“Of course.”
I suck in a breath. My god, my nerves. “I have to be honest, Kiki. I’m not a fan of it.”
Her lips press into a thin line, the light dimming in her eyes. “Umm… okay. Did something?—”
I raise my hand. “Hey, let me finish, okay?”
She nods, but there’s a resignation in her gesture. Fuck, that isnotmy goal.
I drag a hand over the back of my neck, desperate to get the words out. “I think you’d be an incredible mom. I see it all the time with Theo. Hell, with everyone, and?—”
Now, she’s totally confused. “Thank you?”
I cover her mouth with my palm. “Will you stop talking for a second?”
Her eyelids fly wide as she mimes zipping her lips. “Damn. Bossy. Go ahead.”
Where the hell was I? I sigh and glance around the darkness enveloping the garden. “I thought I had life figured out, but then I met you and you screwed with every plan I had for my future.”
Kiki cuts her gaze to the ground, her teeth worrying her lip.
Shit, this is going sidewaysfast.Why am I so damn nervous?
“What I’m trying to say is… ah, fuck it.” I pull her between my legs, locking my hands around her hips as my forehead falls to rest against hers. “Let’s have a baby. A crazy, perfect blend of us.”
Oh yeah, I throw her with that request.
So much so that she doesn’t say a damn word, which doesn’t bode well for me.
“Kiki,” I prompt, half laughing now. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Her brows lift. “You just told me not to.”
A laugh breaks from my chest as I steal a kiss from her perfect mouth. “Woman, what am I going to do with you? Will you have a baby with me or not?”
But Kiki isn’t laughing. She pulls back, her eyes searching mine. “But you don’t want another child, Eddie.”
Huh?
“When did I say that?”
A nervous laugh pulls out of her. “I remember it perfectly. I was talking about you and Romy getting together, a terrible idea in hindsight, and you reassured me you had been there, done that, with both marriage and kids, and had zero interest in revisiting it.”
Ah, yes. Lightbulb moment.
My hands tighten on her waist. “Want to know whatIremember? The woman I was in love with, passing me off on another woman. I was killing that situation.”
“You didn’t mean it?”
“I meant it with regards to Romy. But not with you.”
Yeah… she’s still not convinced. “You’d consider it?”
I seize her face and claim a fierce kiss, refusing to move my mouth from hers. “Consider it? Beautiful, I’m the one asking.”
But she backs away again, causing my confidence to shrink by the second. “I’m forty, Eddie.”
“Then we start immediately. Problem solved.”
