with you. I love you, Kalina. And I want to help make that happily-ever-after be within your reach.”
