Something almost reverent flashed across his face. He stepped close, put his hand under my chin, and brushed his thumb over my lips.
“Finally,” he breathed.
I smiled broadly despite my confusion. “What’s gotten into you?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, my beautiful little bird. Don’t worry about it.”
I sighed and leaned into his touch. “We’re really keeping him?”
Liam snorted. “Well, after the spectacle you made, you were not taking him back.”
“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, it’s just hard to believe. And what if he doesn’t warm up to me? What if I took him away from the only mother he knows, and he resents me? Or I damage his delicate little psyche with the transition?”
Liam replaced his thumb with two fingers, pressed tightly against my lips. “Hush. Don’t worry about it. He knows you, Gabriella. It might take a day or two to adjust his routine, but he…knows…you.”
He sounded so certain.
“And how are we?” I spoke around his fingers. “You seem okay—morethan okay. But we should really talk it out.”
Please don’t be bottling up your true feelings.
I didn’t think I could take any resentment.
Liam jerked his head to the house. “I have an apology to make,” he said. “And I’d rather kneel on the carpet than out here.”
I snorted. “I’m not having you kneel.”
He passed the sleeping bundle back to me. “I need to earn your forgiveness, Gabriella.”
I was the one who’d kept secrets, yet he was the one making amends.
“Liam,” I breathed.
But he only shook his head.
“I’m so sorry I doubted you,” he admitted. “I always thought you were too good a thing to come to a guy like me, and I thought—”
Liam brushed his fingers over the mop of feathery hair on Luca’s head.
“And I thought he was your lover,” he whispered on a harsh exhale. “I was wrong.”
“I never lied to you,” I murmured. “I’m just so sorry I never told you the truth.”
Liam’s smile was sad. “Me too. But that’s behind us now.”
As simple as that.
Our heartbreak was in the past.
“I want to know the story. But unfortunately, some shit’s gone down at the club,” Liam grunted. “I have to go, or else we’ll be paying a trip to the courthouse for other reasons.”
“What’s happened?” I asked quickly.
“Nothing to worry about. Nothing Amanda can’t fix.”
“That she can,” I said, mimicking the way Liam talked with a lilt in my voice.
He laughed, and I laughed with him. It felt right.
